how to use wsfb and non-root?

[Michael Lorenz]

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Hello,

> I asked about a week ago about a list or documentation of known X 
> drivers
> that do not need root.

All the SBus and UPA drivers should fit that bill, as long as whoever 
the Xserver is running as can access /dev/fb*

> So I hear that some people run X as non root. I have even heard this 
> for
> i386 systems.
>
> How is this done?

Not with any of the PCI drivers - they require mmap()ing stuff through 
/dev/mem. Or you can use the aperture driver ( used to be distribued 
with XFree86, not sure if it's part of NetBSD these days ) which allows 
mmap()ing graphics devices through /dev/xf86.
On NetBSD however it is possible to mmap() the console device through 
/dev/ttyE* which should be what wsfb is doing. Most non-x86 NetBSD 
ports use ttyE* for everything ( sparc64 for instance can't mmap() PCI 
resources through /dev/mem - there's a good reason for it which I 
unfortunately forgot. Maybe it's the fact that the PCI buses are 
somewhere far up in the 64bit address space so the Xserver would have 
to figure out what to add to the BARs to get the right bus ) - the 
benefit is that you don't ( or rather - shouldn't ) need root 
privileges to mmap() and can use BAR contents directly, the downside is 
you can only use one PCI device - the console.

have fun
Michael
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