Re: X on XVR-100

[Erik Fair <fair%netbsd.org@localhost>]

What you're both sneaking up on is a standard kernel API for graphics,  
so that it has all the information about the state of the FB/GPU, and  
can "do the right thing" as the situation requires. Naturally, this  
means excluding X11 (and everything else in userland) from whacking  
the hardware directly, while simultaneously exposing all of the  
functionality of any given GPU behind a properly authenticated/ 
protected interface.

OpenGL, anyone?

The hard part is defining any kind of stable API here, because the  
GPUs keep swallowing functionality whole, and once they're right under  
your API (no kernel software required), you suddenly have to move the  
API higher to keep everything that the GPU can do for you available to  
the userland through the API.

Our problem is that this sort of effort requires resource that the  
NetBSD project probably can't muster, which leaves us with X11, such  
as it is, and making nasty compromises to support it.

        not a graphics guy, but ...

        Erik <fair%netbsd.org@localhost>