Re: [Dri-devel] Getting Rid of X Server in DRI

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Daryll Strauss wrote:
> 
> I've been thinking about this and talking to a few people about it, and
> the more I think about it the more I think getting rid of the X server
> is the wrong answer.
> 
> Keith Packard has been working on a project to shrink the X server. It
> is included in the XFree86 work. I'm told that it 600k on the Itsy. (The
> Itsy is Compaq's prototype Strong ARM PDA, which has 32MB) It seems
> that's reasonable for even embedded devices. He does it by using a much
> simplier intermediate layer in the X server.
> 
> Therefore it seems to me to be better to use that as a base, and adapt
> that as needed. It gets you all of X, but you don't need to use that if
> you don't want to. You will have it there if you do.
> 

Off the top of my head, here are the main reasons we would be interested
in a non-X version of DRI:

1) ** KEY ISSUE ** Eliminate any performance bottlenecks the XServer may
be causing.  Since we are 3D only, any extraneous locking/unlocking,
periodic refreshes of the (hidden) 2D portion of the display, etc., will
cause unexpected slowdowns.
2) Eliminate wasted system memory requirements.
3) Eliminate on-card font/pixmap/surface/etc caches that just waste
memory.
4) Eliminate the need for extra peripherals, such as mice.
5) Reduction in the amount of software necessary to install/maintain on
a customer's system.  Certainly none of my customers would have been
able to install XFree 4.0 on their own.

There are probably more.  In the end, we want the fastest possible
pipeline from our app to the 3D graphics hardware, with the wholesale
elimination of those things that are not required, or stand in the way
of performance.  Maybe tinyX will achieve the above... do you have an
URL for that project?

What is not clear to me, is what the impact of the Xserver is on the 3D
graphics pipeline.  If it is "none", then there is little need for
further work (in our case).

---
Michael M. Morrison
VP/Chief Technical Officer
Hyperion Technologies, Inc.