Re: [Qemu-devel] GSoC 2011: S3 Trio, AHCI

[Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com>]

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:36:12 +0200
Roland Elek <elek.roland@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Qemu developers,
> 
> First, I'd like to reintroduce myself, as my university and official 
> duties prevented me from being active in the community since last year. 
> I am Roland Elek, a student from Hungary, and a successful student 
> participant of Google Summer of Code 2010. This year, I would like to 
> participate again. I know I'm a bit late, but I'm still hoping to get 
> things arranged before the deadline.
> 
> Last year, I worked on AHCI emulation with Alex as my mentor. Do you 
> think a proper summer project could be proposed from what is still 
> missing? If so, can I kindly ask someone to give me some pointers to 
> what the project needs the most, and where I should look first for 
> things to include in my proposal? Also, if the idea is feasible, would 
> there be someone who could be my mentor?

The process is the same, you choose a project from the list (or come with
yours own), contact the suggested mentor to talk about the project and
then submit your proposal.

Ideas page:

 http://wiki.qemu.org/Google_Summer_of_Code_2011

> Last year, I was also interested in working on S3 Trio emulation. This 
> year, the same idea is on the ideas list. The hardware is pretty 
> thoroughly documented through source code and textual documentation, and 
> I'm already familiar with adding PCI devices to Qemu, so I do see a 
> rough outline of how I would implement it.
> 
> However, last year, Paul Brook commented [1] that he wasn't convinced 
> about the usefulness of emulating an S3 Trio or Virge card, because of 
> performance reasons. He suggested that accelerating the 2D engine would 
> be tricky because the framebuffer is exposed to the guest. This might be 
> just me not fully understanding his point, but isn't this also the case 
> with the Cirrus Logic GD5446 card?
> 
> He also suggested paravirtualization for 3D acceleration. Do you think 
> it would make a good summer project?

I can't comment on these issues, CC'ing Paul, Anthony and Stefan.

> 
> Thank you in advance for your help.
> 
> Regards,
> Roland
> 
> [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2010-04/msg00012.html
>