RE: XFree under alien systems - the XF86Sup.sys approach and Windows NT

["Suhaib Siddiqi" <ssiddiqi at inspirepharm dot com>]

Hi Federico<


> It is - and the XF86Sup.sys (whose source I have never
> seen) is actually
> one of the neatest hacks I have ever seen in the OS/2 environment.

Actually the XF86SUP.SYS code is at Holger's web pages.  But most of
the references there talk about binary releases only.  Somewhere on
the same
URL you will find a small word "here" and takes you to XF86SUP.SYS
code.

Anyway, whoever wants it for development purposes, could e-mail me.
I would be gald to e-mail the code.  It is a 230 KB ZIP file.
Holger Veit
did gave us permission to modify, hack or do whatever we like with
his
XF86SUP.SYS driver source code... except to complain to him ;-)


>
> I had a discussion thread with Suhaib a couple of months
> ago about both
> the XFree86 port to Win32 and the XF86Sup.sys approach
> chosen for the OS/2
> one. I used (and modified) the files he gave me to work
> with two generic
> drivers available under NT, i.e., PortIO.sys and
> MapMem.sys (the names are
> pretty explainatory: PortIO lets user mode apps perform
> IN and OUTs to
> devices, while MapMem maps a chunk of physical memory
> into an app virtual
> space), but so far my test applications consistently give
> BSOD on an NT
> 4.0SP5, S3 equipped machine. I had a similar trouble at
> the end of 1997
> (I had to access SVGA/VESA under the NT VDM/DPMI
> subsystem), and I found
> it was due to the optimizations the NT display driver
> used when switching
> modes.
>
> While mantaining my doubts over the blind-port approach
> (Suhaib knows,
> should anyone be interested, I will let you know why and what the
> alternatives are IMHO),


You might consider working with Jan Rouvilain?  He is looking into
the
XF86SUP.SYS code.  You know a lot more about devices, as well as
Jan.  I am practially ilerate on handeling devices code therefore
had been looking for experts help to solve the last hurdels.

Regards
Suhaib

>I am therefore planning to write
> a very simple
> "shim" driver to let user mode programs access the VESA
> VBE 2.0+ protected
> mode SPIs, with particular regard to the mode switching
> functions - even
> though I am wondering whether the generic call gate
> interface might be
> enough. As usual, I have very little "predictable" spare
> time, but I will
> let you know of any progress.
>
> Best regards to you all
>
> 	 		Federico Bianchi
> 			Dipartimento di Storia delle Arti
> 			Universita` degli Studi di Pisa
> 			p.zza S.Matteo in Soarta, 2 - 56127
> Pisa (Italy)
> 			tel. +39-050-587111 (cent.),
> +39-050-587224 (uff.)
> 			fax. +39-050-580128; e-mail:
> <f.bianchi@arte.unipi.it>
>
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