Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 18:17:17 +1100 From: David Dawes <dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GGI Message-ID: <19990310181717.M11634@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903091958210.23337-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>; from Doug Rabson on Tue, Mar 09, 1999 at 08:03:15PM %2B0000 References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903090951020.7045-100000@thelab.hub.org> <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903091958210.23337-100000@herring.nlsystems.com>
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On Tue, Mar 09, 1999 at 08:03:15PM +0000, Doug Rabson wrote: >On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, The Hermit Hacker wrote: > >> On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Doug Rabson wrote: >> >> > On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Andrew Reilly wrote: >> > >> > > On Sun, Mar 07, 1999 at 09:03:57PM -0800, Mike Smith wrote: >> > > > Since the voodoo2 is a 3d card, and X is exclusively 2d, I can't quite >> > > > see how "supporting" this card actually achieves anything. >> > > >> > > Isn't the PEX extension some sort of 3D thing? I never hear >> > > anyone talk about it, so perhaps there's something wrong with >> > > it, but couldn't some sort of 3D acceleration be built around >> > > it? >> > >> > PEX is several years away from the cutting edge of graphics. I'm not sure >> > that it even supports texture mapping. A better base for working on 3D >> > acceleration is Mesa which is exactly what the guys at Precision Insight >> > (www.precisioninsight.com) are doing to create a decent modern 3D solution >> > for Linux and BSD. >> >> Most intriguing...just went through the site, and its another project >> "supported by RedHat", and "binary-only"...is anyone from FreeBSD, Inc >> approaching them from the *BSD camp? > >I approached them (on my own behalf) to ask them about BSD support and >they are keen. They really are open source people but are attempting to >work around the NDA mentality which some of the chip vendors have. Already >they have donated the source for some of their servers (NeoMagic and Glint >I think) to XFree86 as the vendors relaxed their NDAs. For the record, they donated the NeoMagic source. SuSE sponsored the Glint (3Dlabs) driver work, with help from Elsa. They have a binary-only driver for the Intel i740. They don't have permission to release that source though, and I don't know if there will ever be *BSD binaries of that (Red Hat is funding the work). When XFree86 4.0 is available, that won't be a problem because the *BSD X server will be able to load Linux-compiled driver modules. Precision Insight is planning to release as much of their work as possible as "open source". Their track record is good so far, convincing NeoMagic to allow them to release the source for that driver, and playing a role in both SGI's release of GLX as open source and in getting the Mesa licence converted to an XFree86-friendly licence. Their initial integration of GLX, Mesa and XFree86 was committed to the XFree86-4.0 code base recently. The plan is that hw 3D support and a direct rendering infrastructure will come later. >> The project itself looks promising...hopefully we'll see *BSD binaries >> eventually...:) > >I think we will be able to use this stuff with a minimum effort (porting >the small kernel drivers). Yes, I expect so. FreeBSD is my OS of choice, and I certainly want to see that as much XFree86-related work as possible is usable with FreeBSD. David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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