  Information for using/developing external clock setting programs
  The XFree86 Project, Inc.
  16 December 1994

  1.  Using an external clock setting program

  XFree86 provides a facility for setting the clock frequency on a
  graphics card by an external program.  This is provided to make it
  possible to deal with cards that use clock selection methods not
  supported by the standard drivers.

  This facility is enabled by adding a ClockProg line to the Device
  section of the XF86Config file.  The format of this line is:

       ClockProg  "commandpath"


  where commandpath is the full pathname of the clock setting program.
  No flags are allowed in commandpath.

  When using this option, a Clocks line is required in the Device
  section of the XF86Config file to tell the server which clock
  frequencies are available to it.  In the case of a card that has a
  fixed set of preset clocks, the ordering of the clocks in the Clocks
  line should correspond to what the card/program expects.  In the case
  of a card which has a fully programmable clock (like the SS24) the
  ordering is not important, and the values chosen can be anything in
  the range supported by the card.  Up to 32 clock values may be
  specified.

  The server calls the external program when it needs to change the
  clock frequency.  This occurs at startup and when switching modes with
  the hot-key sequences.  The command is passed two command-line
  arguments.  The first is the clock frequency in MHz (as a floating
  point number -- currently specified to the nearest 0.1 MHz).  The
  second argument is the index of the clock value in the Clocks list
  (the first clock is index 0).  Cards with a fixed set of clocks would
  probably make use of the index, while cards with a fully programmable
  clock would use the frequency argument.

  2.  Developing an extern clock setting program

  When such an external program is being used, the server does not
  change any register fields related to clock selection, and the
  external program must be careful to only modify clock selection
  fields.  The program is run with stdin and stdout set to
  xf86Info.consoleFd -- which is the fd to use for display-related
  ioctl() operations if required.  Stderr is the same as the server's
  stderr -- so error or warning messages should be directed there.  The
  program is run with the uid set to the real user's ID -- so if it
  needs to use privileged system calls it should be suid-root.  The
  program does not inherit any I/O access privileges, so it will need to
  do whatever is required to enable them.

  The program is expected to return an exit status 0 when successful,
  and a status in the range 1-254 when it fails.  If the external
  program fails during the server initialisation stage, the server
  exits.  If it fails for a mode switch, the mode switch is aborted (the
  server assumes that the clock frequency hasn't been changed) and the
  server keeps running.  If necessary an exit status may be specified in
  the future for which the server would exit if the program fails for a
  mode switch.

  A sample clock switching program is provided for use with many ET4000
  cards that have a fixed set of 8 clocks.  This program is only
  intended as a sample, and it is not intended for general use (the
  internal server code handles this type of card).  The program is
  xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/etc/et4000clock.c in the source tree,
  and /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/et4000clock.c in the binary tree.

  The idea of using an external clock program was suggested by Frank
  Klemm <pfk@rz.uni-jena.de>

  Generated from XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/sgml/clkprog.sgml,v 3.2 1995/01/28 16:03:06 dawes Exp $





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$XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/doc/README.clkprog,v 3.9 1995/07/24 06:52:59 dawes Exp $
