[arch-dev-public] Xorg changes / DRM modules

[Andreas Radke]

Am Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:40:04 +0100
schrieb Jan de Groot <jan at jgc.homeip.net>:

> Looking at the mails, I think we should take these steps:
> - update to mesa 7.6.1 for now, you already did this.

> - disable KMS for ATI by default, enable for Intel by default, as UMS
> is wrecked out their soon to release driver.

We will test if this is possible in our next kernel pkg.

> - Package stable linux kernel, don't touch drm too much, just apply
> patches for known broken things, like the intel powermanagement bug
> that locks up the GPU.

I'm fine with this for core/extra repos.

> - Package released drivers, or use git snapshots from the stable
> branch. For ATI, there's some maintenance work done on the
> 6.12-branch in git, I think it's wise to apply those.

I will have a look what it's worth applying or if a new release
is planned from upstream.

Just also removed the git based pkg from testing.

> - for libdrm, package without extra flags, though you *might* want to
> enable libdrm-nouveau there to get the nouveau driver working. As
> always, stick with released libdrm, don't use git snapshots. Only
> provide nouveau drivers if you actually intend to use and update them.

Sure. Only stable libdrm releases because all driver heavily depend on
its api. Ati api is back to stable state. For nouveau we need
experimental api to get working 2D drivers.

> After these switches, we should focus on getting mesa 7.7 in our
> distribution. Mesa 7.6.x is a dead end and upstream only supports 7.7
> now.
> 

No problem. It built fine here on top of the rolled back extra stuff.
I'll put new packages into testing. I guess we need to rebuild all
related ddx driver packages. Anything else will require rebuilds? The
server?

The sad part is that we leave all people with modern Ati cards in the
dark until upstream declares their code as stable. This will make them
going back to software rasterizer and either force them to use the
closed source driver or use weird self made git packages from AUR.

Because I'm also affected with my weird X200m card I'm still looking
for a good solution how to offer a good set of binary packages people
can use to try modern code. I could do this on my own like all other
people from AUR but we could also setup an additional unstable repo at
Gerolde. I could do this also in my public dir. I'd prefer to have
people using one set of codebase for reporting bugs upstream. What do
you think?

-Andy