Re: Intel Haswell support - Any updates?

On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 07:00:15PM +0200, Jean-S??bastien P??dron wrote:
> Hi everyone!
> 
> I'm very sorry I didn't communicate at all on the i915 update project.
> 
> So here is a status update: since this morning, the driver builds fine.
> I'm currently attending the XDC (X.Org Developers Conference) and don't
> have an Intel laptop to test with me. However, Johannes Dieterich (also
> attending the conference) offerred his help, so we will do that today.
> 
> Obviously, do not expect something stable in the coming couple days.
> Thank you for your patience :)

First of all, I want to say (nay, YELL!) "THANK YOU!" You're doing a
tremendously awesome job that is much needed. I think you're the one
showing the most amount of patience, especially given the community's
desire to have Haswell support.

I know there's a difference between "builds fine" and "runs fine". With
it building fine, is the driver at the point where we can start
rudimentary testing? I can't help out in the development efforts, but
I'd love to help test and give bug reports. This is one way the
community at large can help. Even if it means stuffing your Inbox with
bug spam. ;)

> 
> To answer various questions in this thread:
> 
> Why does it take so much time to update? Once Konstantin committed his
> i915 update, I was busy with non-FreeBSD activities until last July,
> when I slowly started back to work on i915. My goal is to reduce the
> diff with Linux as much as possible. But, as opposed to OpenBSD and
> DragonFlyBSD, we do not use a Linux compatibility layer which would
> dramatically ease our life.

Is a linux compat layer something you deem necessary for long-term
success?

> 
> This layer exists for the OFED/Infiniband drivers: we are almost ready
> to move it to a central place, so we can use it in the near future in
> the DRM subsystem.
> 
> Another problem I will fix in the near future is the method I used: I
> worked on a giant patch instead of doing several incremental commits.
> This is unfriendly for external contributors and hard to review.
> DragonFly got that right for instance.
> 
> Now about other related tasks:
>     o  A Mesa update will be committed Real Soon Now?. It will unlock
>        GLAMOR and OpenCL support.

OpenCL on FreeBSD would be stupendously amazing!

>     o  Once Mesa is updated, we can update xserver to 1.17.2. xserver
>        1.18 RC 1 works fine (at least for me :). It should be released
>        for Halloween.
>     o  Wayland. The problem is NOT the output side of the graphics
>        stack: it is the input part. We miss evdev (ported as a GSoC,
>        waiting for review and commit), we miss udev, we miss libinput.
>        This item deserves a dedicated email.
> 
> Sorry, it's a bit short for such a large topic. It's difficult to expand
> more during a conference :)

Thanks again for your hard work and diligence.

Thanks,

-- 
Shawn Webb
HardenedBSD

GPG Key ID:          0x6A84658F52456EEE
GPG Key Fingerprint: 2ABA B6BD EF6A F486 BE89  3D9E 6A84 658F 5245 6EEE