On Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 09:24:11AM +0200, Javier Martinez Canillas wrote: > Learning about the DRM subsystem could be quite overwhelming for newcomers > but there are lots of useful talks, slides and articles available that can > help to understand the needed concepts and ease the learning curve. > > There are also simple DRM drivers that can be used as example about how a > DRM driver should look like. > > Add sections to the introduction page, that contains references to these. > > Suggested-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@xxxxxxxx> > Signed-off-by: Javier Martinez Canillas <javierm@xxxxxxxxxx> > Acked-by: Pekka Paalanen <pekka.paalanen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Acked-by: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@xxxxxxx> Maybe needs more acks to land? Acked-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@xxxxxxxx> Would be good we can hand out links to pretty htmldocs instead of lore links to this patch, the latter is rather hard on the eyes :-) Cheers, Daniel > --- > > Changes in v3: > - Fix typos and grammar errors that found when re-reading the changes. > > Changes in v2: > - Remove paragraph that gave wrong impression that DRM is complex (Pekka Paalanen). > - Add Thomas Zimmermann's and Pekka Paalanen's Acked-by tags. > - Replace "Learning material" title with "External References" (Thomas Zimmermann). > - Add a section about tiny DRM drivers being a good first example (Daniel Vetter). > - Add some more external references that I found interesting since v1 was posted. > > Documentation/gpu/introduction.rst | 60 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > 1 file changed, 60 insertions(+) > > diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/introduction.rst b/Documentation/gpu/introduction.rst > index 25a56e9c0cfd..f05eccd2c07c 100644 > --- a/Documentation/gpu/introduction.rst > +++ b/Documentation/gpu/introduction.rst > @@ -112,3 +112,63 @@ Please conduct yourself in a respectful and civilised manner when > interacting with community members on mailing lists, IRC, or bug > trackers. The community represents the project as a whole, and abusive > or bullying behaviour is not tolerated by the project. > + > +Simple DRM drivers to use as examples > +===================================== > + > +The DRM subsystem contains a lot of helper functions to ease writing drivers for > +simple graphic devices. For example, the `drivers/gpu/drm/tiny/` directory has a > +set of drivers that are simple enough to be implemented in a single source file. > + > +These drivers make use of the `struct drm_simple_display_pipe_funcs`, that hides > +any complexity of the DRM subsystem and just requires drivers to implement a few > +functions needed to operate the device. This could be used for devices that just > +need a display pipeline with one full-screen scanout buffer feeding one output. > + > +The tiny DRM drivers are good examples to understand how DRM drivers should look > +like. Since are just a few hundreds lines of code, they are quite easy to read. > + > +External References > +=================== > + > +Delving into a Linux kernel subsystem for the first time can be an overwhelming > +experience, one needs to get familiar with all the concepts and learn about the > +subsystem's internals, among other details. > + > +To shallow the learning curve, this section contains a list of presentations > +and documents that can be used to learn about DRM/KMS and graphics in general. > + > +There are different reasons why someone might want to get into DRM: porting an > +existing fbdev driver, write a DRM driver for a new hardware, fixing bugs that > +could face when working on the graphics user-space stack, etc. For this reason, > +the learning material covers many aspects of the Linux graphics stack. From an > +overview of the kernel and user-space stacks to very specific topics. > + > +The list is sorted in reverse chronological order, to keep the most up-to-date > +material at the top. But all of them contain useful information, and it can be > +valuable to go through older material to understand the rationale and context > +in which the changes to the DRM subsystem were made. > + > +Conference talks > +---------------- > + > +* `An Overview of the Linux and Userspace Graphics Stack <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjAJmqwg47k>`_ - Paul Kocialkowski (2020) > +* `Getting pixels on screen on Linux: introduction to Kernel Mode Setting <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haes4_Xnc5Q>`_ - Simon Ser (2020) > +* `Everything Great about Upstream Graphics <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVzHOgt6WGE>`_ - Daniel Vetter (2019) > +* `An introduction to the Linux DRM subsystem <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbDOCJcDRoo>`_ - Maxime Ripard (2017) > +* `Embrace the Atomic (Display) Age <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjiB_JeDn2M>`_ - Daniel Vetter (2016) > +* `Anatomy of an Atomic KMS Driver <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lihqR9sENpc>`_ - Laurent Pinchart (2015) > +* `Atomic Modesetting for Drivers <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl9suFgbTc8>`_ - Daniel Vetter (2015) > +* `Anatomy of an Embedded KMS Driver <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja8fM7rTae4>`_ - Laurent Pinchart (2013) > + > +Slides and articles > +------------------- > + > +* `Understanding the Linux Graphics Stack <https://bootlin.com/doc/training/graphics/graphics-slides.pdf>`_ - Bootlin (2022) > +* `DRM KMS overview <https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/DRM_KMS_overview>`_ - STMicroelectronics (2021) > +* `Linux graphic stack <https://studiopixl.com/2017-05-13/linux-graphic-stack-an-overview>`_ - Nathan Gauër (2017) > +* `Atomic mode setting design overview, part 1 <https://lwn.net/Articles/653071/>`_ - Daniel Vetter (2015) > +* `Atomic mode setting design overview, part 2 <https://lwn.net/Articles/653466/>`_ - Daniel Vetter (2015) > +* `The DRM/KMS subsystem from a newbie’s point of view <https://bootlin.com/pub/conferences/2014/elce/brezillon-drm-kms/brezillon-drm-kms.pdf>`_ - Boris Brezillon (2014) > +* `A brief introduction to the Linux graphics stack <https://blogs.igalia.com/itoral/2014/07/29/a-brief-introduction-to-the-linux-graphics-stack/>`_ - Iago Toral (2014) > +* `The Linux Graphics Stack <https://blog.mecheye.net/2012/06/the-linux-graphics-stack/>`_ - Jasper St. Pierre (2012) > -- > 2.35.1 > -- Daniel Vetter Software Engineer, Intel Corporation http://blog.ffwll.ch
