Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] video dir reorg

[Jon S. <jon...@ya...>]

--- Michel Dänzer <mi...@da...> wrote:
> While I hope there will be some form of cooperation
> between framebuffer
> devices and the DRM in the future, I do think they
> basically serve very
> different purposes so I don't think merging them
> makes sense.

Some areas of cooperation.....

1) We have two drivers for the same hardware. They
should be sharing the same include files describing
the hardware.
2) Bug fixing, in some cases the same hardware bug
would need to be fixed in two places.
3) State saving.  When the virtual terminal is changed
is the complete state of the DRM driver saved? What if
one of the other virtual terminals plays with 3D mode?
4) DDC and secondary reset support. I was looking at
adding this to some of the framebuffer drivers. The X
driver can't share this code.
5) General kernel config. The same peice of hardware
appears in two different places.

There is no immediate reason for merging. I am just
thinking about where this will be in three to five
years. 

A more general question, what should be the
capabilities of an in kernel video driver?

Required:
1) Complete state save on VT switch
2) Security and control of DMA hardware
Maybe required:
1) Reset and initialize hardware
2) Video mode change
3) Power saving
Not clear if better in user or kernel space:
1) copy, fill, blit, etc in current fb interface

Where is the right place to draw the link between
kernel and user space for video drivers?





=====
Jon Smirl
jon...@ya...

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