alt Hacker NewsI think the framebuffer devices is a least common denominator that is available on even miniscule or emulated hardware whilst anything above thats starts requiring a whole lot more infrastructure.
And honestly, you don't need much more for an image viewer.
This is exactly right - you can get a framebuffer on just about anything, including pretty much any video card made since about 1990, and also more fun things like the little i2c display that your toaster has. No need to restrict relatively simple software like fbi/fim to running on less hardware by using drm.