On Sun, Jun 13, 2004 at 05:39:12PM -0700, Keith Packard wrote: > > Around 20 o'clock on Jun 13, Alan Cox wrote: > > > Secondly every line of code you put in the kernel has to be audited, > > analysed and can introduce security holes or crash the machine. > > The same is (alas) all too true for code within the X server as well. An > ideal situation would have the X server running unprivledged on top of a > kernel driver that validated commands to the graphics card. That's one of > the motivations to moving to a DRI-like environment for the X server. > Using the OpenGL API provides that in a more "vendor neutral" way than > going directly to DRI. > > However, even for plain 2D only X servers, I would advocate a similar > driver architecture, albiet with a significantly simpler kernel module. > > Do everything possible in user mode, but no more. >
It sounds to me that what seems like the solution here is a kernel graphic driver that will implement mode handling, graphic acceleration, etc. User space opengl interface for 3D which will have software fallback where needed and for 2D cards, (I don't know opengl so I don't know what is possible here), either implement whatever is possible of opengl using 2D acceleration and the rest in software, or have a second 2D interface driver. Next for X have a high level opengl output driver and if the second option is the case a 2D accelerated driver (with no acceleration you can just use the software opengl solution). In this case X will only have one or two high level drivers independent of hardware. The hardware will have one set of kernel drivers and one set of user-land drivers where kernel and user-land split the functionality between them as they see appropriate (they would be just two halves of the same driver). There is no need to implement a 2D compatible driver for 3D cards, or 3D drivers for 2D cards, just make users use the appropriate interface above the drivers. This way you get a four level flexible approach with no duplications > -keith > > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the new InstallShield X. >From Windows to Linux, servers to mobile, InstallShield X is the one installation-authoring solution that does it all. Learn more and evaluate today! http://www.installshield.com/Dev2Dev/0504 -- _______________________________________________ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
