[ECOS] Fw: [nanogui] Nano-X as a component of eCos? (Was: Re: [nanogui] eCos support in CVS)

[Bart Veer]

>>>>> "I-Jui" == I-Jui Sung <ijsung@csie.nctu.edu.tw> writes:

    I-Jui>  After some work about porting Nano-X to eCos (I've done
    I-Jui>  some work about porting Nano-X to Linux synthetic target
    I-Jui>  last year), I think it may be more elegant to incorporate
    I-Jui>  the (CVS Version of ) Microwincows/Nano-X as a component
    I-Jui>  of eCos, in some sort of eCos package since the nature of
    I-Jui>  Nano-X is, in my opinion, closer to a library, not to an
    I-Jui>  application.

    I-Jui>  Making Nano-X an eCos component may also eliminate some
    I-Jui>  unnecessary configuration in the Nano-X side if we adapt
    I-Jui>  the eCos CDL mechanism to the Nano-X configuration
    I-Jui>  mechanism (which is using makefile flags).

    I-Jui>  Any comment for this idea?

We are already thinking along similar lines. In fact our current
internal repository has a microwindows tree as an eCos package, for
experimental purposes.

However doing it right involves various complications. For example,
right now the microwindows code contains the drivers for the display,
pointer, and keyboard. Therefore to port to a different eCos target
requires modifying the core microwindows package, and that is not how
eCos packages are expected to work. Instead we would want to have
separate framebuffer device driver packages etc., with a generic
microwindows package that can work with any framebuffer device. Rather
like the TCP/IP stack, where porting to a new target simply involves
writing the appropriate ethernet device driver, with no modifications
to the stack itself.

Of course people may then want to use the framebuffer device drivers
with code other than microwindows, so the specification for such
drivers must be generic rather than support just microwindows. That
makes it a much more difficult problem than a one-off port of
microwindows to a given target.

I do not know when any of this work will be generally available. As
usual there are many different demands on our time.

Bart

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