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List:       wine-devel
Subject:    Re: VxD and kernel module
From:       James Sutherland <jas88 () cam ! ac ! uk>
Date:       2000-09-26 12:31:06
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On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, David Howells wrote:

> 
> Peter Hunnisett <hunnise@nortelnetworks.com> wrote:
> > Just a question. With the wine server running as a linux kernel module 
> > would we be able to support native VxDs? I'll be honest that I don't 
> > understand the transition between rings but I'm guessing that it must 
> > involve a trap of some descript which could then be passed off to the 
> > kernel module to run in a more priviledged mode.
> 
> It _might_ be possible to extend the kernel module to provide DDK APIs for VxD
> and NT drivers (more so for the latter case), but it probably wouldn't be
> easy. Certainly, the kernel module would be able to provide handle support,
> registry access, etc., but not swappable kernel memory for now.

Just providing non-swappable memory should be enough for a lot of drivers,
though, shouldn't it? OK, it's not as efficient, but it should work in
most cases.

> I have wondered myself about what'd be necessary to support NT/W2K display
> drivers in the Linux kernel, as that might make it possible to build XFree86
> around them.

Now THAT could be nice - getting X would be tricky, I think, but a simple
framebuffer should be a reasonable task? Then get X running on the
framebuffer, then work on acceleration support later.


James.

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