Re: Call for Foundation-supported Project Ideas
- In reply to: Stefan Blachmann : "Re: Call for Foundation-supported Project Ideas"
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Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2021 14:04:14 UTC
On 11/24/21 03:57, Stefan Blachmann 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. I'd be VERY happy to test your script. Especially on my Intel+AMD iMac that's always been troublesome. It would be a big improvement over what I'm using even without multihead support. Let's discuss more in private. Cheers, JB -- All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. -- Francois Fenelon