From: Rodolphe Ortalo <Rodolphe.Ortalo@cert.fr>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:59:02 +0200

Re: Some newbie questions

eric@jane.im.ntu.edu.tw wrote:
>         I am new to libGGI. There's some things I don't understand ,
>         I guess this information is not available on the website/doc
>         area.

Welcome on board. Do you want to use libggi for specific things,
or do you have a look for fun ?

>         1.What does it mean by libGGI with a X target ?
>           Does that mean I can open a X-window with any X-server
>           and then , the libGGI acts like a 2D library on the
>           opened window(canvas?)??

You are right I think. libggi provides various means to access
different graphic subsystems (among them, KGI is our beloved
one [K is for kernel]), and of course X11 is one of them.
So, with the X-target, libggi uses a usual X11 windows as if
it was your main screen.

>         2.The KGIcon is used for systems have no X-server ,
>           Is it used as some kind of device driver for VGA cards?

Yes. KGI is a linux-kernel patch that provides a device-driver
framework for graphic cards (not only VGA). It's the 'original'
kernel part of the GGI project (you know, the one that generated
so much flame...). As KGI did not make its path to the linux
kernel sources, KGIcon is a compatibility layer that allows to
use KGI graphics cards _drivers_ on a stock kernel via the
fbcon mechanism. (Do you still follow ?)
However, via KGIcon, you have restricted acccess to the full
functionalities of the original KGI driver (supposing that
this driver provides advanced functionalities of course [and
the graphic card also - don't expect too much from your S3 Trio
anyway :-)]).


And there is also, libggi2d, libggi3d, libgfont, libgwt,
and even things like EvStacks, EvRings, GGIconsole, argh...

Shouldn't we finish the glossary one of these days ?
(It seems there is an unfinished one at : 
http://www.ggi-project.org/docs/glossary/glossary.html)


Rodolphe