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Date:      Thu, 1 Dec 2016 17:39:50 -0500
From:      Shawn Webb <shawn.webb@hardenedbsd.org>
To:        Matthew Macy <mmacy@nextbsd.org>
Cc:        "freebsd-x11@freebsd.org" <freebsd-x11@freebsd.org>, "freebsd-current@freebsd.org" <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: drm-next update and longer term plans
Message-ID:  <20161201223950.GC83929@mutt-hardenedbsd>
In-Reply-To: <158bc7db990.e5ab7400189889.2067341649206744373@nextbsd.org>
References:  <158bc7db990.e5ab7400189889.2067341649206744373@nextbsd.org>

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On Thu, Dec 01, 2016 at 02:25:05PM -0800, Matthew Macy wrote:
> I imagine that for most users the state of graphics support for post-Hasw=
ell hardware is a bit of a black box so I'm sending out this note to let us=
ers know what they can and cannot expect.=20
>=20
> Wayland has actually become a reality for some. Talk to Johannes Lundberg=
 if you're interested in tracking that.=20
>=20
> The i915 (Intel integrated GPUs) driver is currently best supported by th=
e drm-next-4.7 branch. Broadwell and Skylake support is complete and some s=
upport came in late in the cycle for Kaby Lake. I can still consistently lo=
ck up the kernel in the later stages of the piglit test suite, there is no =
backlight support, and suspend/resume do not work on Skylake. The drm-next =
branch is integrated with upstream up through Linux 4.8-rc5 and thus has co=
mplete support for Kaby Lake, but there is a lockup in i915 that occurs som=
e time within an hour of startx. This takes too long for it to have shown u=
p in my limited integration smoke testing.=20
>=20
> The amdgpu driver is, in terms of KPI dependencies - as far as I can tell=
 - a strict superset of the radeon driver. For example, when I tested my on=
e older card that uses the radeon driver it manifested the same ttm bugs as=
 amdgpu did at that time. Thus, when amdgpu reaches a complete working stat=
e I expect radeon to largely "just" work. As of this past Sunday amdgpu wit=
h the amdgpu DDX works with 2D, supports external monitors - selecting the =
appropriate resolution on a per display basis, and backlight works. It will=
 also typically panic in ttm within ~90 minutes of startx. Although this is=
 huge progress over panicking within 30s of startx (which was the case as o=
f Saturday) or not starting at all due to bugs in the libdrm port a few wee=
ks prior, it's obviously not something I encourage anyone to use.=20
>=20
> My primary motivation for starting with the work is being able to to trai=
n DNNs/RNNs and other model types using Theano/Caffe/Tensorflow/BidMach etc=
 GPU accelerated whilst still running FreeBSD. The Radeon Open Compute stac=
k holds out the promise of doing that without using the closed source CUDA =
stack on top of the Linux ABI emulation - which would inevitably be opaque =
and fragile. My plan is to keep on fixing bugs and tracking upstream until =
the first long term branch after ROC support has been integrated in to Linu=
x mainline. I have no exact knowledge of when exactly that will be (AMD doe=
sn't have sufficient developer resources to make any concrete guarantees) b=
ut think it should happen by the summer of 2017. I would like to think that=
 by that time the i915, amdgpu, and radeon will be feature complete and at =
least as stable as the drm2 support currently in tree.=20
>=20
> I need to weigh my soft commitment to make long-term DRM support happen w=
ith paid work and other activities which are much more important to me long=
 term. Thus I've currently committed to spending every Sunday fixing bugs i=
n the drm-next branches. Amdgpu is both more important to me and has gotten=
 much less attention than i915. Thus I will be devoting my efforts to it in=
 the near term. I'd very much welcome efforts by others to triage the issue=
s in i915.=20
>=20
> Many people ask when drm-next will be available on 11. I am not a committ=
er and thus have no direct say in that. However, if you are a motivated ind=
ividual with kernel knowledge you should contact Adrian Chadd. There are a =
few places where I was not able to provide proper linuxkpi semantics withou=
t making (mostly quite modest) changes to sys/kern. There is a general relu=
ctance by some core developers to make changes to accommodate Linux. It is =
possible that, with additional effort, the linuxkpi can both be complete en=
ough to avoid needing to port the graphics drivers to FreeBSD (something cl=
early shown by past efforts to be unsustainable) and not need to make any k=
ernel changes. If you would like to help with that, let Adrian know. In the=
 meantime, TrueOS will continue to use my development branches for the bene=
fit of users with newer hardware.=20

Hey Matt,

Thank you so much for your hard work. It's very much appreciated.
Everyone would be stuck on the VESA driver with all its crappiness if it
weren't for the efforts you and your team have put in.

Since I make it a point to eat my own dogfood, it has been a pleasure
running a HardenedBSD-flavored version of your drm-next-4.7 bits. I'm
able to run HardenedBSD on my work-issued laptop instead of CentOS.
Thank you for saving me from that.

Thanks,

--=20
Shawn Webb
Cofounder and Security Engineer
HardenedBSD

GPG Key ID:          0x6A84658F52456EEE
GPG Key Fingerprint: 2ABA B6BD EF6A F486 BE89  3D9E 6A84 658F 5245 6EEE

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