From: James Simmons <jsimmons@edgeglobal.com>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:32:31 -0400 (EDT)

Re: Ping-pong buffers on KGIcon are here!

> > Shouldn't there be one file for each head?
> 
> 	Yes.  However, the current (lousy) state of frambuffer
> virtualization in the kernel makes proper multiheading very difficult.  
> I chose to punt on multihead until the underlying framework is stable. Also
> James Simmons is rewriting the /dev/fb stuff with support for a new
> /dev/gfx which will virtualize the accel engine, so I am waiting for that
> as well.  And if you have any good ideas about how to implement
> multiheading within /proc/kgi, please let me know of feel free to hack
> them yourself.

I have done two things to the fbcon system. One I moved all the console
code out of fbdev. This makes writing a /dev/fb driver very easy. Take 
a look at vfb.c thats attached to this message as a example. Also you
can use vgacon for the console and still use /dev/fb. Thats what I do. No
need for root permission with /dev/fb. Without the console code mess
/dev/fb can be truly multiheaded. Now as for fbcon thats another story. If
you look at my patch you see FIXME: console system broken all over the
place. The second thing I did was get rid of the fbcon-cfbX junk and
replaced them with wrappers that go around accels. So the console system
works internal all around the accels if the card supports them. I have
software emulated accels in case the card doesn't have them. In vfb.c you
can see the cfb functions. My patch has reached the point where it needs
testing. I have the day off today so this afternoon I will write a KGICON
wrapper around the new interface and test it out. I still need to fix up
setcolreg to generate a truecolor mask needed by the console system for
the accel wrappers. Its the only thing in fb_info that talks to the
console system now. Plus I need to make all the fbdev drivers gfx ready.
After testing with KGICON I would like to port the KGICON virge driver 
over to the kernel with this new system and get it ready for gfx. The
KGICON virge driver is much better than the current one in the kernel and
the virge driver in the kernel works only with a zorro bus.