VESA without BIOS

bloodline · **Posted:** Mon Oct 19, 2020 3:21 am

mallard wrote:

bzt wrote:

It is not. See The Incredible Machine for example.

Slight nitpick; that game actually runs at 640x400, allowing it to double-buffer within the standard 256KB VGA memory, which certainly affects (perceived) performance.

I've previously posted the available options for "better-than-VGA" graphics in protected mode. Personally, I use the x86 emulator route (via the excellent designed-for-exactly-this-purpose libx86emu).

Probably redundant idea now, but did anyone ever "wrap up" libx86emu in to a c library that could be used as a basic VBE graphics driver?

I've spent days fighting with GRUB2, and getting nowhere... I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet, move into the21st century and get my kernel booting via EFI if I want graphics :roll:

crosssans · **Posted:** Mon Oct 19, 2020 3:58 am

bloodline wrote:

I've spent days fighting with GRUB2, and getting nowhere... I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet, move into the21st century and get my kernel booting via EFI if I want graphics :roll:

With GRUB2, you can set an initial VESA video mode in two ways:

By setting `gfxpayload` to a known supported resolution (such as `800x600x32`) in your `grub.cfg` file; though I consider this more as a hack rather than a proper solution but it can still be used for early kernel development. Here is an example:
Code:
menuentry 'MyOS' {
load_video
set gfxpayload=800x600x32
multiboot2 /path/to/kernel.elf
boot arg_a arg_b...
}

Note that although you specified a given resolution, this doesn't mean the actual boot manager will always set the video mode to the requested resolution (especially if they're non-standard). You got to also check the presence of the `framebuffer-info` tag in the given taglist (see EFI i386 machine state with boot services enabled) to ensure that the boot loader did the actual work of setting a video mode in addition of receiving the actual framebuffer address & video mode properties.
By specifing a `framebuffer` tag to your Multiboot 2 compliant kernel header. Has the advantage of being handled by all Multiboot 2 compliant boot managers. Just like the first method, you will need to check the presence & the contents of the `framebuffer-info` tag to be sure that the boot manager has set the correct resolution

bloodline · **Posted:** Mon Oct 19, 2020 4:40 am

crosssans wrote:

bloodline wrote:

I've spent days fighting with GRUB2, and getting nowhere... I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet, move into the21st century and get my kernel booting via EFI if I want graphics :roll:

With GRUB2, you can set an initial VESA video mode in two ways:

By setting `gfxpayload` to a known supported resolution (such as `800x600x32`) in your `grub.cfg` file; though I consider this more as a hack rather than a proper solution but it can still be used for early kernel development. Here is an example:
Code:
menuentry 'MyOS' {
load_video
set gfxpayload=800x600x32
multiboot2 /path/to/kernel.elf
boot arg_a arg_b...
}

Note that although you specified a given resolution, this doesn't mean the actual boot manager will always set the video mode to the requested resolution (especially if they're non-standard). You got to also check the presence of the `framebuffer-info` tag in the given taglist (see EFI i386 machine state with boot services enabled) to ensure that the boot loader did the actual work of setting a video mode in addition of receiving the actual framebuffer address & video mode properties.
By specifing a `framebuffer` tag to your Multiboot 2 compliant kernel header. Has the advantage of being handled by all Multiboot 2 compliant boot managers. Just like the first method, you will need to check the presence & the contents of the `framebuffer-info` tag to be sure that the boot manager has set the correct resolution

Thanks for this, I am quite familiar with GRUB Legacy (used it around 15 to 20 years ago ), so that is what I have been using, but for some reason I can't get the version (0.92?) I'm using to set a frame buffer... I figured it's just too old, so I'm trying to install GRUB 2 but it keeps throwing me to the Rescue shell...

It's entirely my fault, I'm sure I'm getting the install parameters wrong, the grub documentation is abysmal...

bloodline · **Posted:** Mon Oct 19, 2020 6:54 am

Ok, so it is my grub2 config that is at fault... I booted my with Debian image, and then at the grub command line I typed:
grub> multiboot (hd1,msdos1)/kernel.elf
grub>boot

And my framebuffer test pattern was displayed!!! Now I need to figure out how to get my grub2 config right... the Debian grub-mkconfig script just keeps wanting to set up linux :roll:

My Kernel disk image just keeps failing with:
error: no such device: blah blah blah blah some random uuid

-EDIT- Ok... got there in the end... I now have it booting to a 800x600x16 display... time to write a proper gfx library!

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VESA without BIOS

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