Subject: Implementing border color
To: None <tech-kern@netbsd.org>
From: Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv@menta.net>
List: tech-kern
Date: 07/28/2004 19:21:38
Hi all,

I've changed the kernel to set the vga border color.  To do this, I've
added two new ioctls to wsdisplay (get/set border), two new accessops in
the underlying video driver, and the code for these two functions in vga.c
(just need to modify the appropiate register in the attribute controller).
wsconsctl is also modified to change the value from userland.  Easy.

But... I find this level of abstracion (through wscons) excessive.  Does
any other video driver, aside vga, support this kind of border?  If not,
I feel that adding it to wscons is not worth it.  If yes, providing an
abstraction is not such a bad idea in the long term...  In fact, it
could be implemented in framebuffer devices, although I doubt anybody could
ever bother to add such an (useless) feature, if it means coding too much.

Another possibility is to add a /dev/vga device and a vgactl utility to tune
these device-specific details.  For now, just the border (but maybe we
could find other uses for it... isn't it?).

So what do you think?  Which is the best way to go?

Thanks.

-- 
Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv@menta.net>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jmmv/
The NetBSD Project - http://www.NetBSD.org/