Re: [9fans] VBE 1.2/2.0+ functions for Plan9

[Russ Cox <russcox@gmail.com>]

> Please correct me if I am wrong on this:
> Is it true that the XFree86 device driver modules are platform
> portable, as long as they are for the same instruction set
> architecture?  For some rason I thought the Linux and BSD mobs could
> swap video drivers around amoungst themselves.

As long as you want to use them for X.

> If so, would it be possible to create some sort of adapter code that
> would wrap the x11 device drivers for Plan9 use?

Possible?  Yes.  Particularly easy?  Nowhere close.
The X interface is much more complicated than the
Plan 9 interface, and the interface is very different.
In particular Plan 9 splits the job between user space
and the kernel, while X goes through some hoops to
do everything in user space.  I doubt I would want to load
X modules into the kernel, even if someone did do the
huge amount of work to pull it off.

I wonder if instead there is a way to pull the relevant
information out of the code and generate a Plan 9
driver in its place.  That would still be a lot of work, but
the final pieces might be better for our use.

Russ