Crystalfontz LCD display from kernel?

[Tim Pushor]

Daniel O'Connor wrote:

>On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 04:18, Tim Pushor wrote:
>  
>
>>My question is, I would really like to be able to display various things
>>during startup, shutdown, and once shutdown is complete to the LCD. I
>>assume I would have to modify the kernel for this. I done lots of C
>>programming, and hardware interface programming in C and assembler, but
>>never any UNIX kernel programming.
>>
>>First of all, is this doable? Also, would it be easier (from the kernel
>>programming perspective) to do this via USB or Serial?
>>    
>>
>
>Opening a device etc from the kernel would be moderatly painful..
>It write a userland program which did it first and then port it.
>
>  
>
Daniel,

Theres' really nothing to port. I just want to output various things at 
different points in the bootup process, and again when the system is 
safe to shut off.

How painful is it to open/use a device from inside the kernel?

Thanks,
Tim