Re: XVR-1000 (Re: pkgin missing on repo sparc64)

[Julian Coleman <jdc%coris.org.uk@localhost>]

Hi,

> Hi, not specifically related to XVR-1000, but I'm curious as to how
> such a driver would integrate with NetBSD. For example, would this be a
> DRI driver that relies on existing framework in NetBSD? Would there
> need to be a separate X11 driver, or does X11 simply use NetBSD DRI?

We have a mix of DRI/DRM and non-DRI/DRM drivers in the tree now.  For
the ports using DRM (approximately the kernel part) the X server uses
DRI and it's also used by some applications, e.g. firefox.  Other ports
(and some drivers on DRM-enabled ports) use the older, non-DRM kernel
drivers and acceleration capabilities vary.

In summary, there would be both a kernel part and a userland part
(an X11 driver).  If a DRM driver exists, there is more logic in the
kernel.  Otherwise, most of the logic is in the X11 driver.

At the moment, none of the framebuffers we use on sparc64 use DRM, and
we don't have DRM in the sparc64 kernel.  Also, we rely on the upstream
DRM codebase, so we're unlikely to see any form of DRM for most of the
cards we have on sparc64 machines.  A lot of the cards (especially the
older ones) don't have the hardware capabilities for modern DRM, or we
don't have any documentation (as previously mentioned).

In theory, it should be possible to support DRM on the XVR-300 because
that is an ATI FireGL card and supported upstream.   That would require
porting the DRM code to sparc64 (it currently runs on x86 and arm).
However, that card is PCIe so only fits in a limited number of machines
(e.g. U25/U45).

Regards,

Julian