The Fight Over Merging Drivers Back Into X Server

[tettamanti]

One point, drivers need to be tested. And what says there is going to be somebody every time for every driver to test and make this change?
Or have the necessary time to debug unforeseen things?
Driver compat code for various versions allows easy to change api/abi.

The problem is that the compat code for older versions is unlikely to get much testing and may not be working at all. Another more subtle problem is that a newer driver may depend on a fix in the server, so - yes - the new driver compiles and loads fine on the on older server but may not work properly.

[scuba]

Maybe I am missing something but what about Wayland and others? - All X-servers will be dependent on having video drivers working, so why be locked to Xorg to release new versions of the drivers?

[bridgman]

Maybe I am missing something but what about Wayland and others? - All X-servers will be dependent on having video drivers working, so why be locked to Xorg to release new versions of the drivers?

The discussion is only about moving the X drivers back, isn't it ? Not mesa and kernel drivers ?

If so, only X uses the X drivers anyways.

[TheBlackCat]

That's not the problem, at least as I understand it.

You should read the post directly above mine. This is exactly what the post was talking about. There were also complaints about this in the mailing list discussion.

[leif81]

Wayland is upcoming. Moving gfx drivers into xorg will mean wayland will have to copy-paste or start from scratch.

Exactly what I was wondering.

[TechMage89]

Wayland is upcoming. Moving gfx drivers into xorg will mean wayland will have to copy-paste or start from scratch.

Uhm, X.Org drivers have nothing to do with Wayland anyhow. Wayland uses DRM modesetting, which is in the kernel tree, and mesa, which is it's own project.

Also, Wayland with *never* replace X. It does something fundamentally different. It is essentially a display manager, not a complete graphical server. Now, perhaps the display management in Xorg can use Wayland, but that's a different proposition.

[Azpegath]

Uhm, X.Org drivers have nothing to do with Wayland anyhow. Wayland uses DRM modesetting, which is in the kernel tree, and mesa, which is it's own project.

Also, Wayland with *never* replace X. It does something fundamentally different. It is essentially a display manager, not a complete graphical server. Now, perhaps the display management in Xorg can use Wayland, but that's a different proposition.

I'm actually still rooting (and I'm probably the only one) for an X12 protocol with a refurbished/renovated/re-factored Xorg. We really love renovating in Sweden (everybody does it the second they buy a house or apartment). Even though Wayland is probably awesome (haven't tried it yet) and the shizznitz, isn't it possible to let Xorg evolve a generation? Think about this, with a deep voice-over and flying shards of glass: Xorg: NextGen. Introooducing X12!

[smitty3268]

I'm actually still rooting (and I'm probably the only one) for an X12 protocol with a refurbished/renovated/re-factored Xorg. We really love renovating in Sweden (everybody does it the second they buy a house or apartment). Even though Wayland is probably awesome (haven't tried it yet) and the shizznitz, isn't it possible to let Xorg evolve a generation? Think about this, with a deep voice-over and flying shards of glass: Xorg: NextGen. Introooducing X12!

Why?

The only thing X12 gives you is an opportunity to change the API - which is exactly what Wayland also gives you. Better to move completely to a new design rather than trying to shoehorn it onto an older approach, IMO. If the point is to keep backwards compatibility around, then there is no point moving to X12 in the first place - just add extra APIs into X11 as things are already done.

[Azpegath]

Why?

The only thing X12 gives you is an opportunity to change the API - which is exactly what Wayland also gives you. Better to move completely to a new design rather than trying to shoehorn it onto an older approach, IMO. If the point is to keep backwards compatibility around, then there is no point moving to X12 in the first place - just add extra APIs into X11 as things are already done.

But a huge cleanup of X11 wouldn't hurt, would it? Like the things they talked about a year ago. It doesn't have to break everything, but would allow for evolution, deprecation and better design choices within Xorg.

[crazycheese]

The people who test the drivers will continue to do so after this change - the difference for most folk is xorg-server will be updated too (I'm taking about the PPA folk) for the folk like me who deals directly with Git - it might be a bit of a pain to set up but it won't be the end of the world

With cherry picking to old xorg versions there's no reason why new hardware couldn't be added or bug fixes either for that matter

This change will not affect Wayland what so ever - Wayland doesn't use the DDX driver only the DRM kernel stuff and Mesa

Also unless we're willing to contribute we can't really dictate how development should take place

We're all happy with the stripping of the old code from the Intel DDX. We're mostly happy with the removal of the drivers and the general clean-up of mesa. Why don't we just trust the dev's to do what's best for the code.

Each driver will only have to work with with the current xorg-server which will massively reduce the number of combinations to test down to 1

This WILL give us better drivers in the long run

This ain?t really correct either.