Re: Linux Graphics Architecture - later, I guess

Shawn Leas (sleas@ixion.honeywell.com)
Sun, 7 Feb 1999 18:29:25 -0600 (CST)


On Sun, 7 Feb 1999, Ben Bridgwater wrote:

> Apart from lack of time, I think it'll be a *long* time until there's a portable
> XFree-based solution to what I want to do (direct graphics writing from an X
> client). Even if/when they provide direct rendering for local X clients, they're
> still going to have to tackle the fundamental issue of multiple programs (in this
> case multiple X clients plus the server) contending for the graphics hardware. If
> this contention were solved with mutexes in the rendering engine, then that would
> probably require multi-threading in the server to overcome the client fairness
> problems is would create...

You are quite convincing.

> I'm rather puzzled why there appears to be so little interest in what seems to be
> the obvious solution of Linux adopting graphics device drivers, and solving the
> contention issue once and for all. I can understand purists who say "all Linux
> graphics should be via X", but a device driver approach would help X purists
> just as much (client rendering, server porting, platform stability, etc.) as
> people who have other needs for it.

Well, there's the uninformed and ignorant, then there are those who would
have to support it, or at least take support for it under his wing. I have
the distinct impression that Linus sees it as bloat. (I don't, but I'm not
Linus)

> Presumably with the release of 2.2 and introduction of framebuffers, this
> hardware contention is going to become much more of an issue. I'm guessing there
> will be people who will actually want to *use* the framebuffer in parallel with
> X, not just have it "mode switch compatible"... and there's only going to be one
> way to fix those problems! ;-)

I like that people like you exist!

-Shawn
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