I'm going to design and build an X terminal

Patrick Finnegan pat at computer-refuge.org
Fri Apr 22 10:36:48 CDT 2005


On Friday 22 April 2005 02:09, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote:
> > Be aware that this shouldn't be all that difficult; Linux supports
> > running an LK201/401 on a serial port via a device driver in late
> > 2.4 and 2.6 kerneles.
>
> It doesn't matter.  The only code that will know about and talk to
> the LK201 will be the X server and StarMON ROM monitor.  For the
> Linux kernel (and for the hardware) the LK201 port will be just a
> bog-standard serial port, Linux will have no idea what is connected
> to it.  (Keyboard support is not needed in the Linux kernel because
> it'll be completely hidden from the user.)

Well, X generally talks to the keyboard and mouse drivers of the kernel 
to do its stuff, and I don't see any reason to try and avoid that.

> > I'd skip USB all-together, and just use a serial or PS/2 interface
> > mouse.
>
> Why not offer it as an option if the extra design cost is negligible?
>  It's just a USB chip on the PCI bus.  There is no extra software
> development effort since USB mice are already supported by the Linux
> kernel and XFree86 server.

Sure, why not.  Actually, I don't see anything that wrong with it, I 
just am not a huge fan of USB. :)

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCS        ---  http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
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