On Wed, 5 Jun 2002, Alex Deucher wrote: >Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 21:17:47 -0700 (PDT) >From: Alex Deucher <agd5f@yahoo.com> >To: xfree86-list@redhat.com >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >List-Id: Red Hat XFree86 list <xfree86-list.redhat.com> >Subject: Re: XFree86 3.3.6 legacy issues, and the future (was: an S3 problem) > >I'm not sure how much this applies to the 2D drivers, but there is code >and some basic howto's on the utah-glx website (http://utah-glx.sf.net) >detailing how to port the old 3.3.6 3D drivers to the 4.x architecture >by simply swapping out the appropriate 3.3.6 function calls with 4.x >ones. perhaps this would be a good start for port the old drivers or >for getting someone familiar with the X code. > >just thought I'd throw that out there... Utah-GLX is 3D drivers for XFree86 3.3.6. It has some 3D support for hardware which is not currently supported by DRI, but it also requires XFree86 3.3.6 server IIRC. I believe that there might be some support for a few pieces of hardware for XFree86 4.x also, but it is basically considered the precursor to the DRI. So, that wont be useful for porting the 3.3.6 2D server driver code to 4.x. However, those interested in getting 3D working with the DRI in 4.x should start by checking out Utah-GLX indeed. Porting of the 2D drivers from 3.3.6 to 4.x requires at a bare minimum having at least one of the cards a given driver supports. Then it is just a matter at reading the XFree86 "DESIGN" document (/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/DESIGN) to understand how to write a 4.x driver, and look through the XFree86 3.3.6 server code to figure out how the card was programmed in 3.3.6. You'll also need the video chipset's documentation in order to do so, unless you can get really lucky without it. Docs are often very very hard to come by. I have docs for various hardware. Some of them I cannot redistribute because I'm under NDA, other's I've given a gentleman's agreement to not redistribute. The cards I do have docs for, that I've found online or which were given to me without any sort of agreement, I don't mind sharing however if someone has the hardware and is willing to port drivers and/or fix bugs. Also, before digging into any porting efforts, be sure to join the relevant mailing lists and discuss what you are wanting to do, to ensure that you're not duplicating effort. Also, you may find someone has started already and abandoned it, so you have a head start by using their work. In particular, if anyone plans on porting Utah-GLX drivers to 4.2+DRI, be sure to join the dri-devel mailing list on sourceforge, and attend the Monday meetings on IRC at 4pm EST on #dri-devel at irc.redhat.com There are people porting Mach64 to DRI currently, and rumors of people porting other hardware as well. Hope this helps. -- Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address: OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie, XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3 Red Hat Inc. http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
