Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S271012AbUJVDd0 (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:33:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S271011AbUJVDdB (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:33:01 -0400 Received: from main.gmane.org ([80.91.229.2]:28604 "EHLO main.gmane.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S270994AbUJVDbD (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:31:03 -0400 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Jan Rychter Subject: Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable? Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:30:06 -0700 Message-ID: References: <4176E08B.2050706@techsource.com> <4177DF15.8010007@techsource.com> <4177E50F.9030702@sover.net> <200410220238.13071.jk-lkml@sci.fi> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 66-27-68-14.san.rr.com X-Spammers-Please: blackholeme@rychter.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.110003 (No Gnus v0.3) XEmacs/21.5 (chayote, linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:lw7bM8MufZgOUu3nLglQ094Uako= Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1430 Lines: 25 >>>>> "Jan" == Jan Knutar writes: Jan> On Thursday 21 October 2004 19:34, Stephen Wille Padnos wrote: >> I'm thinking more like microcode. The functional blocks on the chip >> would be capable of being "rewired" by the OS, depending on the >> applications being run. All of the functions would still operate >> out of card-local memory. Jan> Are you thinking something along the lines of an Jan> optimizing+profiling host-CPU-software-renderer to Jan> FPGA-reprogrammed JIT accelerator? :) Jan> The idea of reprogramming the hardware to toss out the line Jan> drawing and other things that GTK and friends probably only Jan> present to X as pixmaps anyway, and use that 'die space' for Jan> something else, is certainly appealing. Jan> Of course, for a software -> hardware JITc, I think the budget Jan> required would be a few magnitudes more than mentioned here Jan> earlier, and half a decade of debugging or more ontop.. This isn't *strictly* related to the main topic of this discussion, but: You might want to look at the Stretch CPU (http://www.stretchinc.com/), which, incidentally, runs Linux. Or rather the Xtensa part of it does. --J. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/