Kernel support for graphics cards

[Bojan Smojver]

Quoting Dave Airlie <airlied at gmail.com>:

> All that is required in the kernel is the DRM, a layer that can
> providing locking, client tracking, DMA, and interrupt handling, once
> you have those, then userspace applications can submit commands to the
> card using the DMA mechanism and the hardwork of the graphics driver
> can go live in userspace.. (like it does now..), the
> modesetting/memory management are the two things preventing the full
> architecture becoming apparent...
>
> The problem we have mainly at the moment is the X startup sequence
> where it decides to bypass Linux and go straight to the PCI busses and
> things itself this causes no end of issues where X thinks it knows
> better than the kernel where really doesn't have a clue...
>
> Also with some drivers like radeon, the DRM and X driver may have
> gotten to a state where making changes to one backwards compatible
> with older versions of another is quite a tricky process...

Thanks Dave. That's exactly the stuff I was asking about.

-- 
Bojan