Expert: Olaf Piesche - 3/16/2005

Question
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Followup To
Question -

sir,


     iam designing the code in c that is used to support the fonts and the graphics during booting of operating  system, so is this possible using svga library ? if possible please  tell me about way we can do that programe   ,


   i am doing this work under linux and on svga driver is being used

   so please tell me about how we can do the programe
         


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Answer -
Which kind of library you're using to display text during OS bootup very much depends on several factors. Number one is, which operating system are we talking about? Are any video drivers, other than a generic SVGA driver loaded at the time your code is called?

Generally, any type of rendering consists of writing things into a frame buffer - how this is done, depends on the type of frame buffer that is initialized, which functionality the library you plan on using provides, how it ties in with the video hardware, and what your code knows about the video system at the time you start rendering.


Answer
Under Linux, svgalib should provide what you want. I suppose, you should make sure that your program is called at the right time (i.e. after everything it needs initialized in the underlying system, is initialized).
I'd try to write a simple sample program using svgalib, and then hanging this sample program into your init/rc. Reboot the system, and see if it works. Use extensive logging in order to find out what doesn't (since you probably won't have many debugging facilities before the system is booted).

Hope this was helpful!