Re: Arcan [0.5.1] on FreeBSD/KMS

Hey, this looks really cool!


-a


On 5 September 2016 at 06:25, bbjowhn . <bbjstahl_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm guessing most of you seeing this post aren't too familiar with the
> project, so I'll start with something of a synopsis.
>
> Arcan is a mix between a streaming realtime graphics (and audio) processor,
> a game engine and a display server. It has been in development under the
> radar for about a decade, patiently awaiting the time where lower level
> access to accelerated graphics hardware starts becoming bearable.
>
> As a display server, it has most of the hardcore features in place since a
> while back, i.e. hot-pluggable multi-displays with different orientation,
> mixed densities and subpixel layout, mouse, keyboard, game devices,
> trackpads, crash recovery, suspend and resume, clipboard, screen sharing,
> streaming and so on.
>
> One of the key differences to say, X.org is that the role of the 'window
> manager' has been moved into an authoritative Lua VM and it's the scripts
> (or collection of scripts) that you chose to run which defines permitted
> behaviour in terms of input and output routing and response. This also
> means that it can fit many roles: display manager, virtual terminals or
> just an image viewer if that's all you need -- with a pretty compact set of
> dependencies.
>
> Among its downsides: it's still missing an external protocol (though
> there's an internal one used for process separation of sensitive tasks, for
> providing a terminal and compatibility with some specific targets of
> personal importance, like QEmu and --hopefully soon-- Bhyve) so
> compatibility options are still limited. The simple reason being that I am
> waiting to see which one of the available ones (X, Spice, Mir, Wayland,
> ...) turns out to be the least painful option :-)
>
> Starting with the version in the subject (0.5.1), it's up and running on
> FreeBSD with an input driver using syscons/sysmouse (and respective
> keymaps). The reason I'm bothering people here is simply that I'm looking
> for more people interested in hammering out the details with the BSD
> integration and packaging.
>
> There is so much more to cover -- but if anyone is curious hare are some
> points of reference:
>
> Documentation on internals (including FreeBSD setup specifics) roadmaps,
> etc:
> https://arcan-fe.com and https://github.com/letoram/arcan/wiki
>
> A 'talking slide' high-level presentation:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07nqZIFRDJg
>
> A 'toy' desktop environment from a few years ago showing some of the crazy
> things that can be done:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O40cPUqLbU
>
> The more serious desktop environment ('durden') that I am using myself:
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGqpKIeZOSp6quf6CmMOr91Tmj4UppyoR
>
> Regards,
>  Björn
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