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Luc's Modular Mesa Drivers Fall On Deaf Ears

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  • Luc's Modular Mesa Drivers Fall On Deaf Ears

    Phoronix: Luc's Modular Mesa Drivers Fall On Deaf Ears

    Three days ago we reported on Luc Verhaegen and his expedition of modularizing Mesa and its DRI drivers following his talk last month at FOSDEM concerning the ways of cleaning up the Linux graphics driver stack. While we were early to report on Luc's work, yesterday he announced his modularized DRI drivers and Mesa SDK on the Mesa3D development list, but his work has fallen on deaf ears...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    IMO it's too soon to write this off. As far as I know Luc is presenting this as being "a better approach all things considered" (ie it has more benefits than drawbacks), not a quick fix to an urgent problem the developers face every day.

    If I were a developer up to my a$$ in KMS/GEM/TTM/DRI2 alligators I wouldn't be spending time looking at this right now either, but I sure would come back and look hard at it in a month or two when the spring distro releases had settled down.

    I wasn't able to get to FOSDEM so I can't comment on how the initial presentation went but from everything else I have seen this seems to have some good ideas that may get picked up over time.

    The big question, which I don't know if anyone has answered, is whether the interfaces between core code and HW drivers changes more than the interface between HW driver components. Certainly the last year has seen a lot of changes between the components in a given HW driver stack, which argues strongly for the modularization model Luc is describing - the question is whether that is likely to still be the case after the architectural transitions of the last couple of years settle down, or whether the code base is more likely to see more "change a piece of Mesa and 6 HW drivers at the same time but don't touch ddx or libdrm" architectural work, which would suggest that something closer to the current model might be more appropriate.

    Either way, it seems to me that we need to find ways to make the open source driver stack more accessible to new developers, and while I know that the current "hands-on" developers understand it very well I do have to say as a relative newcomer that "it sure isn't intuitive for the new folks" and it does seem like at least some of Luc's proposal could help to lower the entry threshold and help to increase the size of the developer community.

    My 2 cents, anyways.
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    • #3
      $&^$&*%^ - I really don't think we're getting a full minute to edit. I feel cheated
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      • #4
        Originally posted by bridgman View Post
        $&^$&*%^ - I really don't think we're getting a full minute to edit. I feel cheated
        true. maybe we should be able to edit until somebody responds to our post.

        i also feel like it's too early to expect any replies. also, it might mean that devs have no problems with Luc's work so far (a bit of LKML tradition )

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        • #5
          Originally posted by bridgman View Post
          IMO it's too soon to write this off.
          I came here to post just that, so I obviously second this These big structural decisions take time to be made and even longer to go in. QUite frankly, I think Michael is trying to help by raising the issue.

          Either way, it seems to me that we need to find ways to make the open source driver stack more accessible to new developers
          That, and many other reasons why modular is better: easier to find bugs, easier to distribute, easier to add components, easier to distribute work, avoiding the "cut and paste" bug (modular code is a lot more reusable).

          I am not familiar with the details, so any guru is welcome to tell me to back off, but this sounds like a good thing and I hope it goes through!

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          • #6
            Originally posted by yoshi314 View Post
            true. maybe we should be able to edit until somebody responds to our post
            Again, it's just a temporary spam-combating measure but working to fix it.
            Michael Larabel
            https://www.michaellarabel.com/

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Michael View Post
              Again, it's just a temporary spam-combating measure but working to fix it.
              It's not working very well, though, Michael... Just flagged a new spam post in the gaming section today.

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              • #8
                Akismet. Works just as well for forum posts as it does for blog comments. Been using it on a few forums for a couple years now and I can't even remember the last spam post I had to delete. You may need to pay for a commercial license though.

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