dynamic driver configuration idea...

[Luc Verhaegen]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2005 at 04:34:38PM +1000, Dave Airlie wrote:
> I've been thinking about this and recently after using Thomas
> Winischhofer's sisctrl application wondered why we don't have a
> standard method for driver configuration...
> 
> I'm thinking something like driconf does for DRI 3D drivers, but maybe
> a bit more network aware, (btw driconf just writes a local .drirc
> file, and it gets the config options from the actual driver binary and
> this is read by the 3D client library at startup so you can have
> differnet settings for different apps... etc..)
> 
> it would probably be like a super xrandr, the driver could return an
> XML description of what if wants to offer, a GUI app could build a GUI
> from those options and could then send the results dynamically back to
> the driver to reconfigure itself.. as every driver would have
> different options I wouldn't feel the need to limit it through some
> interface hence XML or something like that...
> 
> Mainly I would think of CRT configurations, desktop size, driver
> acceleration tweaks, like you see on Windows drivers .... also it
> might have the option to write the X config file but that may not be
> necessary...
> 
> I can see security issues as well with what clients can access it .. 
> 
> btw I probably won't write this at all, just throwing the idea around
> as that sisctrl panel doth rock when messing with TV-OUT on an SIS
> laptop...
> 
> Dave.
Doesn't sisctrl work over an Xv port? Altering attributes related to the 
tv encoder over the Xv port (VIA did this too, in its original driver).

There has been some superficial conversation about a general xorg
attribute system (of which Xv attributes can become a subset, or the 
general can become a superset, whatever :)) in #freedesktop late january 
(27th it seems - i'm not immediately able to find the gzipped online 
logs through google)

Alex Deucher was very interested in it and i personally am too, although 
i am not currently devoting any time towards making it happen (yet?).

Luc Verhaegen.