[RFC PATCH] Only open the console if the video driver needs hardware access.

[Jesse Barnes]

On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:21:22 -0700
Eric Anholt <eric at anholt.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 2009-10-01 at 20:58 +0200, Mark Kettenis wrote:
> > > Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 11:50:42 -0700
> > > From: Jamey Sharp <jamey at minilop.net>
> > > 
> > > xf86OpenConsole fails as non-root, at least on Linux. Since the
> > > xf86-video-dummy driver works fine without root privileges or
> > > console access, just don't open the console.
> > > ---
> > > I wanted to see how to replace Xvfb and Xfake with an appropriate
> > > video driver for the xfree86 DDX, and needing root privileges was
> > > obnoxious. Aside from that problem, the existing dummy driver
> > > seems well on the way to doing the job.
> > > 
> > > But I'm guessing this is the wrong way to solve this problem.
> > 
> > I suspect so.  I think for example the wsfb driver on OpenBSD
> > doesn't need "hardware access" in the xorgHWAccess sense, but still
> > needs console access.
> 
> This seems related to jbarnes's non-root X stuff
> 
> http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2009-July/001293.html
> 
> Perhaps we need a flag for "this ddx needs console access" as well as
> "this ddx needs io ports and such"

Yeah, that would be an easy enough flag to add to the get hardware
interfaces function if needed.  Another option would be to mess with
the distro console ownership scripts to avoid any permission problems.

-- 
Jesse Barnes, Intel Open Source Technology Center