Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 14:34:03 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 14:33:42 -0400 Received: from cmn2.cmn.net ([206.168.145.10]:45384 "EHLO cmn2.cmn.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 14:33:37 -0400 Message-ID: <3B533349.2070201@valinux.com> Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 12:32:41 -0600 From: Jeff Hartmann User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2 i686; en-US; 0.8) Gecko/20010215 X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 CC: John Cavan , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: 4.1.0 DRM (was Re: Linux 2.4.6-ac3) In-Reply-To: <3B532BB7.1050300@valinux.com> <995307155.32445.36.camel@nomade> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)@localhost.localdomain Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Xavier Bestel wrote: > On 16 Jul 2001 12:00:23 -0600, Jeff Hartmann wrote: > [...] > >> will do this. This will make the 4.0 -> 4.1 have to be a compile time >> decision, but 4.1 -> 4.1.1 and higher will just coexist with each >> other. I'm currently working out integrating this into the kernel >> build, and I should hopefully have a patch for Linus and Alan soon. > > > I would have preferred if you were just versionning vs the API, not the > X version (and keep the API rather stable). The problem is that the API can't be completely stable because of the 3D client-side drivers, 2D ddx drivers, and the drm kernel modules have to be tightly coupled. The drm kernel module has to provide a secure method of sending data to the card, but we also want it to be efficent. For example, the mesa-3.5 versions of the drm kernel modules can send multiple states inside one dma buffer, this greatly increases the efficency of the driver, but it costs API compatibility. We do version the API, and will not attempt to use the drivers if their API versions are wrong. However we want multiple versions of the API to coexist. Adding the version number to the module name will allow for all the versions to coexist. > I wouldn't like to update my > kernel just to go from X 4.1.1 to X 4.1.1-pl1. Well if there are changes to the drm kernel drivers, you have to update your kernel or compile the kernel modules by hand. We could easily create a stable API if cards were secure, or we did not care about security. Unfortunately neither one is the case, so the API is not completely static. -Jeff - 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/