Re: DRI integration

Around 13 o'clock on Nov 12, Jon Smirl wrote:

> What do you think about modifying xserver to use Mesa/OpenGL for it's drawing
> API? 

I'm not sure that's entirely feasible; GL is missing some functionality
required for both the core protocol and Render extension.  However, I would
really like to explore building a common kernel command set that the X
server can use for acceleration that is based on GL as all of the
interesting acceleration is compatible with the GL model (as Render was
designed that way).

If this were possible, then the binary nVidia driver could expose just 
this kernel API and the X server would run at reasonable speed, without 
any user-mode proprietary information at all.

Building a standard kernel API would let us eliminate all card-specific 
information in the X server.  Doesn't SciTech do something like this 
already?  Perhaps we can steal their API...

> I'm working on standalone mesa. This brings up the OpenGL API with having
> Xfree86 around. I'm currently bogged down trying to break 10,000 lines of
> mode setting/EDID code out of Xfree86 and making it work standalone. I have
> it compiling now but it doesn't work yet.

That's cool; having it available in user-mode might be nice for 
environments that can't fix the kernel for some reason.

> BenH has been going the other route and building the mode setting/EDID code
> into the framebuffer driver. He started before I did so he is further
> along. His driver handles most LCDs but laptop support is not finished.

If fbdev and DRI could get along nicely, this might be a better solution 
in the long run.  There are things about ACPI which make kernel support 
for device configuration more than just a good idea.

-keith