OSDev.org

Wow, good job. Unfortunatly the conclusion is not so good; VBE sucks :@:( A well I was planning a console OS anyway, just VBE for testing

Well...VBE in protected mode sucks!

Real mode and VM86 mode has to work because that's what windows and linux use to access VBE

no its not:
windows will never use RMode VBE (though i suspect winXP does use vbe3 -- in PMode)
if you lack specific drivers, (in win9x) you cannot use more than VGA (which is fully standardized -- easy to do in PMode)

winXP however, can use higher modes, though im not sure how, i suspect it does use vbe2/3 PMode interfaces, though i cannot be sure of that (some modes beyond VGA can be set the same as the VGA modes -- not all cards will except it, but many/most will-- and winXP might use this (like win3.1 did -- win3.1 supported 'generic' 640x480x8 & 800x600x4 -- without any vbe -- but it wouldn't work on some controllers, but most did)

Windows NT and Linux Svgalib use VM86 to access the real mode VBE interface.

Linux I'm sure of. The svgalib source code is readily available.

Windows: Like you I'm not sure...I saw a document on the web from a project that was trying to run WinXP on bochs and they mentioned something about VM86 and VBE...I'll have to find it again and post a link for you. I do remember it saying something about using VM86 VBE to determine what device was attached...

XP problably closed some deal with the hardware manufactures to get info for the basic modes. *guessing*