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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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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).

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