X configuration paradigm, and a proposal

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt]

On Thu, 2004-11-11 at 17:09 -0800, Peter Karlsson wrote:

> 
> >	2) with PCI express, even screens are hot-pluggable.
> 
> What do you mean by screens? The monitor? Or the gfx card?
> Sorry, I am not that familiar with pcie...

You don't need PCI Express for that. You probably meant gfx cards are
hotplugable, but that was already the case with hotplug PCI on some
platforms and cardbus. The basic problem of hotplugging screens has also
been present for ages, since you can hotplug displays and most recent
card can "probe" the presence of something connected to either their
VGA, Digital or even SVideo/composite outputs.

MacOS is a good example of dealing with hotplug displays. I don't know
about Windoze.

In fact, with laptops, it's extremely annoying _not_ to have hotplug
displays :)

Ben.