* Re: Getting X on Linux/SGI (2)
1997-06-18 8:21 ` Getting X on Linux/SGI (2) Martin Knoblauch
@ 1997-06-18 16:23 ` richard offer
1997-06-19 19:42 ` William J. Earl
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: richard offer @ 1997-06-18 16:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Martin Knoblauch; +Cc: linux
* $ from knobi@munich.sgi.com at "18-Jun:10:21am" | sed "1,$s/^/* /"
*
*
* [also changeing the subject]
*
* Larry McVoy wrote:
* >
* > : There are some very serious issues which come up even getting
* > : Xfree to a moderate level of acceleration.
* >
* > How about to a simple level of working? Without any acceleration?
* > For most people, just having xterms and netscape working is enough.
* >
* > I'm not a graphics or X person. Could someone who knows SGI's gfx
* > devices tell us how hard it would be to make the basics work?
* >
*
* Probably not that hard if we gave away the documentation
* (do we have *documentation*) on the GFX cards low level interfaces.
* The major problem to me seems that each different architecture
* (XL, XZ/Elan/Extreme, IMPACT, CRM) has different interfaces.
* I am not sure that you can find a minimal subset of calls
* to make a very simple Xserver work (is Peter Daifuku on this
* list ? Mark Kilgard?).
I'm fairly sure Peter isn't, and I haven't heard anything from Mark, so one
would guess not :-)
*
* Personally I think that we don't loose anything if we give away
* the stuff for the older boards (Newport, Express).
Unfortunetly we don't get to make these sorts of decisions :-(
* I am not
* sure, what we loose if we do the same for IMPACT/IR (OK, IR
* is probably not such a big deal :-)
*
*
* Questions:
*
* - How much HW dependent stuff is in Xsgi itself?
* - Which of the DSOs in /usr/lib/X11/dyDDX are minimally
* needed to bring up an non-GLX Xserver?
My guess would be none of them, on my system all I have is glx, speedo, type1
and xdps, all features of which I could live without---whether the server will
work without them is another thing. Although I hope it would, as there is no
way we can have xdps.
* - How much efforts would it cost to compile the dyDDX
* stuff for Linux and distribute the binaries only
* (assuming that there is not to much HW stuff in Xsgi itself)?
I can't answer any of these, this requires someone else from Peter's group
(jessb and corriero are the low-level hardware type people). I doubt if they
have much interest/bandwidth.
*
*
* And of course, we probably have to provide the microcode and
* loader for the different GFX cards.
*
* I definitely agree with Ariel, that this is the most important
* topic once we have Linux running stable.
Good, so we are all agreed then.
*
* Martin
* --
* +---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
* |Martin Knoblauch | Silicon Graphics GmbH |
* |Manager Technical Marketing | Am Hochacker 3 - Technopark |
* |Silicon Graphics Computer Systems| D-85630 Grasbrunn-Neukeferloh, FRG|
* |---------------------------------| Phone: (+int) 89 46108-179 or -0 |
* |http://reality.sgi.com/knobi | Fax: (+int) 89 46107-179 |
* +---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
* |e-mail: <knobi@munich.sgi.com> | VM: 6-333-8197 | M/S: IDE-3150 |
* +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
*
richard.
_____________________________________________________________________
The difference between 'wants' and 'needs' can clearly be expressed
as follows:-
You want the moon on a stick.
You need a damn good kicking.
Nhi Vanye:after "Fist of Fun"
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread* Re: Getting X on Linux/SGI (2)
1997-06-18 8:21 ` Getting X on Linux/SGI (2) Martin Knoblauch
1997-06-18 16:23 ` richard offer
@ 1997-06-19 19:42 ` William J. Earl
1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: William J. Earl @ 1997-06-19 19:42 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Martin Knoblauch; +Cc: Larry McVoy, John Wiederhirn, linux
Martin Knoblauch writes:
> [also changeing the subject]
>
> Larry McVoy wrote:
> >
> > : There are some very serious issues which come up even getting
> > : Xfree to a moderate level of acceleration.
> >
> > How about to a simple level of working? Without any acceleration?
> > For most people, just having xterms and netscape working is enough.
> >
> > I'm not a graphics or X person. Could someone who knows SGI's gfx
> > devices tell us how hard it would be to make the basics work?
> >
>
> Probably not that hard if we gave away the documentation
> (do we have *documentation*) on the GFX cards low level interfaces.
> The major problem to me seems that each different architecture
> (XL, XZ/Elan/Extreme, IMPACT, CRM) has different interfaces.
> I am not sure that you can find a minimal subset of calls
> to make a very simple Xserver work (is Peter Daifuku on this
> list ? Mark Kilgard?).
The kernel graphics driver is quite complex, although that is in
large part due to the support for direct rendering in GL. The
hardware, except for Starter, XL, and O2, requires downloaded firmware.
Fortunately, basic firmware is downloaded by the PROM, so that it can
write on the screen. I believe that an X server can simply do the
same operations as the PROM, in regard to manipulating the frame buffer,
using the firmware interfaces. I have to investigate this in more
detail, however.
...
> - How much HW dependent stuff is in Xsgi itself?
> - Which of the DSOs in /usr/lib/X11/dyDDX are minimally
> needed to bring up an non-GLX Xserver?
> - How much efforts would it cost to compile the dyDDX
> stuff for Linux and distribute the binaries only
> (assuming that there is not to much HW stuff in Xsgi itself)?
The interfaces are very different. I tried mixing IRIX X server
and XFree86 X server source and did not get very far.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread