On Sat, Oct 25, 2003 at 11:37:05AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
But I'm _not_ interested in some interfaces to let user mode just bypass the kernel. Because they will not solve any of the other problems that clearly _do_ need solving, and if the X server continues to believe that it can just access the hardware directly, it will never play well together with projects like fbcon/dri.
XFree86 cares more about being a useable X server on a wide range of platforms than on playing well with a few Linux-specific hacks.
The real problem is that you have a mix of ideologies in the Linux kernel, each struggling for supremacy. Come back to us when you know who the winner is. At that time I'm sure you'll feel free to re-write history and claim that we should have been doing things that way all along.
I'm really baffled here. Why would you even say such a thing? In relation to Linus' *whole* message, your first paragraph and second paragraph are incongruous. Linus (or anyone else) did not suggest that XFree86 be shoe-horned into any of the existing Linux video driver architectures. In fact, he said quite the opposite. He said that XFree86 is trying to do things that really do need kernel support, and all the existing methods for doing that suck.
Part of the problem is that, with the exception of DRI, the existing video specific interfaces in Linux were, as far as I know, created without input from XFree86. You're suggesting that same mistake be repeated.
I'm also baffled by the general animosty shown towards Linux. Judging by the traffic on the various lists, it seems to me that Linux and *BSD represent the lion's share of the XFree86 user base. Making a consious choice to not support those platforms better is making a consious choice to not support our users. I simply don't understand the rationalle behind such a decision.
Not only that, there is no requirement that the drivers use any given kernel interface. Just because the drivers use a kernel interface on Linux or *BSD does not mean that they have to use a kernel interface on Solaris or HPUX. There will be growing pains involved in having a kernel path and a non-kernel path. I think that several of the DRI drivers (Radeon and Rage128) have shown that it *is* doable.
The next step is to create a kernel interface that is both generic enough and specific enough to acomplish the task at hand. After watching the development of fbdev / fbcon, DRI, and XFree86 for a long time, I can say that there is no point in squabling over whether or not a kernel interface is useful for performance or necessary for proper device configuration. Both of those questions have been sufficiently answered. The question of where we go from here has not been answered.
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