X and Matchbox
Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
mickey at openmoko.org
Tue Nov 28 20:07:58 CET 2006
Pedro Aguilar wrote:
> I have several questions regarding the graphics support.
> As far as I know the Neo uses X and Matchbox as Window Manager.
Correct.
> Do you know if the video driver that X uses has been specifically
> developed/modified for this platform?
It is the standard xorg-x11-kdrive server.
> X can be adapted for embedded devices (like in the Zaurus) for being as
> light as possible. In the Neo how much memory and footprint does X needs?
I didn't have a chance to write down numbers yet. Will do when I'm
working on the hardware again.
> Does OpenMoko support Frame Buffer?
> Using the FB could be interesting because some graphic operations could be
> improved.
We don't recommend direct frame buffer access, but if you absolutely
need to do it to squeeze out the last bits of performance, then you're
free to halt X and talk to /dev/fb. We rather want to support SDL
which plays nicely with X.
> Have you ever tested it with other Window Managers? I know Matchbox was
> specifically designed for this kinf of devices, but WindowMaker and
> Blackbox, for example, are very light and fast too (and they support
> virtual desktops that could be nice to have).
We don't have special requirements to a window manager, since most of
the UI is drawn by Gtk and there are almost no window decorations --
this is the primary use case for MatchBox.
Virtual Desktops is -- as the name says -- a desktop paradigm. It
was designed for when you have a lot of application windows
concurrently on a screen which all have dedicated geometry and you
want to save state when switching between these desktops. I don't
think this will be of much use on a phone since we run applications
one-window-full-screen on OpenMoko.
--
Michael 'Mickey' Lauer | IT-Freelancer | http://www.vanille-media.de
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