Re: llvmpipe - was: Re: Updated Debian Ports installation images 2025-12-06

Hello.

On 23/4/26 2:01 am, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> Well, to be fair, LLVM really a compiler but a library. You get the compiler when
> you combine a frontend like rustc, clang or flang with LLVM. This modularity allows
> one to use the LLVM library very flexible and at some point someone came up with
> the idea to use it for software rendering.

It's the meaning of "LL" really that looks confusing to me. Because when 
I think of "low level" I think of a hardware emulator or some driver 
that bangs the hardware. To me that's low level, but on a software level 
calling it "SLVM" or something or software level (or layer) virtual 
machine would make more sense. I suppose it's just semantics.

> I think you should not be affected when using hardware acceleration since then
> you wouldn't be using llvmpipe in the first place. If you're seeing LLVM errors
> when running graphics applications, it means you're using software rendering,
> not hardware rendering.
>
> So, you should figure out why hardware rendering is not enable on your machine.

Yes, I already know why. I have am using an R7 250 card, which IIRC is 
one of the generations without hardware endian support, so LE only. So 
on PPC BE Linux, I cannot use hardware 2d/3d with it and rely on 
software rendering. It's not too bad in use, but the latest Debian is 
more sluggish than older distros like the last Ubuntu.

This is with my PASemi/Nemo board, whatever I should call it. I do have 
a 5450 card lying around that would likely work better, but then I need 
the monitor to switch to right display, and in testing it I found the 
firmware messed up the colours on boot so pulled it out. I'm kinda picky 
with things working correctly and don't like small faults.

> It should already be good enough. Why not give it a try yourself?
>
> Adrian

I should as I have been thinking about it. Like a lot of technology I 
can be a slow adapter. I wasn't really hooked on AI a few years back but 
now am slowly adapting to it. I've started using it for images and 
testing it for musical analysis. Last month I accidentally "vibe coded" 
as the kids call it, since last year when it was termed apparently, 
when  I asked Gemini about some dimensions of some UI buttons. It told 
me what they were, along with more than I asked and then offered to 
recreate the UI in code, so I just let it. I was surprised the code not 
only compiled without errors but actually worked. Of course the AI got 
ahead of itself and because of its vivid imagination, is always thinking 
up improvements and trapped itself in feature creep, when it broke its 
own code and turned it faulty. But I was impressed as to what it can do 
and what responses it gives. Those neat bullet point lists are a green 
tick for me. :-)

I rely on my laptop for a lot of things, requiring speed, though it's 
only a humble i5. And tonight I found my screen went dead. The LCD 
bottom has had corrupted pixels for a while and now it has only gray 
stripes. For the moment I'll need to become a portable desktop person 
and plug it into an external LCD. Right now that's my TV but I'll figure 
something more practical out. After a dead webcam, dead keyboard and a 
broken hinge I fixed so it didn't wreck the plastic again, buying a new 
laptop may be more practical.