* On 10/10/23 16:49, Thomas Zimmermann via openSUSE Factory wrote:
What is the exact use case?
I assume that fbdev is required for displaying images?
Mostly just browsing the web on VT if I don't want to load into a full graphics session - for instance because I've forgotten to update my (binary) graphics card driver (so X is not starting up), have managed to have a library issue so that the desktop environment is not starting up, just need to apply a kernel patch or change a kernel option, rebuild it and reboot anyway or do other short tasks right before rebooting. The point most often being is that I don't like to start a full desktop sessions if I know that I'll be rebooting in 10 minutes anyway. However, browsing the web without any graphics or mouse support is incredibly frustrating. Even just using a search engine.
It looks like links is still actively supported. Couldn't they implement DRM support?
Probably. Who knows. Nobody has done so yet. I actually haven't found any example of applications using libdrm to draw to VTs, other than toy projects from a few people.
At some point, the current status quo will be abandoned by Linux distros. It's not just SUSE.
Sure, like I've already said, I can see why that would be done. *SuSE systems aren't my daily driver and, frankly, especially Tumbleweed I only ever use in VMs as a development platform and I've never used this functionality there yet.
But we're still at the first steps. Now is the time to identifying possible problems and dependencies.
I figure that in the long run, direct FB access will vanish, just like DirectFB died. There are replacements, but they are mostly used for embedded systems and actual users on desktop systems are scarce. Alternatives, like libdrm, exist, but aren't in demand or implemented in applications. That's not something *SuSE should care about, though. I'm just voicing up as a one the very, very, very few and very, very infrequent user of that feature. :) Mihai