My current thinking on this is to do it the DRM driver but store the allocation data in normal system RAM. This would allow the allocation routines to function without touching the framebuffer.
I would really like to make sure that DRM drivers can function without having to map the framebuffer into kernel address space. We only have 1GB of kernel address space to work with and the kernel has to live in that 1GB too. 3dlabs is shipping a 512MB card now: http://www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcatvp/vppro/index.htm and a 1GB model is in the works. It is just going to be impossible to map these future cards into the kernel.
...
I've also been poking around a little in the radeon DRM driver. It seems to be mapping the framebuffer into kernel space but I never see any place that the driver code touches it.
Correct. There's nowhere the kernel needs to touch the framebuffer.
Keith
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