Switching from X-Window to VT

[sdrb]

John Tapsell wrote:
> 2009/1/13 sdrb <sdrb at onet.eu>:
>> John Tapsell wrote:
>>> 2009/1/13 sdrb <sdrb at onet.eu>:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I have a question regarding switching from X-Window to virtual terminal.
>>>> Usually I use both of them and I very often switch between of them.
>>>> The switching process usually takes 3-8 seconds (X11 -> VT).
>>>>
>>>> I have Intel E8400 processor and GF7600GT and I wonder why does the
>>>> switching from X11 to VT take so much time, while switching in opposite
>>>> direction is done almost immediately.
>>>> The switching time even grows when I have firefox running with many of
>>>> tabs.
>>>> Could anyone explain what's going on?
>>> Because xorg has drivers for setting up the video card, and so does
>>> the kernel. So switching to a VT requires un-setting up the video card
>>> by Xorg, then setting up the video card by the kernel.
>>>
>>> You'll be happy to know, however, that this will hopefully soon(ish)
>>> be fixed.  The idea is to move all of this to the kernel.
>>> The first steps have already been done  ( 2.6.28 kernel, out on
>>> christmas day, came with GEM -
>>>
>>> http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_28#head-b957b19f6139b6bbbfabaf790bf643b1746985d6
>>> )
>> Yes, I heard about GEM, but I'm very interested in what cause this effect.
>> Is it possible to read more details (even low-level details) about this
>> problem?
> If you google for "kernel mode setting" you'll get dozens of hits.  In
> particular it's worth checking out the kerneltrap articles (those are
> always good - http://kerneltrap.org/node/8242).

Ok, thank you.

sdrb