Bug#185450: Xfree86 and console server (and VT_ACTIVATE, etc)

[Gaël Le Mignot]

 >> I don't think  the correct solution would be for X  and the console to
 >> directly speak to each other like X saying to the console client "stop
 >> please", but rather a per-ressource  (VGA, keyboard, mouse) way to say
 >> "I want exclusive access to this ressource". The console client itself
 >> would just agree to give to the access to X, or something like that.

 > Ah, ok. IIRC last time we discussed this I proposed something like having
 > the userspace drivers as translators that either block a second process
 > from accessing them, or queue the requests somehow.

that would be the best way to do it IMHO :)

 > My idea was to implement the driver in userspace and force X to use it.
 > Following this dessign, we could end up seeing X running as non-root.

That would require a huge amount of work I fear, especially if we want
to support hardware acceleration at  the end (like xvideo or dri), but
I agree it's the best long-term solution.

 > What we could do is writing the keyboard, vga etc translators, but don't
 > implement the actual hardware I/O on them yet. Instead, just use them for
 > resource management.

I was thinking  about something like that too, at  least until we move
to L4 (implementing user-space drivers on top of Mach is tricky).

-- 
Gael Le Mignot "Kilobug" - kilobug@nerim.net - http://kilobug.free.fr
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