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2011-11-22

Linux Framebuffer Drivers

I am working on building a framebuffer driver for my own custom VGA hardware module. It only runs at 640x480 and has a dedicated video buffer in the FPGA.  Linux is being run on Microblaze, I am using petalinux because that is what I have to use (This is an academic project).

I ran into a problem with it saying that the register_framebuffer and unregister_framebuffer functions were undefined. The kernel also refused to load the module for obvious reasons.

After chasing my tail for hours trying to link against fbmem.o I realized that it wasn't even generating the object file. I also concluded that it probably needed to enable it in the kernel. So one last make menuconfig and enabled framebuffer support. "Kernel/Library/Defaults Selection>Customize Kernel Settings" then "Device Drivers>Graphics Support>Support for frame buffer devices"

http://xkcd.com/979/