Re: [Mesa3d-users] Mesa & GeForce 3

[Stephen J B. <sj...@li...>]

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, Erik Stambaugh wrote:

> > > First, my understanding was that the NVidia-GLX package was actually
> > > their own mangled version of the Mesa drivers.
> >
> > No - it is actually a "mangled" version of their own M$ Windoze
> > OpenGL driver.  AFAIK, it has no relation to Mesa at all.
>
> Eugh.  I think I need to go wash my hands now.

Well, perhaps we should say "The Linux and Windoze drivers are derived
from a common source" - then it's just a small step to saying "The Windoze
drivers are derived from the Linux drivers" - and then we can be much
happier!  :-)

> Actually, I just looked over the README and the only reference I could
> find to the Mesa drivers is that Quake uses a symlink to them which
> has to be changed.

There is this:

 "Q: When I install the NVIDIA_GLX package it says:
     --- The above file(s) possibly belong to a conflicting MESA rpm.
     --- They have been renamed to xxx.<originalFile>.RPMSAVE to
     --- avoid conflicting with the files contained within this
     --- package.
     --- Please see the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS section of
     --- /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README for more details.
   What's wrong?

  A: Like the message says conflicting files have been moved aside to
   insure that your applications find the newly installed OpenGL
   libraries.  There is no need for alarm, the message is purely
   informational.  If you uninstall the NVIDIA_GLX package then the
   original files will be restored automatically."

...so I guess your are right.

> Technically, that's not what I have, I guess.  I have the complete
> Mesa libraries installed, mostly for things like GLUT and GLU.  The
> NVidia package installs only some basic core stuff.  Everything it
> installs should be deleted, but the package seems to take care of it
> fairly well without intervention.

Well, GLUT *isn't* technically a part of Mesa - it wasn't developed by
the Mesa team and it's not released under the same license.  It's
merely delivered alongside the demo programs and such.

You can download GLUT by itself from www.opengl.org somewhere - or use
the OpenSourced version 'freeglut' from freeglut.sf.net

But GLU is provided in the Mesa distro as a part of Mesa - I'm a little
suprised it's not included in the nVidia distro.  I don't recall *which*
version of GLU is currently distributed - one is truly an OpenSource/Mesa
effort - the other was donated from the SGI reference implementation
of OpenGL and wasn't really developed by the Mesa team.

> I always considered that *technically* using Mesa, even if not in
> complete form.

Well - just marginally.

Most people would understand "I'm using Mesa" to mean "I'm linking
to the Mesa version of libGL.so" ...but I guess that's just because
that's where all the work is.

> > The headers are in fact standardized for both Mesa and the nVidia
> > drivers - they both come from www.opengl.org where the officially
> > blessed header files originate from.
>
> Right, and upon checking, the headers themselves are actually
> different between the two.

Yeah - but not by much - and they *ARE* supposed to be compatible.

----
Steve Baker                      (817)619-2657 (Vox/Vox-Mail)
L3Com/Link Simulation & Training (817)619-2466 (Fax)
Work: sj...@li...           http://www.link.com
Home: sjb...@ai...       http://www.sjbaker.org