Re: Call for Foundation-supported Project Ideas

On Wed, 24 Nov 2021 10:57:18 +0100
Stefan Blachmann <sblachmann@gmail.com> wrote:

> Proposal:
> Clean up the xorg graphics card/driver list and remove these ones that
> do no longer work.
> 
> Explanation:
> 
> On 11/24/21, Jason Bacon <bacon4000@gmail.com> wrote:
> > One hurdle I've not yet been able to conquer is automatic GPU
> > configuration.  The best I've been able to do so far is an interactive
> > script that requires some rather technical decisions from the users:
> >
> > It would be really nice is we could replace this with a simple, maybe
> > even automated tool to configure a working Xorg setup on most common
> > hardware.  Wouldn't matter to me if it falls back on scfb or vesa in
> > many cases, as long as it's easy to use and produces a working desktop.
> >
> > Bonus points for not requiring a reboot to properly activate the DRM
> > module.
> >
> > I wouldn't obsess about making it work on *all* hardware off-the-bat.  I
> > think it would be more fruitful to first develop a system that works
> > *really* well on the most common hardware.  Then we have a product that
> > people will want, which will help recruit the people we'll need to work
> > on expanding hardware support.
> 
> I have done this already.
> My script does autodetect and autoconfigure *all* graphics cards/chips
> for which are drivers available in FreeBSD.
> It also works with multiple graphics cards, autodetecting whether they
> can work together or not (when drivers cannot coexist).
> The script is not yet ready for release, as autoconfiguring multi-head
> configurations (eg multi-monitor configurations either with multiple
> GPU outputs and/or multiple graphics cards) is still WIP.
> (If you are interested in this topic anyway, please either mail me
> directly or open a separate discussion thread.)
> 
> However, the problem is that some drivers can no longer work because
> libxaa.so (and maybe other xorg libs, too) has been removed upstream
> 10 years ago already.
> See this for more info: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=257417
> 
> This is the background of my proposal:
> - Test all graphics drivers on real hardware whether they are still
> functional in currently-supported FreeBSD releases
> - Remove all those drivers that can no longer work because xorg
> upstream dropped support.
> - Feed back to xorg upstrean so they can obsolete/remove these now
> useless drivers.
> 
> I'd certainly be more motivated to do this if it is being sponsored,
> as I have already collected most (except for a few very rare and
> expensive AGP graphics cards) of the hardware in question.
> Because, 1. it needs some money to obtain these lacking (past
> high-end, mainly workstation usage) cards, and 2. it takes some time
> to walk through them and test every and each of these.
> 

 There isn't much to test, everything that isn't needed by radeonkms,
amdgpu or i915kms should die.

-- 
Emmanuel Vadot <manu@bidouilliste.com> <manu@FreeBSD.org>