i'm currently trying to setup framebuffer functionality with my 2.6 kernel and i'm having a difficult time. i've been following several guides that i've found on google, but i havent been able to get framebuffer going yet. i'm using the 2.6.10 kernel because anything higher than that is incompatible my wifi card. these are the options that i've enabled:
what happens when i compile and use this kernel is this: it works, but my console is completely blank. i have to login blindly and start x. dmesg looks like this:i dont know what i'm doing wrong because i cant find a good howto on framebuffer stuff and the ones i've found haven't been much help. My 2.4.31 kernel that came with slackware uses the logo and 1024x768 screen size by itself. looking at the options in this kernels source, i found that it had basically the same options that i've listed above, but all of the drivers:intelfb, rivafb, etc. were compiled as modules and there were some options about "advanced low level drivers" which i didnt see in the 2.6 configuration. i couldnt find a boot logo section in the 2.4.31 config either, but for some reason the logo does come up when i boot.

i dont think i need to add any boot parameters to lilo since the 2.4 kernel loads to the right size by itself, probably because vga=733 (1024x768x256)is set in the global section.

Basically, i want to get control over my console screen size(1024x768) and make it display the tux logo in order to make sure the framebuffer is working before i proceed with bootsplash. if anybody can help me out by telling me what i'm doing wrong, i'd appreciate it.

edit: after commenting out that global vga=733 parameter in lilo.conf, i can now see my console when i boot into the 2.6 kernel and even a very distorted logo image. but the errors in dmesg are still the same.

i8x0 chipsets and frame buffering need a bit of tinkering. Have a look at:
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/intelfb.txt and intel810.txt
Basically the same stuff is here: http://i810fb.sourceforge.net/howto/index.html

thanks, i'll have a look at that

i just noticed that the dmesg for my 2.4 kernel, which has working framebuffer support, seems to be using the vesafb driver? i cant see it with lsmod, but thats what it says in dmesg. i cant find this driver in either configuration(2.4 or 2.6)

If you do "zgrep VESA /proc/config.gz" you should get CONFIG_FB_VESA=y
With xconfig it's Device Drivers -> Graphics support -> FB -> VESA VGA meaning you already have it compiled in.

ok, so it's compiled in, how do i make it use that instead of intelfb now? vesafb seems to work on my 2.4 kernel. also, why dont these fb modules show up in lsmod?
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can anybody help me out here?
bump

They are compiled into the kernel instead of modules, so lsmod won't show them because the modules don't exist.
Haven't used vesafb either but /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt probably explains how to use it.

well, my main difficulty seems to be that i dont know how to do anything besides compile these drivers into the kernel and hope for the best. i need to know how to change the framebuffer driver, the screen resolution, colors, etc. i think fbset is supposed to do this but it gives me an "invalid argument" error if i try to do something like "fbset -depth 256" to set the color to 256 colors.

Did you try booting with the "video=vesafb" kernel option?
You can set some more options like "video=vesafb:1024x768-16@70 vga=791"
Check what refresh rate you want though.

thats the only way? i thought you could change it on the fly with "fbset vesafb" or something like that.

hmmm... that video parameter doesnt seem to work. nothing different happened when i entered it at boot and when i tried putting it in lilo.conf, lilo told me that "video" was an unrecognized parameter or something.

i've recompiled and removed intelfb from the kernel, it's not even a module anymore, and i still get a bunch of errors on startup from intelfb about the cursor.

i was trying to use intelfb, but apparently it's buggy as heck and there's no documentation on it? i should be fine if i just stick with vesafb right? what about that i810fb module? it's apparently for people with the i810 chipset, but i'm not sure what my chipset is, only that it's intel based and the gfx card is an intel 855GME.

I use this video card , I now have a 2.6.12.3 but I previously had a 2.6.10.
my /usr/src/linux/.config has this:

#
# Graphics support
#
CONFIG_FB=y
CONFIG_FB_CFB_FILLRECT=y
CONFIG_FB_CFB_COPYAREA=y
CONFIG_FB_CFB_IMAGEBLIT=y
CONFIG_FB_SOFT_CURSOR=y
# CONFIG_FB_MACMODES is not set
CONFIG_FB_MODE_HELPERS=y
# CONFIG_FB_TILEBLITTING is not set
# CONFIG_FB_CIRRUS is not set
# CONFIG_FB_PM2 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_CYBER2000 is not set
# CONFIG_FB_ASILIANT is not set
# CONFIG_FB_IMSTT is not set
CONFIG_FB_VGA16=m
CONFIG_FB_VESA=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y
# CONFIG_FB_HGA is not set
# CONFIG_FB_NVIDIA is not set
# CONFIG_FB_RIVA is not set
# CONFIG_FB_I810 is not set
CONFIG_FB_INTEL=y

[... things set to n , then]

#
# Console display driver support
#
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y


For the cursor message, its not important

and i have vga=791 in my grub or lilo boot

By the way , if you really want good video performance, using this configuration is not the best, there are some posts talking about this

good luck, it took me some time to get it
Wonderful penguin now