Howdy all,
There has been some discussion about the desire for nVidia drivers for
the PPC architecture on both this list as well as on devel@xxxxxxxxxxx
(it seems to be a big pain point for 12"/17" PowerBook owners who want
to run XFree86), but I haven't seen anything along these lines. This
idea was originally posted here:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25418&highlight=linux+ppc
I'm reposting it here to see if I can't generate some discussion. By the
way, if someone thinks this would be more appropriate to post to
devel@xxxxxxxxxxx, please let me know, and I will forward it on. Here's
the (mostly) original text:
>As a user, I'm not really concerned whether or not [nVidia PPC Linux]
>drivers are Open Source or not (although I would certainly commend
>nVidia for such a bold step). I just want them to be available.
>
>I'd like to ask a question, though: is it even conceivably possible to
>use the binary code distributed with OS X 10.x in Linux? What I mean
>is, is it possible that one could (in theory) write a wrapper for the
>Mach-0 based code for the video drivers? Kind of like what these guys
>have done to allow x86 Linux to use Windows wireless drivers:
>
> http://www.linuxant.com/driverloader/?PHPSESSID=c500d3092e9954138998fb5a8bac0713
> http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
>
>I don't even know which .dylib(s) hold(s) the appropriate code, but I'm
>imagining something like the following:
>
>1. Identify the appropriate .dylib files (and their dependencies?) in
>OS X (perhaps "otool -L
>/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Libraries/libGLSystem.dylib"?)
>
>2. Find/write a Mach-0 object loader for Linux (is this necessary?
>Linux uses ELF, and OS X uses Mach-0, right?)
>
>3. Identify the approprate nVidia-specific symbols in the .dylib files
>(this probably requires some heavy reverse engineering/experimentation
>and a lot of patience)
>
>4. Write the wrapper/glue code to abstract the Mach-O loader/nVidia
>symbol calls as an XFree86 driver
>
>Is there anything wrong with my thinking here? If there are any nVidia
>developers reading this list, is this something nVidia would be willing
>to do? It seems like this might be a decent compromise (nVidia doesn't
>have to release its IP, and Linux users get updates with OS X).
>Alternatively, are there any bright independents out there who are
>capable/willing to tackle such a daunting task?
>
>An thoughts, comments, responses (especially from nVidia folks) would
>really be appreciated here. Thanks in advance.
So far, I haven't had any response via the nV News site (though the post
is relatively young). Any thoughts? Am I insane for proposing this? I
will admit I know absolutely nothing about graphics hardware or driver
development.
I apologize in advance if this has been discussed before (and I wasn't
paying attention). Anyway, thoughts, comments, etc. are welcome and
encouraged.
--Matt
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