FreeBSD Foundation's New Project: Implement GEM/KMS/DRI for Intel Graphics

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SOURCE: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2011-February/001361.html
The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce that Konstantin Belousov has been awarded a grant to implement support of GEM, KMS, and DRI for Intel Drivers. This project is being co-sponsored by iXsystems.

The project is to implement GEM, port KMS, and write new DRI drivers for Intel Graphics, including the latest Sandy Bridge generation of integrated graphic units. The work should allow the latest Intel open-source driver to run on FreeBSD, expanding the range of hardware where FreeBSD is suitable for the desktop.

"The Foundation's sponsored project will allow me to spend much more time on this interesting work, and hopefully resolve the big issue for continuing use of FreeBSD on the desktop," said Konstantine.

"Adding support for GEM/KMS will allow both FreeBSD and PC-BSD to run with enhanced native graphic support on forthcoming advanced architectures with integrated, 3d accelerated graphical capabilities," says Matt Olander, Chief Technology Officer at iXsystems, Inc. "FreeBSD has long been dominant in the server market and this is one more step towards making FreeBSD a complete platform for netbooks, laptops, desktops, and servers. We are very pleased to be a part of this project."

Konstantine is a software developer, living in Kiev, Ukraine. He was given a src commit bit in 2006, and since then has spent most of his free time on the OS, making bug fixes and implementing things he considers interesting. He currently is also serving the project as release engineer and core team member.

The FreeBSD Foundation
 
xibo said:
Nice. Are there any plans to get it into FreeBSD-8, or will it be a >= 9 feature?

I guess by the time this feature is in a usable state, 9.0 will be already (or soon to be) released. I might be wrong though.. go for it kib :beer
 
Will the KMS work be a continuation of newcons (and vtc) or it's gonna be tightly coupled to old non-mpsafe, non-utf8[1] syscons()?

[1] TEKEN_UTF8 is crippled to say the least, keyboard layer ignores it anyway
 
Anyone know if this really will be limited to supporting just Intel GPUs? That seems to be implied, but I'm really hoping is not the case.

Adam
 
I think it's to big a change to be included in 8-STABLE. What I'm afraid of is whether he will manage to finish it till 9.0-RELEASE is released, otherwise it may be added to 10.0-RELEASE.
 
adamk said:
Anyone know if this really will be limited to supporting just Intel GPUs? That seems to be implied, but I'm really hoping is not the case.

Adam
Even if this was done only for intel, once KMS, GEM and DRI are implemented, porting other drivers will become alot easier.
 
Not only do they depend on KMS, they depend on the TTM memory manager, which is not even mentioned in the announcement.
 
Seems that the focus will be on the newer Intel chips. Will the old ones get love? If not, I might just go back to GNU/Linux since my Thinkpad X60 has Intel video and it's not that great on FreeBSD.
 
So I heard on IRC today that the initial work will be for Intel. And, yes, it will likely focus on newer chipsets, but I imagine that any work on intel DRM will bring along improvements for intel GPUs in general, not just newer ones.

It's sad for me, though, that there doesn't appear to be any direct interest in getting the Radeon DRM updated with KMS.

Adam
 
>It's sad for me, though, that there doesn't appear to be any direct interest in getting the Radeon DRM updated with KMS.

Sure, it's sad. But then, it's just one guy only, who is working on this. There is just one server left in my possession running FreeBSD, the other machines are either to some degree incompatible (bios ...) or beyond the capabilities of FreeBSD (drivers). It's a pity, but there is a massive lack of manpower, too much new hardware, lots of Linux-centric applications, hardly enough time and money.
 
I understand the reason. I still find it just sad. Frankly, the r600 gallium driver is so much better than the stock mesa driver, and DRI2 brings along so many improvements, it's hard to justify sticking with FreeBSD on these workstations.

Adam
 
Well at least NVIDIA is doing something for the FreeBSD users. Unless the vendor invests in helping, a few individuals (in this case 1) will have a hard time keeping up.

I will wait out and see where this goes, though - hope dies last.:stud
 
Looking forward to this.
Currently I need:-

Code:
LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1

to be set or any OpenGL software is very slow and whines about "Failed to initialize GEM so switching back to classic"..

(I assume this is related)
 
Awesome! I was just lamenting the fact that I might have to go back to Linux. (new laptop will have Nvidia Optimus) Thank you so much.
 
kpedersen said:
Looking forward to this.
to be set or any OpenGL software is very slow and whines about "Failed to initialize GEM so switching back to classic"..

(I assume this is related)

I don't think it likely is, actually. I get that message, but my opengl runs about as fast as I could expect on this machine.
 
I have been looking occasionally for info as well, I have found none, right now I'm running FreeBSD x86-64 out of VirtualBox on Windows 7 Pro x64, works reasonably well once you get Vbox Guest Additions and the video driver set up. I was surprised to find the 3D even gets 30 fps which is pretty good for what it is. :)
 
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