Re: OpenGL-based framebuffer concepts

[Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no>]

Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
> Matheus Izvekov wrote:
> > On 5/24/06, Alexander E. Patrakov <patrakov@ums.usu.ru> wrote:
> > > Jon Smirl wrote:
> > > > You can't change the mode, instead you have to track it and use the
> > > > one that is already set.
> > >
> > > OK, this doesn't change my other point: use in-kernel text output 
> > > facility for
> > > panics only.
> >
> > It would be a good idea to allow oopses to be shown too. For example,
> > your main disk controller driver may oops, and then you have no way to
> > tell what happened, because if you try to run dmesg it may deadlock,
> > and obviously the oops message wont be logged either.
> > So a BSOD which allows you to hit enter to continue after an oops is
> > not a bad idea.
>
> Now suppose this.
>
> The kernel has to save the video memory contents somewhereto restore 
> it after pressing Enter. This may swap something out. Whoops, swap is 
> on that failed disk.
No.  The kernel _tries_ to allocate memory for saving the screen, but
using routines that allocates memory immediately without waiting
for swapout.  (i.e. just use the free memory pools, and possibly discarding
non-dirty pages.) 

If this allocation fails, which it may do, just overwrite graphichs memory
anyway and loose the display contents.  The machine is in trouble anyway.


Helge Hafting
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/