Re: VBE info request bit per Multiboot Specification 1

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Jan Setje-Eilers<address@hidden> wrote:
>  <re-send after fixing subscription>
>
>> On Tue, Aug 04, 2009 at 01:37:19PM -0400, Francis Shim wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> In the Multiboot specifications (version 1), there is a flag that
>>> the OS Image can set to request that the boot loader provide VBE
>>> information to the OS kernel upon boot up via the Multiboot
>>> Information structure. Legacy GRUB (GRUB1) deos not support this
>>> feature without a patch that is circulating around in OS
>>> development websites;
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> It's not implemented.  But since you mention that a patched GRUB Legacy
>> supports it, I assume there are a number of OSes that
>> implement it.
>
>  FWIW, we've got a prototype VESA console for Solaris that uses that
> structure to avoid additional mode switches. In fact, was just looking
> into what this looked like in GRUB 2 when someone pointed this thread
> out to me.
>
This is nice. This has an additional benefit of working on EFI since
grub will fill the video info it's able to retrieve through EFI or its
own drivers. This implies that some non-essential field will stay
unset but I hope that OSes won't use it. I already have a bit of
experimental code for it but what I need is a small payload which will
draw something based on this info and more free time
>  If the structure is built up compatibly, things should just work.
>
>> Can you provide us with a test case?  This would make an
>> implementation of the GRUB side much easier.
>>
>> Btw, would you like to work on this?  It's not difficult, as we
>> already support something analogous in the Linux loader.
>
>  Unless there's another preferred interface (or someone beats us to it).
> we'll likely end up filling in. Considering the VBE code that's already
> there this is fairly trivial.
>
> -jan
>
>
>
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-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko

Personal git repository: http://repo.or.cz/w/grub2/phcoder.git