From: mentalg@geocities.com
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 15:06:29 -0400 (EDT)

Re: kgi vs. fbcon

On Wed, 9 Sep 1998, Alexander Larsson wrote:

> The thing they wanted was to be able to get a CONSOLE running on a
> framebuffer device. The problem is, that is not exactly what we (the ggi
> project) wanted. We wanted a nice, safe way for ANY program to access a
> graphics card from userspace.

To put it another way, fbcon gives access in terms of consoles, KGI in terms
of individual VCs.  It would be interesting to see if fbcon could be adapted
to using individual device files for the various VCs (probably in addition
to the /dev/fb* devices).

The individual VC devices could have the additional unmmaping the
framebuffer device memory/registers when that VC was switched away, as well
as doing appropriate framebuffer clearing.  The /dev/fb* devices could stay
on and act as they do already, and so keep working fine for the programs
that already use them.
 
-=MenTaLguY=-