Re: DRM/KMS: countdown started

[Taylor R Campbell <campbell+netbsd-tech-userlevel%mumble.net@localhost>]

> Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2023 11:35:50 +0200
> From: tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost
> 
> Severing will be the first thing done. Whether I will be able, in this
> first stage, to allow, from this newly created branch, to still
> optionally use the current implementation of DRM/KMS is an open
> question, and this goal is beyond the objectives of the first stage.

You know you can just omit the drm drivers from the kernel, right?
For example, on amd64:

no i915drmkms* at pci?
no radeon* at pci?
no nouveau* at pci?
#no amdgpu* at pci?   # (not even enabled by default on amd64)

You can also disable them at boot-time with userconf, and you'll get a
dumb pci framebuffer with genfb instead:

   > boot -c
   userconf> disable i915drmkms
   userconf> disable radeon
   userconf> disable nouveau
   userconf> quit

Same for the Arm boards that use the drm modesetting APIs, like
tilcdc(4) and tifb(4).  But you'd have to rewrite all those drivers --
and test them on a menagerie of Arm boards where the drm stuff has
already been tested and works and has very small maintenance burden at
this point.

I think you'll find you've misplaced where the painful parts of all
this are, but go ahead...