FreeBSD Is Slowly But Surely Trying To Catch Up With Linux Graphics Drivers
As most Phoronix readers know, the graphics drivers found in FreeBSD badly lag behind the Linux graphics drivers -- it wasn't until FreeBSD 9.1 that Intel KMS support came and with FreeBSD 10.0 is when Radeon support landed just a number of months ago. However, the code snapshots used are already sharply out-of-date. During Jean-Sébastien's talk today in Bordeaux, he covered their challenges and the progress their making in porting these graphics drivers to FreeBSD from Linux.
Some takeaways from the presentation include:
- The Intel i915 code is soon to be updated and the DRM device-independent code from Linux 3.8 is ready -- yes, about ten releases behind upstream.
- With the upcoming FreeBSD 10.1 there is hardware context support for the Intel DRM driver.
- The FreeBSD 10.1 graphics stack in FreeBSD Ports include X.Org Server 1.12, xf86-video-intel 2.21, and xf86-video-ati 7.x. With their new Xorg stack they're now using Mesa 9.1 rather than Mesa 7.6.
- FreeBSD has just two developers in the kernel and two developers in Ports relating to their graphics code. Of these developers there is a lack of X11 expertise and understanding the graphics hardware, including low confidence in some of their changes.
- Future work includes finishing to sync DRM/drivers from Linux 3.8, sync from the Linux 3.10 kernel changes when time allows, implement DMA-BUF and PRIME support, and to import Nouveau when time permits.
- FreeBSD also wants to land libgbm and Clover support for GPGPU.
- Additionally, to potentially allow a root-less X Server by coming up with a workable alternative to systemd's logind that's needed for the root-less server.
- Wayland packaging is still planned for FreeBSD.
Find out more about the FreeBSD graphics stack via the PDF slides from XDC2014 Bordeaux.
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