Use of VGA for xilinux bundle

[Guest]

Hi , dear Xillybus support

We used Xilinux bundle with either Putty terminal or Ethernet from another laptop but w/o VGA monitor and it worked well. Now we are considering to leverage the capability of VGA output in Xilinux bundle package.

The plan-1 is to let VGA monitor output ubuntu desktop GUI with Xilinux screen background via Python and then user can display some results directly through the VGA monitor. If we enable the VGA monitor, should user enable USB mouse and keyboard peripherals together ?

The plan-2 is to output the target waveform via the VGA monitor standalone which means we draw our own picture and output to the Xilinux's VGA controller. Is it feasible ?

What way do you suggest in terms of efforts and schedule ?

Thanks
All the best,

[support]

Hello,

I'd like to remind you that Xillinux is just another Ubuntu distribution, based upon a standard desktop, on standard X-Windows, on top of a standard framebuffer interface for the graphics output. Therefore, any utilities and toolkits that you may find for any platform (PC on x86 included) for presenting information on a graphics display is likely to work on Xillinux as well, with or without X-Windows. The most common kits are likely to be available with apt-get.

So what I would suggest, is to Google around for stuff that is already written for your purposes, or that you can hack a bit to fit your needs. There is a good chance that somewhere has done exactly what you want, and published the code for it. Compile (if it's not scripts) and run, tweak, compile, run, repeat. That's all left for you.

Also to keep in mind: Xillinux arrives with Make and gcc. If a lot of libraries are used, compiling the sources natively on the Zynq processor may be much easier.

Regards,
Eli

[Guest]

Thanks.
What you meant is to hack the screen saver of Xilinux by user's own ?

Maybe Python matplot is enough for our application to display directly on the desktop.

[support]

Hello,

The screensaver is mentioned in some occasions in the Getting Started guide for Zynq: This Xillybus repeated "Xillybus" text pattern moving on the screen appears when the framebuffer driver is put in "blank" mode. This occurs when a text console has been idle for a few minutes, or when the X-Windows desktop enters a power saving mode. If you've used Linux on PCs, this is comparable with the screen going black, and sometimes the monitor switches off by itself.

This screensaver can be turned off by changing the power saving settings, both in text console mode and with the desktop. If you go for the desktop mode, it's in the Power Settings. As for text console, it's discussed a lot on the web, but I don't remember exactly which of those magic commands works. But it shouldn't be too difficult to get that sorted out.

Regards,
Eli