Introduction to NFB graphic adapter drivers

Introduction to NFB graphic adapter drivers

NFB (No Frame Buffer) is the interface used for graphics adapter drivers on SVR5, SCO OpenServer 5, and AIX 5L. It is based on the standard X11R6 X Window System (X11R5 for SCO OpenServer 5), but it is structured so you can write a driver for a new graphics adapter card and dynamically load it into the system's X server rather than having to write a full X server just to support this card.

NFB drivers are developed with the X Link Kit. The driver source files are set up by executing the xmkddx command, which takes the driver prefix as an argument. The driver developer only needs to code device-specific information for initialization to have a working graphics adapter driver. Modifying the appropriate routines enables the driver to utilize all the performance enhancements and other features of the graphic adapter hardware. See ``Writing NFB graphical adapter drivers'' for detailed information.

NFB drivers can be developed and tested on SVR5 and AIX 5L systems. For SCO OpenServer 5, NFB drivers should be developed on SVR5 systems and delivered to SCO for final testing on SCO OpenServer 5. The documentation includes information about differences between the NFB interfaces, the X Link Kit, and test facilities on the different platforms.