Will Intel Completely Drop Support For EXA?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Will Intel Completely Drop Support For EXA?

Earlier this month Intel had pushed out the xf86-video-intel 2.7 graphics driver that brought a variety of new features and fixes. This 2.7 X.Org driver has been rolled into Intel's "2009Q1 Package" along with Mesa 7.4 plus a few more patches, the Linux 2.6.29.1 kernel plus a few more patches, and libdrm 2.4.9...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzIyNA

[myxal]

Therefore, if the EXA support is indeed stripped out of future Intel driver releases, but you are still running an older kernel, you will need to upgrade your kernel if you wish to upgrade your Intel driver and still have 2D acceleration.

Does anyone even update their video drivers? Of those people, how many don't update the kernel?

I fail to see how this is different from the usual goings-on - wouldn't the bumped dependancies on new X server, drm etc.. do the same?

[FieserKiller]

Does anyone even update their video drivers? Of those people, how many don't update the kernel?

Very good point, indeed. I update my intel drivers regularly to get rid of bugs and improve 3d performance. Everyone who does this, updates his kernel and mesa packages, too. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense.

If anyone cares about intel graphic driver updates, he already uses UXA, kms, dri2 and updates all components regularly. If, like most people, the user does not care about the newest and hottest i915 driver updates, its simply up to the distributor to release stable combinations of that components and setting X11 to UXA, EXA, XAA, whatever.

So, I don't see any problems with intel dropping EXA in future, the distributions will simply have to either keep using old drivers or update their packages for full dri2/UXA compatibility.

[Craig73]

For clarity ... with "GEM is based off of the EXA API" I assume you meant UXA is based off of EXA.

And I agree... that either the drivers that came with your distribution worked well enough or you are likely updating many components of the graphics stack.

[IanW]

2nd paragraph:-

so that point is mute unless you want to build

Typo - should be "moot" not "mute".

[tbfly]

Phoronix: Will Intel Completely Drop Support For EXA?

Earlier this month Intel had pushed out the xf86-video-intel 2.7 graphics driver that brought a variety of new features and fixes. This 2.7 X.Org driver has been rolled into Intel's "2009Q1 Package" along with Mesa 7.4 plus a few more patches, the Linux 2.6.29.1 kernel plus a few more patches, and libdrm 2.4.9...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzIyNA

In fact, it has been done. Remove EXA support in git code.

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/commit/?id=fa81ae1637bfd7b73b43355b78c88a9b84c0393c

[Craig73]

In fact, it has been done. Remove EXA support in git code.

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/dri...c88a9b84c0393c

I see this as a good thing... now to get their test suite running on my machine to help support 855GME