From: David Waite <mass@ufl.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 14:28:20 -0400

RE: Setting up FBCON/KGICON

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Jon M. Taylor [mailto:taylorj@ecs.csus.edu]
> On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, David Waite wrote:
>
> > Can someone please explain how to get these working?
>
> 	Symlink the include directory to /usr/src/linux/include/kgi and
> the kgi directory to /usr/src/linux/drivers/video/kgi.  Then
> you should be
> able to go into the video/kgi directory and make the KGI
> drivers as your
> normally would.  You will end up with a file called kgicon.o,
> which can be
> insmodded into any 2.1.107+ kernel.  You will also need the con2fbmap
> utility to migrate the consoles from the old driver to your
> new one.  Let
> me know if you need it and I'll mail it to you.
>
> > Kgicon isn't even
> > documented from what I see;
>
> 	No, not really |-<.  But really, it is mostly the same
> as the old
> KGI except that you don't have to patch the kernel and the
> module name is
> different.  And there's only one mode right now.
>

I tried to get things working with 1.0.109 Saturday night, the VGA stuff put
me in an unusable graphics mode and then the kernel oopsed. It could be my
compiler though (egcs snapshot patched with pgcc ;))

BTW where do I send bug reports for the devel kernels? The sound drivers
have a number of problems (soundcore.o will cause a kernel oops if it is the
only thing inserted, and it gets incremented rather than sound.o when the
actual card drivers are inserted, making it impossible to remove)

> > Does fbcon let you get vga graphics? Or just vga text?
>
> 	Graphics, specifically 640x400 in 8-bit or greater.

Ahh, only 640x400 res?

> 	Let me know if you need any help.  I'm still waiting
> for Emmanuel
> to get back from his vacation so we can rearrange the directories, and
> also for the fbcon stuff in the kernel to settle down a bit
> more, before I
> go back to working on it.  But you are welcome to hack away.

I'm messing around with a great number of things right now. Since snes9x was
ported to GGI, I really want to get a kgi(con) driver working now ;) I've
also started looking at a port of Abuse (finally). Doesn't look like it will
be that hard, I just gotta learn libggi (which is why I want to do the port
in the first place.)

If I can get things working, I'll write a quick 'FAQ' explaining everything.
I imagine things are still going/growing at a pretty fast pace.

-David Waite