Intel's Poulsbo Driver A Bloody Mess?

[Svartalf]

Note that the PowerVR SGX stuff is used in much more then just the Dell Mini-12.

It's used in other architectures. For example the OMAP3 being used in the OpenPandora Handheld and the developer oriented BeagleBoard has the PowerVR SGX chipset.

Thankfully (it's a mixed bag, though...), the OMAP3 crowd has drivers written by Imagination Technologies and the GPL compatible kernel wedges showed up last month. The Pandora kernel team's working on verification of things right now on that front. We have working 3D that works against modern kernels and distributions...for now...

So it's especially bad because the proprietary x86 driver won't work in x86-64, nor will it work in the ARM platform. People shipping PowerVR-based graphics in ARM will need their own, seperate, proprietary Linux driver.

Actually... They will only need ONE driver. The one TI's providing to people right at the moment- there's a GPLed kernel wedge and then two proprietary ES 1.1 and 2.0 API libraries you link against. This is for ANYTHING using the OMAP3 right at the moment, including Beagleboard, Pandora, and Nokia's N9XX series devices.

It's still a problem, but it's not as bad as you're making out to be. I'd dearly love beyond words to see ImgTec turn around and provide info on how to push the limits on their chip. But, that's not happening and as long as they're doing the "right thing" a' la NVidia, for now, that'll work.

It's a clusterf*k alright. With a open source driver you'd be able to update your code as well as created a unified driver that will be easily made to work across lots of different devices irregardless of the actual architecture.

You're preaching to the choir. VIA's apparently figured this one out. Intel's done it too (They can't do it with the GMA500 as it's NOT theirs to do it with, but with the other GMA's and Larabee, they are...). Same with AMD- and it's the one with the most potential and promise on the desktop. It's just Imagination, NVidia, and S3 that're being a pain right at the moment.

[HyperDrive]

well the pandora it is supported
by the imtec drives
i don't nou way intel did not use the imtec Linux drives
they are bloop drives still they work far better than the intel tungsten drivers
p.s pandora people have the drives and they did show a 3d demo

I'm sorry, but if you're referring to the Byterapers' Treed3D 2.0 demo, it's using the crippled*, closed source OpenGL ES 2.0 driver. Intel commissioned the development of their own driver because there was actually no (full) OpenGL implementation available for the SGX series.

* The PowerVR SGX specifications exceed the OpenGL 3.0 (not ES!) requirements.

[argor]

Ow... that just completely crushed my enthusiasm for getting a Pandora. My eee may be technically inferior, but at least I know it's supported...

well the pandora it is supported
by the imtec drives
i don't nou way intel did not use the imtec Linux drives
they are bloop drives still they work far better than the intel tungsten drivers
p.s pandora people have the drives and they did show a 3d demo

[jonwil]

It wouldnt surprise me if there are some customers (either those building PowerVR IP into their SoCs/chipsets/etc or those building actual devices featuring chips containing PowerVR IP) that would rather NOT see open source drivers for the PowerVR stuff in their chips/devices.

[zapp42]

Thanks for bringing this up.

To complete this mess, Intel does not have only one badly(non?) functioning, closed-source GMA500 driver... No! They have two closed-sourced, bad functioning GMA500 drivers:

Intel Embedded Graphics Driver (IEGD)

http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/swsup/graphics_drivers.htm

[EmbraceUnity]

Since this driver seems to be in such poor shape, perhaps they should cease work on it and instead start from scratch on a Gallium3D driver.

Unless off course the idea from MostAwesemeDude pans out.

Still, the more Gallium3D drivers we have, the less driver maintenance needed in the future.

[sreyan]

Oh it seems that the palm pre, and nokia's successor to the n810 are also expected to have PowerVR SGX cores.

Maybe if there is enough interested and enough developers here we can form a group to create fully free drivers for the hardware? It would probably help if there were people willing who have done X.org driver development and someone who was familiar with clean room reverse engineering.

[sreyan]

I think the problem here is more Imagination Technologies than Intel, and Intel is far from being their only customer. Without convincing them, the options for proper support are going to be limited. The PowerVR variant in Dreamcast has been pretty well reverse-engineered, but I don't know how similar it is to the current stuff.

I think the Sega Dreamcast uses a PowerVR Series 2 chipset whereas the PowerVR SGX 535 used by intel is a Series 5 chipset. I don't know how similar they are.

[mirza]

Intel credibility

This thing certainly hurts established "Everything Intel Just Works (TM)" mentality inside Linux community. Sometimes it is incredible how short-sighted moves can be done by such huge companies

[MostAwesomeDude]

First, to keep hopes from getting too high, there is not any work on this, nor is any work planned. That said...

My employer, Oregon State University, is deploying a series of handhelds, called the OSWALD, which has a similar chipset (GMA 535, same as Beagle Board.) We have discussed the matter, and if we take care of the basic obligations, such as distro management and package generation, and get all the other chips up and running in a timely manner, we can talk to the legal advisors and see whether or not REing the Texas Instrument blob for that chipset would be something that the university could fund.

This is all still theoretical, of course. But it is possible.