Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:04:59 +0100 From: "O. Hartmann" <ohartmann@walstatt.org> To: Matthew Macy <mmacy@nextbsd.org> Cc: "Beeblebrox" <zaphod@berentweb.com>, "freebsd-x11@freebsd.org" <freebsd-x11@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: End of year Xorg status rant Message-ID: <20161231120453.13adf858@thor.walstatt.dynvpn.de> In-Reply-To: <15952279f17.e0be0d8c34357.732964216134709731@nextbsd.org> References: <20161230163653.54909631@rsbsd.rsb> <15952279f17.e0be0d8c34357.732964216134709731@nextbsd.org>
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--Sig_/iaWKSGH+2.uHLCSYi.ey/se Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Am Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:54:05 -0800 Matthew Macy <mmacy@nextbsd.org> schrieb: > > Thanks for reading, merry Solstice and a happy New Year to all of you.= =20 > > =20 > > =20 > > SYSTEM:=20 > > * FreeBSD 11.0-STABLE #0 4370756a792(stable/11): Fri Dec 30 09:48:35 += 03 2016=20 > > * All ports installed through poudrire built packages.=20 > > * GPU: RS880 [Radeon HD 4250]=20 > > * Possibly relevant Xorg.log output:=20 > > (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev=20 > > (II) Loading /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so=20 > > (EE) LoadModule: Module fbdevhw does not have a fbdevhwModuleData data= object.=20 > > (II) UnloadModule: "fbdevhw"=20 > > (EE) Failed to load module "fbdevhw" (invalid module, 0)=20 > > (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa=20 > > (WW) VGA arbiter: cannot open kernel arbiter, no multi-card support=20 > > =20 > > =20 > > -- =20 > > FreeBSD_amd64_11-Stable_RadeonKMS=20 > > Please CC my email when responding, mail from list is not delivered. = =20 > =20 >=20 > I've just updated drm-next (drm/i915/amdgpu/radeon) to linux 4.9. The amd= gpu driver > works well enough that I can now dogfood, but is not quite to the point = where I would > recommend it to others. The radeon driver experiences sufficiently little= churn that I > can trivially update it whenever I update drm and amdgpu. However, I hav= e only very > lightly tested radeon many months ago, and I personally have no interest = in hardware > older than the SI that amdgpu now supports. If you care about Radeon I wo= uld welcome > contributions to its upkeep. Unfortunately, the intersection set between = people who > care about radeonkms and those attending to its upkeep is currently empty. >=20 > -M This is in a separate source tree, isn't it? Despite the great work you've = done as the major comitter to this project, for end users or those interesdted in FreeB= SD as a system platform the situation with GPU support is a mess. The progress on Linux is= tremendous - on new high performance GPUs as well as on embedded MIPS or ARM/ARM64 syste= ms. The GPU problem isn't a "viewing issue only" - it has also great impact on = how useful FreeBSD - or in general the platform of concern - is for a scientific GPGPU= usage. I remember a time, that was the pre FBSD 5 era, when FreeBSD had a stand in t= he scientific/numerical community. That is history now. Another issue of how to loose potential clients on FBSD is in governmental = and scientific areas the fact, that we need to purchase hardware "out of the here and now"= for the next couple of years - in worse cases up to five. Selection must be made careful= ly. So no one is going to obtain old, outdated but supported hardware. And almost all of = our desktop systems has been used for numerical stuff. I can not speak for computer cen= ters, where they select and use the OS on other objectives than "we" do when we have the reign over our decissions. I think we face a political problem, not so much a man-power-driven one. nV= idia provides a BLOB, this BLOB works well even with the most recent hardware of theirs, = but it lacks in support for OpenCL and their own CUDA acceleration framework. I never un= derstood why. I asked nVidia - and they told me, that there is no request from the commun= ity ... so far. That is a claim and I can not hold something against it, since it seem= s obvious that I'm, with some other single people, are the only one compared to milli= ons of others - de facto Null so to speak. And AMD? Well, 2006 or 2008 the company claimed to support the opensource c= ommunity better than before, but that left in history to be a insubstancial claim. T= heir hardware might be a great deal even for GPGPU purposes with OpenCL, but this is Linu= x only as far as I can tell. I have no idea how to solve the problem. Maybe a tighter communication with= the vendors? I doubt that there were any serious interactions from the core in the past.= There is still the rumour about core team members very reluctant to change kernel co= de towards a Linux-style API in some portions to support a faster transition of the Linu= x-well suported opensource drivers to FreeBSD. I can not confirm this, but is has = been published on one of the FBSD lists. I'm not into kernel development, so I d= o not know the strange personalities behind such decissions or the reasoning (it might= be that there were security/design objections which would FreeBSD make vulnerable, = I don't know). Isn't it a henn-egg problem with the driver question? No driver support mea= ns no use of the OS means no customers buying a specific GPU/hardware type means no mark= et means no ambition to provide/develop drivers?=20 Time to change paradigm, time to change OS ... oh =20 --=20 O. Hartmann Ich widerspreche der Nutzung oder =C3=9Cbermittlung meiner Daten f=C3=BCr Werbezwecke oder f=C3=BCr die Markt- oder Meinungsforschung (=C2=A7 28 Abs.= 4 BDSG). --Sig_/iaWKSGH+2.uHLCSYi.ey/se Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iLUEARMKAB0WIQQZVZMzAtwC2T/86TrS528fyFhYlAUCWGeQ2wAKCRDS528fyFhY lKfIAf9B8EofUIPzLf1QnD5e10ZgxQzVw87rj0MpdFm1mwYH1IfP+4e5bOHLviYC i4NQgbw7H/uskSB1YxShF4k5ekD1Af4n8D7wkV2B98FMzLFmdh3bfCDfhIP7XcOR p/CVMuQNj6air62j+GeJ160jw6bks9vE0yChG5W3goqDudfBkuZV =gray -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/iaWKSGH+2.uHLCSYi.ey/se--
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