From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jul 21 16:36: 0 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mike.dhis.org (hiper4-d36.stk.cwnet.com [209.142.57.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B61D937C171; Fri, 21 Jul 2000 16:35:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mmuir@es.co.nz) Received: from ogre (ogre.lan [192.168.100.1]) by mike.dhis.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6452DD5; Fri, 21 Jul 2000 16:35:43 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <001401bff36c$63943ca0$0164a8c0@lan> From: "Mike Muir" To: , , Subject: Specific video hardware support with the advent of the Linux A|W Maya port. Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 16:35:43 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Recently, Alias|Wavefront announced they would port Maya to Linux. Assuming FreeBSD can emulate the linux binary's (and I have no reason to think that it won't) then what about support for video hardware (high, mid and consumer -end) which requires more than just a suitable X server? Take the case of Nvidia's linux drivers which are comprised of a kernel module which interfaces with the XFree86 4.0/4.0.1 driver also provided. I havn't looked into the drivers as I lack the knowledge and experience to even fathom porting to a freebsd kernel module. I understand there is an element of closed source with these drivers but i'm unsure whether this is at the module, or the XFree driver.. to cut to the chase, my question is whether the porting of a driver such as these is the onus of a FreeBSD contributer, or is it at Nvidia's discretion? Assuming the element of closed source works under FreeBSD, then how easy would a port like this be? Or is somebody working on this case [nvidia's 5.xx linux drivers for Xfree86 4.*] as I comment? On a wider scale, if a vendor provides a driver, or server for X and their hardware (lets say a particularly high end piece of equipment such as an Intergraph Wildcat) perhaps specifically with the intention for a Linux distrubtion which is to be packaged along with this Intergraph system, would it be reasonable to assume this would also work under FreeBSD or would the vendor be required to specifically write a version of their driver or server for FreeBSD? The reason I ask is that I see no reason why the growing field of animators using tools such as A|W Maya shouldn't opt to use FreeBSD over Linux (red hat at that) while they're on their way migrating from NT -- OR kicking off their endevours. What are (if any) the road blocks which could stop this from happening? -mike. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message