udlfb for displaylink usb monitor support: problems & solutions

[Marco Carnut <kiko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I don't know if this is the correct list to post this, but,
if it is not, I apologize in advance and would kindly request
you to point me to the correct list.

I've recently set up Slitaz Cooking on an old thin client to
serve as a controller for a multihead monitor setup using
several Samsung SyncMaster LD190 monitors, which are connected
to the thin client's USB ports talking the displaylink
protocol.

In order to get it running, I had to fix of a couple of snags:

* The udlfb-0.4 driver crashes with the stock Slitaz kernel
  as soon as it detects the monitor. I traced the problem to
  the fbcon driver, which comes compiled built-in. Reconfiguring
  the kernel to have it as a module and then disabling it
  entirely solved the problem. I don't understand enough of
  the linux kernel yet to fix that.

* The udlfb diver itself had a minor bug that it didn't get
  the display resolution quite right, but *that* I was able
  to fix with just a couple of lines of code. I'm sending the
  patch to the original udlfb author.

After that, it worked great and in a machine with a meager
128MB of CF card and 128MB of RAM. Slitaz rules!

Now, for my question: I was planning to make a package for
udlfb, but that would require changing the kernel to prevent
the crashing. What would be the correct course of action?
a) bundle the patched kernel in my package (sounds ugly);
b) talk to the kernel package maintainer to see if s/he
agrees to modularize the fbcon module; c) wait until the
original udlfb author fixes all that?

Thanks in advance.

--Marco "Kiko" Carnut
--www.postcogito.org



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