Hi Wolfgang, On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Wolfgang Denk <w...@denx.de> wrote: > Dear Simon Glass, > > In message > <capnjgz12pss6sonsumu-vrrxwxs04zb+grqqguknw2dtzbu...@mail.gmail.com> you > wrote: >> >> We are currently using a very rudimentary graphics features attached >> to U-Boot. It can only display bitmap images. We use this in Chromium >> to composite a display for the various screens we need to display in >> U-Boot. Unfortunately the graphics screens get quite large when using >> multiple languages since they are pre-rendered. >> >> Is there any interest in a simply graphics library in U-Boot, that can >> display things on the screen? We already have bitmap support, but >> could perhaps add outline font support (e.g. freetype) as well. This >> might allow display of simple boot menus or booting information. A >> board could create a structure containing a list of things to display >> (text, bitmaps) and pass it to the graphics library for rendering >> using existing functions and the new font support. > > This sounds like a nice feature. Initially. Then I start wondering > if this really belongs into a boot loader. Instead of doing fancy > graphics stuff, we should IMO rather focus on booting the OS of your > choice really fast, and let this do the fancy GUIs. Or? >
The problem is that a major purpose of the GUIs is to allow installing an OS from a USB stick/SD card, since the OS may have become corrupted and unbootable. We have looked at keeping around a separate OS image for this (e.g. in an available disk partition), but so far that hasn't proved practical since that itself can be fairly easily overwritten and we then have a doorstop. The less fancy, the better, but consumers have certain expectations that force us to make some efforts...there is already a single font in U-Boot, but it's not good enough for multi-language pretty displays unfortunately. Regards, Simon > Best regards, > > Wolfgang Denk > > -- > DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel > HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany > Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: w...@denx.de > "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." - Mark Twain _______________________________________________ U-Boot mailing list U-Boot@lists.denx.de http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot
