Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
There is one thing you didn't cover in your questions/myths: old hardware is often very limited by today standards, and removing it allows the code to become simpler (less fallbacks, more shared code, uniform code paths), as we can raise the assumptions of what a driver can and cannot do. And this has happened already. I'm not familiar r128 so I can't answer your effort estimation questions, but IMO support for old Mesa drivers development should happen in a separate branch/tree (forked from the point where the driver existed), so that development of new features for modern GPUs is not hindered by limitations of ancient hardware. I'm not sure how easy it would be to physically separate libGL.so into a separate repository. It might still be be possible to produce a xxx_dri.so from such legacy branch, that can be loaded by a modern libGL.so. This could be accomplished by referring to Mesa master's libGL.so headers from that branch. Another alernative would be for that legacy branch to just build both libGL.so and foo_dri.so. It creates a bit of extra work for distros, but distros already need to cope with that for the proprietary nvidia/amd drivers anyway, so it would be one more case. It won't solve the case of your docking station though. Concerning some of the myths/rants, I think that there's no merit in arguing retrospectively what we should have done, so I won't. If there are enough people interested and capable of maintaining old drivers I'm sure that the community as a whole can find some technical solution to accommodate those interests, as everybody benefits indirectly from a bigger development community. But it's unrealistic to expect that individuals/companies working on Mesa to put large amount time on unmaintained code, as simply there is no return. After all, we're all scratching our itches one way or the other.. Jose - Original Message - I am a first time mailing list joiner, long time user of exclusively free video drivers. I was very upset to see the DRI1 drivers removed from the codebase in August and I waited until now to complain because I wanted to see if the good changes like OpenGL3 would at least make it into the 8.0 release. My questions (mainly about r128) are the following: 1. If someone learns how to port a DRI1 driver to DRI2 and does this (which in my case would take years), will it be accepted back into mesa? Or would this person have to personally maintain r128_dri2.so forever after with no help from other mesa developers? 2. Is there any realistic hope that a current mesa developer will undertake this task? MostAwesomeDude spoke about looking into this one day but says he does not have the time right now. Has this changed yet? I should add that if your full time employer doesn't pay you to work on mesa I'd be willing to pay you to work on this aspect of it. 3. Would hacking r128 into compatibility with DRI2 only require changes to the mesa code or would one need to hack the kernel and the DDX as well? 4. In all honesty, are the 2D X drivers and DRM kernel modules corresponding to the DRI1 drivers that got axed slated for removal as well? == Please don't think that I feel entitled to the fruits of your labour. I'm sure many of you develop mesa on a volunteer basis and choose the parts of the code that are interesting to you. I'm not saying that you should work on something less enjoyable because the free software community depends on you (even though it does) and I'm not asking you to make regular updates to r128 or anything else. I just think that the reasons for removing these drivers are based on enduring myths. Myth: The drivers never worked to begin with. I haven't tried all of them but I know r128, mga and i810 did. While my r128 driver was clearly not perfect, it led to a dramatic performance increase with 3D screensavers and video playback. Unlike radeon drivers that were being worked on heavily, the r128 driver did not break for me with any mesa update. Myth: Nobody uses this hardware anymore. I'm not the only example of someone who still uses an r128 card (in a laptop where it cannot be upgraded). When phoronix covered this story some people who posted in those forums had complaints that were similar to my own. Every time I see the death sentence discussed in distro forums, there is at least one person upset about support for one of their old cards being dropped. I know this is a sampling bias because people happy with the changes tend not to post but one of the triumphs of free software is that it can free people from the endless cycle of having to upgrade hardware. Is it so hard to believe that people save money because of this and want such freedom to stay around? Myth: People who use this hardware already have a system frozen in the past. I use kernel 3.2.7, gcc 4.6.2, a 2012 ffmpeg build from git and a 2012 mplayer build from svn.
