On 14-Feb-06, at 4:44 PM, Daniel Carosone wrote:
> Assuming splash screens really get you excited.  I'm afraid they don't
> get me excited, and I'd prefer to see the probe messages. Over an
> image if need be, but I want to see them.

It depends on your target application. Even if you don't want this on  
your workstation, a consumer electronics product with NTSC/PAL output  
would look much better with a splash screen than having text  
scrolling all over the screen.

> Don't get me wrong though, this is great work and will have good uses:
> having a larger 'stty size' on the console, and ddb-from-X, and
> killing "options INSECURE" are all much more desirable to me than the
> splash screen eyecandy.  I know these all need more work

INSECURE is not necessary today if you can live with an unaccelerated  
X server. I'm running my X server (with wsfb) at 1024x768x32 at  
securelevel=1.

> One question: how does/will this fit with the previous machfb stuff?
> Does it supercede it entirely, or will that be a faster underlying
> driver for the generic rasops if you happen to have appropriate
> hardware?

machfb is certainly faster. vesafb is a lowest-common-denominator,  
supported-mostly-everywhere solution for i386 today. machfb can also  
benefit from the splash code as well.

Cheers,
Jared