What's the deal with the framebuffer?
 

Hi all,

I recently started playing around a little with the framebuffer support in linux. Actually, it all started with me trying to get bootsplash working on a newly installed debian system. While I was at a newly installed system I decided to try apt-build, and because of that and other reasons I ended up using console for quite some time, without installing xfree. While looking around for a nice console webbrowser, I came across links2 which uses the framebuffer and gives a rather nice web-browsing environment with pictures and java. Looking around a bit more, I found a fbtv for watching TV and fbi for viewing images, and I've heard mplayer has fb-support as well.

That's when it occured to me that in this way one could probably have a pretty nice (and extremely fast, I take it) system with pretty nice features. Now, my questions are: is there anyone out there relying only on a framebuffer-console without X? Are there any console/fb-apps to be recommended in replacement of X-apps? Is there any distro exploiting this idea? Is there any way to get 3D-acceleration working without X (I doubt this)?

Also; what's the deal with the framebuffer? I can't really formulate this question better cause I have no clue as of what framebuffer really is. Why is X-windows necessary at all? Is it possible to have a "frambuffer-window manager"?

Thanks.

I guess in newbie terms, framebuffer is used to view graphical contents on a CLI (Command Line Interface) without an X Server, etc. I'm sure it would be possible to have a framebuffer Window Manager but what would tbe the point when you need the X Server to run it... I wouldn't see any difference.