X and Matchbox

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

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