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

[J.R. M. <jr...@gm...>]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 3:14 AM, Hans de Goede <j.w...@hh...> wrote:
> 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
>

Thanks for your replies; I'll update our drivers list with this information.