Status of xserver/debrix/modular tree?

[Daniel Stone]

On Sat, Feb 12, 2005 at 01:09:22PM +0100, thomas klein wrote:
> If "too much users" (hey, I got old cards making a pretty good job at 
> ogl) got hw which can't display ogl correctly, they can use the xorg 
> monolitic tree, or even a old version of xfree. If we make the choice 
> not doing something because some users don't have the hw, we will 
> never do it. If next Xorg release take the ogl path, it'll be in a 
> while, users can buy new hw if they wish to use new xorg ogl, we have 
> some pretty nice card for not so much money, displaying kmail window 
> didn't require 100FPS =)

Look, that's great, but you honestly can't deprecate non-OpenGL cards.

I know it's great that we all have lots of shiny cards that can do
OpenGL, but I have cards here which can't do 1600x1200 in 2D, let
alone anything to do with 3D; hell, one which can't even do 800x600.

And these are the sorts of cards you will find in your mum's PC, in
your grandmother's PC, in PCs in schools.  I'm aware that graphics
developers have this great hardware, right (says he with an R480 on
order), but in the real world, it doesn't work like that.

> (note that osx run pretty nicely on old ibook , g3 300, with mach64 
> 8Mo inside)

That's not 'old'.

> If xorg go where it is (composite things), we must change the hw accel 
> (xaa) or hack this thing to be usable. (I'm running composite with an 
> nvidia, render-accel true, and it is not usable, faster than other 
> cards, but not usable)(I know, it's experimental). Ogl will simply 
> put the accel stuff in mesa, it is allready the case, it's a standard 
> well supported by gfx manufacturer.
> 
> IMHO, ogl is a really nice path to follow. this will enable nice 
> eye-candy and make the new effects (shadows / translutency) available 
> for every users with a "not so old" gfx card.

You can do that without forcing OpenGL, largely by throwing XAA out.

OpenGL backends are nice, but not exclusively.
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