VESAFB(4)

NAME
vesafb - VESA framebuffer device driver for wscons

SYNOPSIS
vesabios* at vesabiosbus?
vesafb* at vesabios?
wsdisplay* at vesafb? console ?

options KVM86
options VESAFB_WIDTH=640
options VESAFB_HEIGHT=480
options VESAFB_DEPTH=8
options VESAFB_PM

DESCRIPTION
vesafb provides support for framebuffer consoles on i386 display adapters which implement VESA BIOS extensions (VBE) 2.0 or above. It is used within the wscons(4) console framework. And its functions are available via the internal wsdisplay(4) interface.

Since this interface is accessed via x86 BIOS calls, this driver only works on the i386 port.

Supported kernel options:

options KVM86
    Required for vesabios. This enables the framework for running BIOS code in a virtual 8086 machine.

options VESAFB_WIDTH=XXX
    Sets the width, such as 640 or 1024. Default is 640.

options VESAFB_HEIGHT=XXX
    Sets the height, such as 480 or 768. Default is 480.

options VESAFB_DEPTH=XX
    Sets the bits per pixel, such as 8 or 16. Default is 8.

options VESAFB_PM
    Enables the power management support by enabling the WSDISPLAYIO_SVIDEO and WSDISPLAYIO_GVIDEO ioctl implementations. This is not enabled by default, as in some cases it might cause the system to hang. Tested on: ATI Radeon M9 (failed), NeoMagic 256AV (passed), VIA VT8623 (failed).

SEE ALSO
wscons(4), wsdisplay(4)

HISTORY
The vesafb driver appeared in NetBSD 4.0.

BUGS
The vesafb driver attaches to the console very early in the i386 boot process; since consinit() is called before KVM86 is initialized, the vesafb_cnattach() function assumes that hardware is present. This causes the console to be blank until the vesafb driver attaches.

vesafb does not support VBE 1.2 and below, as they do not provide support for linear framebuffers.

options VESAFB_PM may cause some systems to hang.