Re: [Glide-devel] Linux kernel Staging Drivers project -- 3dfx

[Hans de G. <j.w...@hh...>]

Guillem Jover wrote:
> [ Adding the glide list to CC as other upstream developers might want
>   to comment. ]
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 2008-10-30 at 10:09:47 -0400, J.R. Mauro wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Greg Kroah-Hartman, the maintainer of the USB subsystem for the
>> kernel, recently started a project to get out-of-tree Linux drivers in
>> the mainline kernel faster. You can read an overview of Greg's
>> announcement here:
>> http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Introducing_the_Linux_Staging_Tree
>>
>> The impetus for this is to make it easier for drivers that are not yet
>> ready to be in mainline to become available so more people can easily
>> contribute and use them. With the broader attention, drivers in
>> staging will get the work they need and eventually 'graduate' and be
>> moved out of staging. We're interested in gathering more drivers, so
>> I've started contacting maintainers on his behalf. If you're
>> interested in getting your 3dfx driver into staging or have any
>> questions, please reply (keeping the CC: list intact).
> 
> The current code can be found at:
> 
> <http://glide.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/glide/Device3Dfx/?pathrev=glide-devel-branch>
> 
> I think it has been mostly me maintaining it since 2003 or so and I
> think it should be in a good shape now. But I'm not sure if it makes
> sense to move into staging as this driver is only needed by the old
> libglide2 and some of the forward ported hw support from libglide2 to
> libglide3. The rest of libglide3 is using DRI instead, and I think
> that's what the rest should be switched to, it just has not happened
> yet. So if even then you think it makes sense to move the device3dfx
> driver into the kernel staging then I guess it's fine with me as well.
> 

I don't think putting Device3Dfx into the kernel is a good idea. The only thing 
it is needed for is to be able to run glide (or MesaGlide) applications on 
Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 cards as non root user.

And if anyone wants to actually spend time on making Glide on Voodoo1/2 as non 
root user easier, then they should instead:
1) Write an initscript which chmod's the relevant memory regions under 
/sys/devices/pci......
2) Patch glide to do the mmap on the relevant memory represeting files under 
/sys/devices/pci...... instead of doing it on /dev/mem.

Then Glide can be ran fine as normal user on Voodoo1/Voodoo2 cards, without 
requiring the hack known as Device3Dfx.

More general drivers which do nothing more then allow userspace to map certain 
io regions should not be put into the mainline kernel, we alreayd have other 
mechanisms for that.

Regards,

Hans