On Sun, Mar 31, 2019 at 07:54:28PM +0100, Sudip Mukherjee wrote:
On Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 01:17:57PM +0800, Yifeng Li wrote:
+video controllers. This series of video controller is a legacy from ~1998, +and was used on many classic, "prehistoric" laptops from 1998-2004, such as +IBM Thinkpad S30 and 240X. It was also used on some servers, industrial +computers, x86 and non-x86 embedded devices where only basic graphics was +needed.
I think this is wrong. Loongson 3A Notebook was released around 2011-2012 and had SM712.
"This series of video controller is a legacy from ~1998 and was used on many classic, prehistoric laptops from 1998-2004" is an objective fact. Even if they have been used on newer hardware, it doesn't automatically make the original statement false.
But I agree that the description gives incomplete information, I think this paragraph should be reworded for clarity.
I would change the description to,
"sm712fb" is a graphics framebuffer driver for Silicon Motion SM710 (LynxEM),
SM712 (LynxEM+), and SM720 (Lynx3DM, Lynx3DM+, aka. LynxEM4+) series of video controllers.
This series of video controllers is a legacy product from ~1998, they are
designed to be primarily used on low-power mobile systems running Windows 95/ 98/NT/2000, some examples are HP OmniBook XE2 (2000), Panasonic TOUGHBook 28 (2002), FLORA 210W NL3 (2003), Sony Vaio VGN-U50 (2004) OQO Model 01 (2004).
After 2004, they continued to be used on some non-x86 systems, including
PowerPC and MIPS. It also saw applications on embedded devices, servers, industrial computers, embedded devices, where low-power operation and/or only basic graphics was needed.
Notably, Lemote YeeLoong 8089, a MIPS laptop based on the Chinese Loongson
[...]
I think it would be enough.
BTW, most Loongson 3A notebooks don't use SM712. I don't know that there are Loongson 3A notebooks that are still using SM712 graphics chip, do you have one? Could you tell me its model number?
+The first feature is planned to be implemented soon, but the maintainer +does not receive any monetary or hardware support from any company or OEMs, +and he has to purchase a test platform personally. The 1998's hardware +still costs 200 USD+, so don't expected an ETA. If you have a Big-Endian +platform and willing to help testing, please contact the maintainer, thanks!
I am not sure why will you want to mention about monetary or hardware support. Maintainers are supposed to work voluntarily.
I agree, I will reword it.
+Other VGA modes, dual-head, or hardware cursor support should be possible to +implement, but parts of the code must be rewritten, and there's little demand +for them on this legacy (retro?) platform, so there's no plan to implement them. +If you have a genuine need for them, please contact the maintainers.
If there is any need for new features then I think the plan should be to make a drm driver.
That's the plan. I will reword.
There is a MAINTAINERS file to list the maintainers. There is no need to add that in documentation.
I see.
Thanks, Tom Li