From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <414ED4A9.3090404@9fs.org> Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:01:29 +0100 From: Nigel Roles User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (X11/20040913) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Vester Thacker , Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] Generic Plan 9 to Linux video api shim. References: <32a656c2040920043066bdbefe@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <32a656c2040920043066bdbefe@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Topicbox-Message-UUID: e5194f4a-eacd-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Vester Thacker wrote: >Hi Everyone, > >A friend of mine wrote asking "Why doesn't somebody write a generic >Plan9-to-Linux-video-api shim? It would be inefficient as all getout, >I suppose, but anybody who can't live without playing Doom on Plan 9 >is perverted enough that a quick call to hyaku-to-ban is in order." > >Being a Plan 9 advocate, I'm sure that I'll get this asked this question again. >I don't have an answer for him. Anyone care to comment? > >--Vester "Vic" Thacker > >p.s. Hyaku-to-ban is japanese for police station. > > > Not sure what you are proposing. Do you mean incorporate Linux drivers into Plan 9? I think you are referring to graphics drivers, but you might mean video (as in video for linux). Whatever way up it is, it's not a shim. Drivers are not standalone objects in any operating system; they rely on a whole environment provided by other parts of the operating system. If you want graphics drivers, then you probably actually want a 'shim' to XFree86 as that is where Linux gets most of its graphics drivers from. Alternatively, you could work with the framebuffer device drivers; there are less of them, but more than there are for Plan 9! Is this what you had in mind?