From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by neteng.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id JAA13770; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:24:54 -0700 Return-Path: Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) id JAA19944 for linux-list; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:24:37 -0700 Received: from morgaine.engr.sgi.com (morgaine.engr.sgi.com [130.62.16.64]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id JAA19932 for ; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:24:35 -0700 Received: (from offer@localhost) by morgaine.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) id JAA16676; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:23:50 -0700 From: offer@sgi.com (richard offer) Message-Id: <9706180923.ZM16569@sgi.com> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 09:23:49 -0700 In-Reply-To: Martin Knoblauch "Getting X on Linux/SGI (2)" (Jun 18, 10:21am) References: <199706180637.XAA09017@neteng.engr.sgi.com> <33A79A89.1CFB@munich.sgi.com> X-Signature: Automatically generated by Richards Own Mail Signer (roms) X-Home-Page: http://reality.sgi.com/offer X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.3 08feb96 MediaMail) To: Martin Knoblauch Subject: Re: Getting X on Linux/SGI (2) Cc: linux@morgaine.engr.sgi.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk * $ 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: | 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"