Graphics Card Drivers: Building and Installing a Driver

The section tells you how to prepare, compile, and install your graphics driver.

      __declspec(dllexport)
      int32 control_graphics_card(uint32 op, void *data);

The Application Server looks for an appropriate graphics card driver in the following directories (in this order):

1. /fd/beos/system/add-ons/app_server (on a floppy)

2. /boot/home/config/add-ons/app_server

3. /boot/beos/system/add-ons/app_server

Finished, publishable drivers should be installed in #2, /boot/home/config/add-ons/app_server. Do not install in the beos/system directory. While you're working on your driver, you'll probably want to load it from one of the floppy directories (so you don't overwrite a working driver with your experimental one).

For each driver it tries to load, the Application Server prints a message to the serial port:

      Try to hire add-on name as graphic driver...

Where name is the path of the candidate driver. If the driver is rejected, the Server prints:

      name refuse the job

When it finds an acceptable driver, it prints:

      name is the new graphic driver...

If it can't find a driver, the Server looks for the generic driver called "stub".




The Be Book, in lovely HTML, for BeOS Release 3.

Copyright © 1998 Be, Inc. All rights reserved.

Last modified March 26, 1998.