Re: SEUL: Stopping X

[Kevin Forge <forgeltd@pop.netaddress.usa.net>]

jfm2@club-internet.fr wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Kevin Forge wrote:
> > > The Thought Assassin wrote:
> > > > No, that is only one point of XDM. There are a lot of other reasons.
> > > > Not having to restart X, preventing people from dropping back to text mode
> > > > and panicking (unless they need to:), avoiding another failure-point
> > > > (SVGAlib) and a number of other reasons.
> > > Sorry for my ignorance, but how do XDM and SVGAlib affect each other ?
> > No, it is just that there was a proposal (wasn't it yours? :) that we
> > should use an svgalib-based login screen in leiu of XDM. SVGAlib, while
> > more reliable than X on unknown video hardware, is still a possible point
>
For clarity only ... I did not suggest SVGA lib, only a "dressed up text 
mode display".  I know it is not only possible but relatively simple.  
However, all that is moot now since XDM is a workable alternative 
   Someone has smashed the LoD, and the other concerns will soon be 
dealt with.  It is now a mater of all the programers knocking heads 
together to work out a 100% fail-safe out and text mode menu screen
for when Murphy's second law pops up.
>
> This (reliabilty of SVGAlib) is entirely untrue.  SVGAlib uses
> graphics mode and is confronted to the same problems than X except
> 
> Curses (and not SVGAlib) programs allow to make character-based
> pseudographics execept than they run in character mode (no problems
> with unsupported cards), and don't require special privileges.
> 
Someone had mentioned curses;  not me either ... I only came with
the idea of a dressed up CL display.
This idea of curses that looks like a GUI should bear series 
consideration for use in the 2nd level fallback; if 'basic VGA X' 
Fails  ( NVIDIA keeps getting mentioned :)
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