xen discuss - Aug 2007 - PV framebuffer support

Hi,

on the page

http://blogs.sun.com/levon/entry/solaris_xen_update

it says:

"PV framebuffer
    Solaris dom0 now supports the SDL-based paravirt framebuffer backend, which
can be used with domUs that have PV framebuffer support"

Can you tell me a bit more what "PV framebuffer support" is?

Does a Solaris DomU have PV framebuffer support? If yes, how can I use it?


regards

Bernd
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Bernd Schemmer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> on the page
> 
> http://blogs.sun.com/levon/entry/solaris_xen_update
> 
> it says:
> 
> "PV framebuffer
>     Solaris dom0 now supports the SDL-based paravirt framebuffer backend,
which can be used with domUs that have PV framebuffer support"
> 
> Can you tell me a bit more what "PV framebuffer support" is?
We have backend (dom0) support for a PV framebuffer.
It is very similar to how the HVM domain''s framebuffer
works.

However, we only have support for the libsdl version
of the PV framebuffer (vs VNC). I have the patches
for xen-gate to get it to build along with a libvncserver
library, but it currently crashes in the libvncserver
code. There is some work in the Xen community to move
the backend over to the same QEMU code used for HVM.
We will probably wait until that work is complete
before we support VNC.

On a side note, the PV framebuffer is not very good.
It very limited in what it can do and pretty slow.
IMO, your much better off using a "serial" console
accessing the domU from VNC (a VNC server should be
integrated shortly).

For an example on how to setup a VNC server:
   http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/docs/VncLogin.htm

> Does a Solaris DomU have PV framebuffer support? If yes, how can I use it?
No. Currently, we do not have support for a PV framebuffer
in domU. It would be useful to pretty up install and is
on the list of todo items.

You can use the backend PV framebuffer with Fedora 7
or other distro''s which include a domU PV framebuffer.



MRJ

> 
> regards
> 
> Bernd
>  
>  
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss@opensolaris.org
-- 
Mark Johnson <mark.johnson@sun.com>
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
(781) 442-0869

Mark
>>We have backend (dom0) support for a PV framebuffer.
It should be documented how to use it -- it took me some time to get it working.

The PV framebuffer is necessary to install Fedora FC7 using the instructions to
install FC6 on the Xen opensolaris website
(http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/xen/docs/fedora-install.htm)  as
template. At least in my tests the installation of FC7 in a DomU did not work
without the PV framebuffer.

The FC7 installation isI documented on my website:

http://home.arcor.de/bnsmb/public/htdocs/Xen_and_Solaris.html#Fedora_7_FC7
>>On a side note, the PV framebuffer is not very good.
>>It very limited in what it can do and pretty slow.
And not very stable at this time ... I had various crashes of the framebuffer
window while installing FC7 . (The X Display was redirected to my Ubuntu Box
while installing via ssh maybe I should test it again on the local display)

Anyway -- it works stable enough to install FC7 in a DomU

regards

Bernd
 
 
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