Re: [Mesa3d-users] Using Mesa 3d without an X server

[Tom C. <tom...@go...>]

> The MESA_screen_surface spec hasn't been touched in a few years, but
> it's probably pretty close to being workable and implementable.  Some
> code was written to support it but not finished, like the rest of Mesa's
> EGL code.  I suspect we'll get back to it one of these days...

The extension's great if all you want is have a single client access
the graphics hardware. It falls down if other processes want to use
the graphics hardware too. I.e. It's not possible to write a window
system using EGL (which is what I want to do :-)). What could make
this possible however is if other clients render into off-screen
buffers and the window system's process is then able to access those
off-screen buffers and draw them to the screen. I think I'm right in
saying there's 2 ways to render into an off-screen buffer for this
purpose: (1) a texture bindable pbuffer (the render_texture extension)
and (2) a framebuffer (the GL_EXT_framebuffer_object extension).

I envisage a client obtaining a handle/id/address of an off-screen
buffer it's just rendered into and passing it to the server via some
form of IPC mechenism. The server then uses the handle/id/address and
draws the client's off-screen buffer onto the screen possibly using
some fancy animated transition. :-)

Am I dreaming? Would it be easier/better to implement a new window
system using the gallium interface? What docs do people recommend I
read to understand this better?


Cheers,

Tom