We need a name for this expansion card with the BIOS socket
and Ethernet port and whatnot. How does "EtherVGA card" sound?
Or perhaps "VGAtoX11 card"? or...?
> You can obtain a unique IP for the PC side using DHCP.
That can be an option for those who like it, but there needs to be
another way for those who don't want to use DHCP. I've seen
DHCP-only products get bitter complaints, so we don't want to
duplicate that mistake.
> You can discover the display devices IP either by scanning the network,
> or sending a broadcast "magic" packet (our own discovery protocol, or
> maybe a standard way - uPnP protocol should be for this kind of stuff).
I suppose that could be made to work.
man dhcp-options says:
option x-display-manager ip-address [, ip-address ...];
This option specifies a list of systems that are running the X
Window System Display Manager and are available to the client.
Addresses should be listed in order of preference.
This might be sufficient for the DHCP crowd.
> >> I suppose that the box should have an IP address so that a small local
> >> network was possible even in case #1. However, I really think that a
> >> network port dedicated to only the console display is the best idea for
> >> case #1.
> >
> > That's up to the end user. They might already have a single cat6 in the
> > walls and not want to run more cable.
>
> Then put a switch to our card, so that it can act as a pass-thru for
> ethernet, unless we make a NIC replacement too (that the NIC on the card
> can be shared between VGA and standard networking for Internet access).
A switch? I'm sorry, I don't follow you.
I'm assuming that the Ethernet port on the card can be shared between
Ethervideo box specific traffic, and general network traffic. If
the user wants to do that. Or the user might want to have a wire
dedicated for computer-to-Ethervideobox traffic.
> BTW: is it possible for the X box to open a new window when some PC
> boots up and display its console?
If we have the firmware on the card send the Ethervideo box
whatever X request it is that the xterm program sends an X server
to create a new window, it should be possible for an xterm window to
be the console for a computer.
Question for the BIOS experts. What do we do about the keyboard
and mouse? If we are doing this network console thing we need
for the BIOS and OS to accept X11 keyboard input as if it were
typed in on the local PS2 keyboard. And it should work for *all*
input.
My one pee-cee-ish machine allows using a RS-232 port for the console.
(Good thing since the brain dead video chip doesn't speak sync-on-green.)
But the BIOS is buggy, and to enter the BIOS's setup mode,
I must type <DELETE> on the PS2 keyboard, it will not respond
to the RS-232 keyboard. Once in setup mode the RS-232 keyboard
works.
So my question is, can the BIOS firmware on our VGA-to-Ethernet-X11
card completely take over the keyboard and mouse inputs?
For that matter, could it completely take over all BIOS functions,
allowing the use of an open BIOS without having to flash the
mainboard and risking creating a doorstop?
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