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Connor Behan connor.be...@gmail.com wrote: I am a first time mailing list joiner, long time user of exclusively free video drivers. I was very upset to see the DRI1 drivers removed from the codebase in August and I waited until now to complain because I wanted to see if the good changes like OpenGL3 would at least make it into the 8.0 release. My questions (mainly about r128) are the following: You can still build r128_dri.so from Mesa 7.11 and it will work with later Mesa libGLs fine. You just can't build it from Mesa 8.0 source anymore. To do a DRI2 driver you really need kms + memory manager support, anyone who looked at this for r128 said merging it into radeon as the best plan. Dave. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On 01/03/12 01:36 AM, Dave Airlie wrote: You can still build r128_dri.so from Mesa 7.11 and it will work with later Mesa libGLs fine. You just can't build it from Mesa 8.0 source anymore. Really? Even if no one updates r128 to stay compatible with new libGLs and no one updating libGL gives a second thought as to whether that update will break r128? I thought the whole point of removing DRI1 drivers is that most of you are too pressured to keep that promise. If the plan really is to update libGL carefully so that DRI1 drivers will always work with it, then it seems like their removal does nothing but save a few MB of space on the git server. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:25 PM, Connor Behan connor.be...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/03/12 01:36 AM, Dave Airlie wrote: You can still build r128_dri.so from Mesa 7.11 and it will work with later Mesa libGLs fine. You just can't build it from Mesa 8.0 source anymore. Really? Even if no one updates r128 to stay compatible with new libGLs and no one updating libGL gives a second thought as to whether that update will break r128? I thought the whole point of removing DRI1 drivers is that most of you are too pressured to keep that promise. If the plan really is to update libGL carefully so that DRI1 drivers will always work with it, then it seems like their removal does nothing but save a few MB of space on the git server. Thats the plan, some distros have to keep shipping older drivers, but also want to ship newer drivers. the libGL - driver interface is a lot more standard than the internal mesa-driver interfaces, and are not the same thing. Removing the drivers allowed major simplification of mesa internal interfaces not the GL-driver interface. It doesn't save any space on the git server since git holds all the history ever. Dave. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
Now I'm curious. Is it the case that every DRI1 driver *could be* a DRI2 driver with enough effort? Not talking about emulating hardware features. Patrick On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Dave Airlie airl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:25 PM, Connor Behan connor.be...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/03/12 01:36 AM, Dave Airlie wrote: You can still build r128_dri.so from Mesa 7.11 and it will work with later Mesa libGLs fine. You just can't build it from Mesa 8.0 source anymore. Really? Even if no one updates r128 to stay compatible with new libGLs and no one updating libGL gives a second thought as to whether that update will break r128? I thought the whole point of removing DRI1 drivers is that most of you are too pressured to keep that promise. If the plan really is to update libGL carefully so that DRI1 drivers will always work with it, then it seems like their removal does nothing but save a few MB of space on the git server. Thats the plan, some distros have to keep shipping older drivers, but also want to ship newer drivers. the libGL - driver interface is a lot more standard than the internal mesa-driver interfaces, and are not the same thing. Removing the drivers allowed major simplification of mesa internal interfaces not the GL-driver interface. It doesn't save any space on the git server since git holds all the history ever. Dave. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On 01/03/12 11:46 AM, Dave Airlie wrote: On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:25 PM, Connor Behanconnor.be...@gmail.com wrote: On 01/03/12 01:36 AM, Dave Airlie wrote: You can still build r128_dri.so from Mesa 7.11 and it will work with later Mesa libGLs fine. You just can't build it from Mesa 8.0 source anymore. Really? Even if no one updates r128 to stay compatible with new libGLs and no one updating libGL gives a second thought as to whether that update will break r128? I thought the whole point of removing DRI1 drivers is that most of you are too pressured to keep that promise. If the plan really is to update libGL carefully so that DRI1 drivers will always work with it, then it seems like their removal does nothing but save a few MB of space on the git server. Thats the plan, some distros have to keep shipping older drivers, but also want to ship newer drivers. the libGL - driver interface is a lot more standard than the internal mesa-driver interfaces, and are not the same thing. Removing the drivers allowed major simplification of mesa internal interfaces not the GL-driver interface. It doesn't save any space on the git server since git holds all the history ever. Dave. If you're doing this with distros in mind then I guess that relieves my fears about r128.ko. I don't know any distro that ships kernel modules in individual packages compiled for different kernel versions. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On Thu, 2012-03-01 at 13:56 -0600, Patrick Baggett wrote: Now I'm curious. Is it the case that every DRI1 driver could be a DRI2 driver with enough effort? Not talking about emulating hardware features. Patrick DRI2 impose nothing on hw capabilities. So any hw can do DRI2 even hw without 3d engine (see virtual gem for instance). Cheers, Jerome ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
Re: [Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:56 PM, Patrick Baggett baggett.patr...@gmail.com wrote: Now I'm curious. Is it the case that every DRI1 driver could be a DRI2 driver with enough effort? Not talking about emulating hardware features. In theory yes. in some situations its sub-optimal like low VRAM cards, since DRI1 was based around shared back/depth buffers, and DRI2 isn't. But then again DRI1 can't do compositing properly. like we've made a DRI2 driver out of radeon r100 which is pretty basic hardware. Dave. ___ mesa-dev mailing list mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev
[Mesa-dev] Four questions about DRI1 drivers
I am a first time mailing list joiner, long time user of exclusively
free video drivers. I was very upset to see the DRI1 drivers removed
from the codebase in August and I waited until now to complain because I
wanted to see if the good changes like OpenGL3 would at least make it
into the 8.0 release. My questions (mainly about r128) are the following:
1. If someone learns how to port a DRI1 driver to DRI2 and does this
(which in my case would take years), will it be accepted back into mesa?
