Hamish Marson wrote:
Terry Hancock wrote:
> James Richard Tyrer wrote:
>>>> With a graphics card that runs the X server, you would
>>>> offload even more overhead. :-D
>>> True, but is it worth it?
>> Don't know for sure. This would be a unique product. Although I
>> note that this wouldn't be a totally new idea. TI was pushing
>> this idea although I don't think that a commercial product ever
>> made it to market. DEC used to sell workstations which had a
>> separate processor to run the X server. IIRC, this was not nearly
>> as powerful processor as the main CPU.
>
> That would actually be pretty cool. It would keep X from competing
> with ordinary application tasks for resources, which is often a
> source of hang-ups or slow performance on typical single-CPU Linux
> desktop machines.
>
> It might be more practical to just go to dual processors or
> something, though I've never attempted that. An X server in
> hardware though, as a simple drop-in system has real potential, I
> would think. Would you then support the pointing device through
> the same card (seems like you would).
Seems to me you'd want to make the card almost a small computer (For
flexibility). Say an embedded PPC or something with built-in fp, and
a coupled GPU.
Yes, that's my impression, too.
> Making the X server completely HW (i.e. the X in the
FPGA) would be pretty expensive by the time you got an FPGA big
enough & fast enough to run it wouldn't it? Especially since you'd
have to allow for several years of bloat in the code as you update to
get the latest X features...
Ah! I should remember my audience when I speak. ;-)
When I said "in hardware", I just meant on the daughterboard in the
PC -- I'm sure the X server would be running on a fairly standard
embedded CPU. You'd just have the OGC chipset set up as *its*
display adapter. I wasn't talking about implementing an X server in
an FPGA (that sounds terrifying!).
Undoubtedly, you'd be running a small Linux or FreeBSD on the
X server card, and X would run in software on that CPU.
Of course, you'd want to have a simple pass-through to allow
text-mode display from the main system (this might require some
magic, but the idea is that it would allow you to get to your system
if the X server had a problem. You'd be plugging your keyboard into
the X server, though, so you could catch a special keystroke or
something (maybe find a use for that stupid 'windows' key ;-) )).
Hey! You've re-invented the X-Terminal! NCD would be proud...
Yeah, it's basically a thin-client built into a standard PC
daughterboard.
I don't know, it'd probably cost more than it's worth (sorry but I'm
pretty clueless about estimating hardware expense), but it was an
interesting thought! :-)
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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