> > Awhile back I proposed building a Ethernet > > X/video/audio server using the OGP ASIC chip. Less expensive > > than the OGD1. > > In my 'distributed' system, a 'dumb' terminal's video hardware just > pushes image rectangles around the screen. For video requiring > intensive computation, the a rectangle's image is streamed from a 'CPU > server'. The 'CPU server' is just a 2.60 GHz Northwood -- just one > core, and probably can't cut (decent) real time 'raytracing'. > Obviously it would be better to have 16 cores, but it seems PC > hardware is going nuts and replacing everything -- I have to upgrade > from AGP and PCI to PCI Express, from DDR to DDR Two, from PATA to > SATA. Now, not only are commodity parts useless, but drivers have to > be written for Plan 9. (I guess we could just steal the drivers from > Linux, but that still means all those great, old parts still go to > straight to the dump.)
I haven't looked into Plan 9 much, but I assume that the device driver situation is at least as bad as that for the BSDs, probably worse? I'd like to see some sort of common device driver interface, so that all the FOSS OSs could share the same drivers instead of doing all that busywork porting from one to another. And the porting doesn't always get done. Some BSD developers don't want to look at Linux code for fear of "GPL contamination". Absurd. The birdbrains refuse to consider a stable interface. The Linux drivers are... not bug-free... some even use the wrong chip. And so on. > So, instead of a new CPU for the 'CPU server'... how about an axillary > processor, like the 'X/video/audio server' you mentioned? Like a > 'Cell' processor on a PCI card on the 'CPU server' to take load off of > the Northwood for 'raytracing'? Or if it wouldn't fit on a PCI card, > a bigger board connected by ethernet. The 'X/video/audio server' would be the terminal, not the CPU server. A small quiet box that you plug into Ethernet, and plug in a display (CRT/LCD/DLP/plasma/whatever). No disk, boots from PROM. An X terminal that is fast enough to display TV/movies at 24-60 fps. (e.g. it has to decode mpeg2ts) Or a media bridge like the Roku HD1000 (no longer sold) that also does X11. For your CPU server, if it has a spare PCI slot you could plug in a OGC or OGD card. You would need a device driver for Plan 9. Whether this would do what you want? I have no clue. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
