Re: [linuxdc-dev]Status of LinuxDC / 3D drivers

[Micah D. <mi...@yo...>]

On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 03:25:15AM -0600, M. R. Brown wrote:
> * Micah Dowty <mi...@yo...> on Mon, Mar 18, 2002:
> 
> > Hi Everybody,
> > 
> > I'm an embedded systems enthusiast, linux geek, and author of the PicoGUI (http://picogui.org) GUI architecture for embedded systems.
> > 
> > Last thursday I saw a friend's dreamcast boot linux, compile and run PicoGUI. It was so cool I got my own 2 days later, and found a broadband adapter on eBay.
> > 
> 
> Cool.  Have any links to binaries or images?

I posted the pgserver binary itself at:

http://picogui.org/download/dreamcast/first-sh4-pgserver

Right now you can't do much with it. You'll probably want to download at least one picogui theme from http://picogui.org/themes, and load that with the -t option. I haven't tried compiling apps for the Dreamcast yet, we were running the apps on an x86 PC via the broadband adaptor.

Once I get my own broadband adaptor I'll be able to do some developing on it, hopefully including an accelerated video driver, and input drivers for the controllers (and the samba de amigo maracas :)

> 
> > I'm interested in helping with Linux on the Dreamcast, but since I maintain PicoGUI and attend college i don't have time to maintain a distro myself. So I was quite happy to find the LinuxDC project seemingly alive and well :)
> 
> Alive, but I'm not so sure about well :P.  Adrian's been actively fixing bugs
> and cracking hardware, Paul and I have been busy with the 2.5 restructuring
> work for our parent project, LinuxSH (linuxsh.org), which hasn't hit the
> LinuxDC tree yet.
> 
> > 
> > Most of all, I'd like to be able to run PicoGUI fast on the dreamcast, and port games like BZflag. This requires having a driver for the tile accelerator under linux. Wading through all the "31337 haxor"-isms surrounding console game development, it looks like there's plenty of information on the PowerVR chip available. So I would just need to know where this driver goes.
> > 
> > I'm not sure I'm up for writing a complete OpenGL layer on top of the PowerVR, but I'd like to at least put together a kernel module and/or userspace library that lets applications use the accelerator. Is there a standard for doing this that doesn't require X?
> > 
> 
> I don't know of any other kernel-level interfaces for direct access to
> graphic accelerators besides DRI/DRM (dri.sourceforge.net) and /dev/opengl,
> which is used to access the 3D features of certain SGI machines (see the
> SGI OSS MIPS port).  Currently DRI/DRM requires X.
> 
> Paul started a DRM module in CVS, but it was only the initial boilerplate
> needed to get it to compile, nothing specific.  You're more than welcome to
> develop your own implementation or finish the DRM module - it's entirely up
> to you.  Any form of TA access for userland under Linux would be a good
> thing, official or not :P.
> 
> Please let us know what you come up with.  If you can even develop a basic
> patch that adds any functionality to the kernel, we'll grant you SF developer
> access for CVS, etc.

Ok, cool. Once i get my BBA i'll try writing a userspace app to demo the accelerator, and get some sort of interface into the kernel. I guess my options are:

 - Something DRI-like, but without X
 - Something in /dev you can mmap to get the PowerVR registers, then a userspace library to manipulate the accelerator
 - Mesa?

I dunno.. i'll have to research this more

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> M. R.



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