Framebuffer HOWTO

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Framebuffer HOWTO

Alex Buell, alex.buell@tahallah.clara.co.ukv1.2, 27 Feb 2000

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This document describes how to use the framebuffer devices in Linux with a variety of platforms. This also includes how to set up multi-headed displays.

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1. History

2. Contributors

3. What is a framebuffer device?

4. What advantages does framebuffer devices have?

5. Using framebuffer devices on Intel platforms

• 5.1 What is vesafb?
• 5.2 How do I activate the vesafb drivers?
• 5.3 What VESA modes are available to me?
• 5.4 Got a Matrox card?
• 5.5 Got a Permedia card?
• 5.6 Got a ATI card?
• 5.7 Which graphic cards are VESA 2.0 compliant?
• 5.8 Can I make vesafb as a module?
• 5.9 How do I modify the cursor?

6. Using framebuffer devices on Atari m68k platforms

• 6.1 What modes are available on Atari m68k platforms?
• 6.2 Additional suboptions on Atari m68k platforms
• 6.3 Using the internal suboption on Atari m68k platforms
• 6.4 Using the external suboption on Atari m68k platforms

7. Using framebuffer devices on Amiga m68k platforms

• 7.1 What modes are available for Amiga m68k platforms?
• 7.2 Additional suboptions on Amiga m68k platforms
• 7.3 Supported Amiga graphic expansion boards

8. Using framebuffer devices on Macintosh m68k platforms

9. Using framebuffer devices on PowerPC platforms

10. Using framebuffer devices on Alpha platforms

• 10.1 What modes are available to me?
• 10.2 Which graphic cards can work with the frambuffer device?

11. Using framebuffer devices on SPARC platforms

• 11.1 Which graphic cards can work with the framebuffer device?
• 11.2 Configuring the framebuffer devices

12. Using framebuffer devices on MIPS platforms

13. Using framebuffer devices on ARM platforms

• 13.1 Netwinders
• 13.2 Acorn Archimedes
• 13.3 Other ARM ports (SA 7110s et. al)

14. Using multi-headed framebuffers

• 14.1 Introduction
• 14.2 Feedback
• 14.3 Contributors
• 14.4 Standard Disclaimer
• 14.5 Copyright Information
• 14.6 What hardware is supported?
• 14.7 Commercial support
• 14.8 Getting all the stuff.
• 14.9 Getting Started
• 14.10 Summary
• 14.11 Other Notes and Problems

15. Using/Changing fonts

16. Changing console modes

17. Setting up the X11 FBdev driver

18. How do I convert XFree86 mode-lines into framebuffer device timings?

19. Changing the Linux logo

20. Looking for further information?

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1. History

Revision history

19990607 - Release of 1.0

19990722 - Release of 1.1

20000222 - Release of 1.2

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2. Contributors

Thanks go to these people listed below who helped improve the Framebuffer HOWTO.

• Jeff Noxon jeff@planetfall.com

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• Francis Devereux f.devereux@cs.ucl.ac.uk

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• Andreas Ehliar ehliar@futurniture.se

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• Martin !McCarthy? marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk

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• Simon Kenyon simon@koala.ie

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• David Ford david@kalifornia.com

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• Chris Black cblack@cmpteam4.unil.ch

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• N Becker nbecker@fred.net

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• Bob Tracy rct@gherkin.sa.wlk.com

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• Marius Hjelle marius.hjelle@roman.uib.no

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• James Cassidy jcassidy@misc.dyn.ml.org

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• Andreas U. Trottmann andreas.trottmann@werft22.com

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• Lech Szychowski lech7@lech.pse.pl

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• Aaron Tiensivu tiensivu@pilot.msu.edu

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• Jan-Frode Myklebust for his info on permedia cards janfrode@ii.uib.no

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• Many others too numerous to add, but thanks!

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Thanks go to Rick Niles frederick.a.niles@gsfc.nasa.gov who has very kindly handed over his Multi-Head Mini-HOWTO for inclusion in this HOWTO.

Thanks to these people listed below who built libc5/glibc2 versions of the XF86_FBdev X11 framebuffer driver for X11 on Intel platforms:

• Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com

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• Gerd Knorr kraxel@cs.tu-berlin.de

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and of course the authors of the framebuffer devices:

• Martin Schaller - original author of the framebuffer concept

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• Roman Hodek Roman.Hodek@informatik.uni-erlangen.de

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• Andreas Schwab schwab@issan.informatik.uni-dortmund.de

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• Guenther Kelleter

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• Geert Uytterhoeven Geert.Uytterhoeven@cs.kuleuven.ac.be

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• Roman Zippel roman@sodom.obdg.de

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• Pavel Machek pavel@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz

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• Gerd Knorr kraxel@cs.tu-berlin.de

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• Miguel de Icaza miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx

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• David Carter carter@compsci.bristol.ac.uk

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• William Rucklidge wjr@cs.cornell.edu

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• Jes Sorensen jds@kom.auc.dk

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• Sigurdur Asgeirsson

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• Jeffrey Kuskin jsk@mojave.stanford.edu

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• Michal Rehacek michal.rehacek@st.mff.cuni.edu

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• Peter Zaitcev zaitcev@lab.ipmce.su

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• David S. Miller davem@dm.cobaltmicro.com

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• Dave Redman djhr@tadpole.co.uk

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• Jay Estabrook

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• Martin Mares mj@ucw.cz

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• Dan Jacobowitz dan@debian.org

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• Emmanuel Marty core@ggi-project.org

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• Eddie C. Dost ecd@skynet.be

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• Jakub Jelinek jj@ultra.linux.cz

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• Phil Blundell philb@gnu.org

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• Anyone else, stand up and be counted. :o)

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3. What is a framebuffer device?

A framebuffer device is an abstraction for the graphic hardware. It represents the frame buffer of some video hardware, and allows application software to access the graphic hardware through a well-defined interface, so that the software doesn't need to know anything about the low-level interface stuff

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