Or would this person have to personally maintain r128_dri2.so forever
after with no help from other mesa developers?
2. Is there any realistic hope that a current mesa developer will
undertake this task? MostAwesomeDude spoke about looking into this one
day but says he does not have the time right now. Has this changed yet?
I should add that if your full time employer doesn't pay you to work on
mesa I'd be willing to pay you to work on this aspect of it.
3. Would hacking r128 into compatibility with DRI2 only require changes
to the mesa code or would one need to hack the kernel and the DDX as well?
4. In all honesty, are the 2D X drivers and DRM kernel modules
corresponding to the DRI1 drivers that got axed slated for removal as well?
==
Please don't think that I feel entitled to the fruits of your labour.
I'm sure many of you develop mesa on a volunteer basis and choose the
parts of the code that are interesting to you. I'm not saying that you
should work on something less enjoyable because the free software
community depends on you (even though it does) and I'm not asking you to
make regular updates to r128 or anything else. I just think that the
reasons for removing these drivers are based on enduring myths.
Myth: The drivers never worked to begin with. I haven't tried all of
them but I know r128, mga and i810 did. While my r128 driver was clearly
not perfect, it led to a dramatic performance increase with 3D
screensavers and video playback. Unlike radeon drivers that were being
worked on heavily, the r128 driver did not break for me with any mesa
update.
Myth: Nobody uses this hardware anymore. I'm not the only example of
someone who still uses an r128 card (in a laptop where it cannot be
upgraded). When phoronix covered this story some people who posted in
those forums had complaints that were similar to my own. Every time I
see the death sentence discussed in distro forums, there is at least one
person upset about support for one of their old cards being dropped. I
know this is a sampling bias because people happy with the changes tend
not to post but one of the triumphs of free software is that it can free
people from the endless cycle of having to upgrade hardware. Is it so
hard to believe that people save money because of this and want such
freedom to stay around?
Myth: People who use this hardware already have a system frozen in the
past. I use kernel 3.2.7, gcc 4.6.2, a 2012 ffmpeg build from git and a
2012 mplayer build from svn. If I have to freeze my mesa package at
7.11, it will become one of the first programs that I have to freeze.
Myth: Freezing mesa at 7.11 does no harm to users of legacy hardware.
I may be a special case here but I use r128 AND radeon hardware in the
same machine. When my laptop is docked I use an r500 card in the docking
station which would still benefit from updates to radeon. When my laptop
is not docked I need the r128 card to be functional.
Myth: Anyone who wants an old driver can maintain it. Sure I've told
people to patch their own programs before. When I suggest doing this on
a mailing list it's common to hear the groan but I don't {want, know
how} to. In the case of mesa though, I think it is justified as it's
hard enough for people with a decade of experience to maintain. Here's
an idea. If you want to drop r128 and never have to add a line of code
to it again and never have to worry about whether a diff to the mesa
core is going to break it, take the one time effort of making mesa
modular! Then I'll be able to download r128_dri.so source from another
site and neatly add it to a three-driver-mesa that is already installed.
Then when updates to mesa make this impossible, it will be my
responsibility to fix the source in this external tree. And in all
honesty, doing this on a case by case basis is the best way to make me
learn an unfamiliar API.
Okay, maybe the subject should've been four questions and five myths /
rants but when it comes to the myth arguments I have heard it all
before. Please try to answer my questions.
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