From: Jon M. Taylor <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu>
  To  : GGI mailing list <ggi-develop@eskimo.com>
  Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 19:32:02 -0700 (PDT)

Re: Just idea on linux_logo & vgafb (fwd)

	Saw this on linux-kernel....

Jon

---
'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in 
becoming one with God.'
	- Scientist G. Richard Seed

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 15:10:21 -0700
From: Brion Vibber <brion@pobox.com>
To: Tuomas Heino <tbittih@xgw.fi>
Cc: Yaroslav Rosomakho <alons55@dialup.ptt.ru>,
    Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
    Linux-kernel <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Just idea on linux_logo & vgafb

Tuomas Heino wrote:
> > > The bios isnt available in 32bit protected mode
> >
> > But how then is graphic initialized?
> >
> Describing that in detail would be flooding linux-kernel... basically you
> use the i/o ports to do the graphics mode initialization... for details
> check out your favourite low-level vga programming book ;)

In case my earlier mention of this got eaten by vger & lost in the
depths of the internet, I'll mention this again: accessing the real-mode
BIOS is possible, here's a forward of a post of interest:

: Subject:      Re: VESA-Xserver?
: From:         Josh Vanderhoof <joshv@planet.net>
: Date:         1998/05/24
: Message-ID:   <m2lnrr8f0k.fsf@tinsot.chimpnet>
: Newsgroups:   comp.os.linux.development.system 
: 
: mvojkovi@sdcc10.ucsd.edu (Mark Vojkovich) writes:
: 
: >   You can't access VESA services from Linux since it requires
: > a real mode interrupt.  Linux runs entirely in protected mode.
: > VESA, even VESA 2.0 is not very useful outside of DOS.
: 
: See http://www.planet.net/pjoshv/lrmi-0.1.tar.gz for an example
: of using VBE on linux.  (Be careful, it may not get back to text
: mode correctly.)
: 
: Josh

lrmi (Linux Real Mode Interface) provides services similar to what DPMI
does for DOS. This is used by the new VESA driver in the development
version of svgalib; it doesn't work perfectly on my machine but it's a
start and could probably be adapted so that things like on the fly mode
switching can be used with the VESA framebuffer.

-- brion vibber (brion@pobox.com)

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