This email summarizes a discussion that took place on #ubuntu-x IRC, and
the tentative plan that was arrived at. The IRC discussion is attached
for reference.
First, there was a discussion of what is required in order to bring
Nouveau into our kernel. Nouveau brings in the entire drm-next tree,
which looks like it amounts to over 500 patches right now. This
presents a major issue for the kernel team, in how to manage that.
Looking at the Fedora 12 patch set, there is a 2.9M drm-next patch.
Assuming resolution of that issue [*], here's a tentative plan for
proceeding with Nouveau:
* We pull Nouveau and the required drm changes into karmic ASAP
* We invest in heavy testing at alpha 1 and alpha 2, and give ourselves the
chance to make an assessment after A1 whether to continue.
* We also decide at that point whether to rebase to a more recent nouveau or to
freeze and take selected patches through the release.
It is a bit of a tight schedule to get this into A1, since freeze is in one
week.
There was also a discussion of risks vs. benefits of going to Nouveau, see the
attached log.
[*] I defer to Andy and Tim. Backporting the entire drm-next
tree seems risky to me. I'd like some discussion - perhaps at
tomorrow's kernel team meeting.
Steve
(05:32:28 PM) sconklin: heya
(05:32:33 PM) RAOF: Howdie.
(05:32:51 PM) bryce: sconklin, we were just discussing kernel stuff needed for
-nouveau/kms (and radeon kms)
(05:33:12 PM) bryce: in particular, it appears to need drm-next
(05:33:23 PM) bryce: sconklin, Here's a list of git commits for nouveau
http://pastebin.com/f5c80954e
(05:33:27 PM) jcristau: RAOF: shouldn't be too hard to extract just what
nouveau needs from -next
(05:33:31 PM) RAOF: So, getting nouveau in the kernel by merging from their
kernel tree implies merging in drm-next, because they frequently merge drm-next
into their tree.
(05:33:43 PM) jcristau: wel, hopefully :)
(05:33:58 PM) jcristau: +l
(05:35:10 PM) RAOF: If we want to add nouveau by means of a mega-patch we'll
need to carefully merge in the drm changes nouveau requires, and check that
they don't break our other drm drivers.
(05:35:43 PM) sconklin: Someone told me that the drm-next commits required for
nouveau were not stable with intel harwdare, anyone know about that? It was a
hallway conversation at UDS
(05:36:16 PM) RAOF: I don't know about that, no.
(05:36:25 PM) bryce: jbarnes, ^^ ?
(05:36:37 PM) tormod: radeon KMS will probably need some drm-next stuff also
(05:37:05 PM) sconklin: here's my general thinking about all of this - please
say something if I'm on crack . . .
(05:37:25 PM) RAOF: If we want to test drm-next I can trivially extend
nouveau-kernel-source to build the other drm drivers, too.
(05:37:35 PM) sconklin: I'm beginning to understand the risks to nouveau, and
there are a lot of them, and it also impacts our normal code flow.
(05:37:57 PM) sconklin: The best thing would be to get it into the first alpha
and see if it falls over.
(05:38:38 PM) sconklin: I still don't have a solid understanding of what our
benefits are as a distro to using nouveau
(05:38:52 PM) sconklin: I do understand the benefits to nouveau.
(05:39:21 PM) sconklin: I also see that Fedora appears to be dealing with a
pile of graphics stability issues rigth now
(05:39:27 PM) bryce: sconklin, one of the main benefits we gain is a more
active upstream (compared with -nv)
(05:39:55 PM) bryce: (and I admit "active upstream" can be a con as well as a
pro depending on the situation...)
(05:40:03 PM) sconklin: bryce: understood, but that upstream pretty much admits
that they aren't ready for relases or a distro.
(05:40:29 PM) sconklin: But . . . this could really get them some huge benefits
also
(05:40:36 PM) RAOF: Which is a pity, because they're a much better nvidia
driver than nv.
(05:40:48 PM) jcristau: didn't stop fedora. but then rh hired one of the
nouveau developers.
(05:41:29 PM) bryce: sconklin, I still expect that most nvidia owners will
still just use -nouveau as a bridge to installing -nvidia.
(05:41:36 PM) sconklin: yeah, and trust me I know that "because Fedora
does/doesn't do something" isn't a good reason to go either way on a decision.
(05:42:05 PM) jcristau: fair enough :)
(05:42:17 PM) jk- [n...@ppp121-45-209-104.lns20.cbr1.internode.on.net] entered
the room.
(05:42:18 PM) RAOF: bryce: I agree. Nouveau is a much better 2d driver, but
most people are going to want 3d.
(05:42:20 PM) sconklin: bryce, and are all the drm bits either compatible or
selectable between -nouveau and -nvidia?
(05:42:24 PM) tormod: what RHEL will do is maybe more relevant
(05:42:43 PM) RAOF: nvidia doesn't have any drm bits.
(05:42:47 PM) jcristau: sconklin: nvidia doesn't use drm at all
(05:42:58 PM) sconklin: tormod: not necessarily - RHEL and Ubuntu have very
different user bases.
(05:43:04 PM) bryce: sconklin, nvidia does its own thing
(05:43:17 PM) RAOF: A problem nouveau _may_ introduce is binding to the
hardware in the initr
