Re: [parisc-linux] Re: [OT] ALSA userspace API complexity

Alan Cox
2006-01-05T14:56:19Z

On Iau, 2006-01-05 at 15:21 +0100, Olivier Galibert wrote:
> historical and political reasons, not technical ones. When
> performance raises its ugly head and you end up having to listen to
> engineers again you end up with DRI and that:
>
> Module Size Used by
> nvidia 3464380 12

That isn't DRI. DRI is a good deal smaller than the crazy nvidia stuff.

radeon 81089 1
drm 83433 2 radeon

.. speaks volumes doesn't it 8)

> X is a beautiful example of how things should not have been done. Its
> only redeeming quality is that it exists and works, and that's
> definitively a non-negligible one.

X servers have been implemented a variety of ways involving mixed user
and kernel space environments, user space only, pure kernel space, and
even downloading the server onto a graphics coprocessor and talking X
protocol to it.

The actual performance properties are heavily dependant upon the
architecture of the cards of the period. The flavour of the past few
years is the DMA command stream which happens to lend itself well to
splitting rendering between the kernel and user space.

Alan