Framebuffer HOWTO
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Framebuffer HOWTO

Alex Buell

2010-08-05, version 1.3

Revision History
Revision v1.32010-08-05
Converted to DocBook from LinuxDoc
Revision v1.22000-01-22
Last public release
Revision v1.11999-07-22
With some additional information
Revision v1.01999-06-07
First public release

This document describes how to use the framebuffer devices in Linux with a variety of platforms. This also includes how to set up multi-headed displays.

Table of Contents

Contributors
What is a framebuffer device?
What advantages does framebuffer devices have?
Using framebuffer devices on x86 platforms
What is vesafb?
How do I activate the vesafb drivers?
What VESA modes are available to me?
Got a Matrox card?
Got a Permedia card?
Got an ATI card?
Which graphic cards are VESA 2.0 compliant?
Can I compile vesafb as a module?
How do I modify the cursor
Using framebuffer devices on m68k platforms
Atari platforms
Amiga platforms
Using framebuffer devices on PowerPC platforms
Using framebuffer devices on Alpha platforms
What modes are available?
Which graphic cards can work on Alpha?
Using framebuffer devices on SPARC platforms
Which graphic cards can work on the SPARC
Configuring the framebuffer devices
Using framebuffer devices on MIPS platforms
Using framebuffer devices on ARM platforms
Netwinders
Acorn Archimedes
Other ARM ports (SA7710s et. al.)
Using multi-headed framebuffers
Introduction
Feedback
Contributors
Standard Disclaimer
Copyright Information
What hardware is supported?
Commercial support
Getting all the stuff
Getting Started
Summary
Other Notes and Problems
Appendix A. Octave "ctmodem.m" script
Appendix B. Bourne Shell "cvtfile" script
Using / Changing Fonts
Changing Console Modes
Setting up the X11 FBdev driver
How do I convert XFree86 mode-lines into framebuffer device timings?
Changing the Linux Logo
Looking for further information

Copyright © 1999—2010 Alex Buell, GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFPL)

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the licence can be retrieved from the Free Software Foundation.

Contributors

Thanks go to those people listed below who helped improve the Framebuffer HOWTO. I've taken the liberty of removing e-mail addresses as this document is more than ten years old!

  • Jeff Noxon

  • Francis Devereux

  • Andreas Ehliar

  • Martin McCarthy

  • Simon Kenyon

  • David Ford

  • Chris Black

  • N. Becker

  • Bob Tracy

  • Marius Hjelle

  • James Cassidy

  • Andreas U. Trottmann

  • Lech Szychowski

  • Aaron Tiensivu

  • Jan-Frode Myklebust for his info on permedia cards

  • Many others too numerous to add, but thanks!

Thanks go to Rick Niles who has very kindly handed over his Multi-Head Mini-HOWTO for inclusion in this HOWTO.

Thanks to these people listed below who built libc5/glibc2 versions of the XF86_FBdev X11 framebuffer driver for X11 on x86 platforms:

  • Brion Vibber

  • Gerd Knorr

And, of course, the authors of the framebuffer device drivers:

  • Martin Schaller - original author of the framebuffer driver concept

  • Roman Hodek

  • Andreas Schwab

  • Günther Kelleter

  • Geert Uytterhoeven

  • Roman Zippel

  • Pavel Machek

  • Gerd Knorr

  • Miguel de Icaza

  • David Carter

  • William Ricklidge

  • Jes Sorensen

  • Sigurdur Asgeirsson

  • Jeffrey Kuskin

  • Michal Rehacek

  • Peter Zaitcev

  • David S. Miller

  • Dave Redman

  • Jay Estabrook

  • Martin Mares

  • Dan Jacobowitz

  • Emmnauel Marty

  • Eddie C. Dost

  • Jakub Jelinek

  • Philip Blundell

  • Anyone else, stand up and be counted!

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