The idea is nice, but it isn't feasible at all. We have a better
chance of just making the FOSS drivers as performant as the
proprietary drivers. At least that is somewhat realistic.
In the new AMD scenario (unified kernel module for both FOSS and proprietary drivers) where you have the proprietary blob in user-space would this be a feasible thing to achieve if they're using the same kernel module? I think then it's a matter Nvidia being the real problem here and they need to be pushed to do the same with the Nouveau project and have a single kernel module and move the Nvidia blob into user-space. It's extremely frustrating that Nvidia is basically the only thing keeping X11 around.
On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 10:13 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 10:07 AM, Alex G.S. <alxgrtnstrngl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I'm planning on working on this when we're further into the Wayland
>> transition,
>> as I feel that any work on X11 would be soon wasted, and I don't want to
>> set my Optimus horses before the Wayland cart is ready.
>
>
> Having the FOSS and proprietary drivers be mutually exclusive creates a
> scenario where a user get's the worst of two experiences.
>
> The proprietary and FOSS drivers should be able to be installed at the same
> time and loaded when needed depending on the use-case. Ideally the user
> should default to the FOSS driver and run a GNOME Wayland session. When
> they play a game from Steam the proprietary drivers should be dynamically
> loaded as an isolated X11 session similar to what XWayland does today. The
> user should also be able to run apps with the proprietary driver if they
> wish but the overall desktop should be managed by the FOSS drivers.
This is technically impossible to do, because the kernel only allows
one driver to drive a piece of hardware. Even if we rearchitected the
kernel to allow multiple drivers in a co-operative manner, it still
wouldn't be possible unless the proprietary drivers were modified to
do this hand-off. The only way to achieve what you are suggesting is
to unload a FOSS driver and load a proprietary driver when you started
e.g. Steam. Then do the opposite when you exit the game. That is
basically a tear-down of everything and you might as well reboot.
The idea is nice, but it isn't feasible at all. We have a better
chance of just making the FOSS drivers as performant as the
proprietary drivers. At least that is somewhat realistic.
josh
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