For the same reason that you're using it: to get a better text console. You can then also use X in acclerated mode. This is what I do on my system, using the native X radeon driver most of the time, but using radeonfb to provide a hi-res text console when I'm not in X (fairly rare, since I generally just launch a metric ton of terms in X) > -----Original Message----- > From: Oliver Scholz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 1:47 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [Newbie]fbdev (was: total system-crash ... ) > > > "Sprague, IT3" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > the fbdev driver uses absolutely no capabilities of the > video card except > > those exposed by the fbdev API. Thus, any > acceleration/video overlay has to > > be done at the kernel level. That is, using fbdev with > vesafb results in > > unaccelerated video, but using it with, say, rivafb (a > kernelized version of > > the nv driver) or radeonfb or another accelerated fbdev, would have > > accelerated video (although no DRI, etc on Radeons, MGAs or > R128s...) Of > > course, the real X driver will almost always perform better, but... > > Now I am curious. What are those good for? I understand so far that > the vesafb is very useful because it work on almost every > video-card. But who would want to use any of the other? I suppose that > every video-card which has an appropriate *accelerated* fbdevice also > has an appropriate driver for X. Why should anyone want to use the > kernel fb if not for a video-card which is not supported by X? [1] > > --oliver > > Footnotes: > [1] O.k. *I* want to use the kernel fb. Because I want a 800x600 > screen on the text-console. But for that vesafb is totally > sufficient. I cannot believe that anyone would take the pain to write > a kernel driver just to get an accelerated text console on a tty. > _______________________________________________ > Newbie mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > *** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie > _______________________________________________ Newbie mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie
