Re: SDL2 vs SDL3 vs sdl-compat

On 5/12/25 1:14 PM, Rahul Chandra ([email protected] via blfs-dev Mailing 
List) wrote:
> On 2025-05-12 13:18, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
>> I am in the process of updating SDL2 to version 2.32.6.
>>
>> However the most current version of SDL is 3.2.12.  In the release notes
>> upstream says:
>>
>> "The SDL development team is focusing efforts on SDL3 and making sdl2-compat a 
>> drop-in replacement for SDL2. If you run into issues with SDL2, please consider 
>> upgrading to SDL3 or trying out sdl2-compat. We have made significant improvements 
>> across all platforms and your issue may already be resolved."
>>
>> We have a lot of packages that use SDL2 and sdl12-compat.  If someone wants to 
>> volunteer to see what packages can use SDL3, we can decide whether to move from 
>> SDL2 to SDL3.
>>
>> The following packages currently use sdl12-compat:
>>
>> multimedia/libdriv/gst10-plugins-bad.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/libdv.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/xine-lib.xml:
>> multimedia/videoutils/vlc.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/libmpeg2.xml:
>>
>> The following packages use SDL2:
>>
>> multimedia/videoutils/ffmpeg.xml:
>> multimedia/videoutils/mpv.xml:
>> multimedia/audioutils/mpg123.xml:
>> multimedia/audioutils/audacious.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/mlt.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/v4l-utils.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/pipewire.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/gst10-plugins-base.xml:
>> multimedia/libdriv/sdl.xml:
>> general/graphlib/libwebp.xml:
>> general/graphlib/gegl.xml:
>> general/graphlib/libqrencode.xml:
>> x/lib/qt6.xml:
>> postlfs/virtualization/qemu.xml:
>>
>> If some packages can use SDL3 and the rest can use sdl12-compat, we can
>> upgrade from SDL2 to SDL3.  However we really do not want to have three
>> different versions of SDL in the book.
>>
>> In addition, there seems to be sdl12-compat at
>> https://github.com/libsdl-org/sdl12-compat/releases and
>> sdl2-compat at
>> https://github.com/libsdl-org/sdl2-compat/releases/tag/release-2.32.56
>>
>> The first one seems to be for compatibility between SDL1 and SDL2 and
>> the second between SDL2 and SDL3.
>>
>> Are there any volunteers to do the research into the best way to handle this 
>> situation?
>>
> 
> Almost none of these packages natively support sdl3, looking at arch https:// 
> archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/sdl3/ there is almost nothing that can use it. 
> Arch only uses it for sdl2-compat because upstream is focusing on that and I think 
> (if I remember a mailing list discussion correctly) it was to fix some graphical 
> artifacting and performance issues with native sdl3. It could be useful for GLFS, but 
> I don't see the point for blfs.

I agree.  I did some more research after I posted the original message what I was 
concentrating on was the sdl12-compat references we have.  What I found out is:

* libdv and libmpeg2 no longer use sdl at all
* gst10-plugins-bad and xine-lib appear to now use sdl2
* vlc appears to look for sdl, but never uses it.

What I propose for BLFS is:
1. Keep SDL2 until something NEEDS SDL3
2. Remove reference to sdl12compat in libdv, vlc, and libmpeg2
3. Change sdl12-compat reference to SDL2 in gst10-plugins-bad and xine-lib
4. Remove sdl12-compat

   -- Bruce

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