Intel graphics framebuffer driver

[Greg KH]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 02:31:58PM +0200, Sergey Kvachonok wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I'm looking for some advice from linux driver developers.
> 
> There exists yet another version of intelfb framebuffer driver, which
> supports mode switching on mobile devices, and a few other things
> current intelfb doesn't do or does wrong.
> http://code.google.com/p/intelfb2/
> 
> It was announced on linux-fbdev-devel:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=25a99abe0903071205j5d9c1cbcp971a7af5c8b40313%40mail.gmail.com&forum_name=linux-fbdev-devel
> 
> Current intel framebuffer maintainers plan to move intelfb
> functionality into i915drm driver, and that is already done and merged
> into following 2.6.29 release.
> 
> I was not aware of their intentions at the time of writing it, so now
> intelfb2 is left dangling.  I did, however, get reports from one of
> the few intelfb2 users, that i915drm framebuffer implementation is not
> yet complete, and some of the fbdev features (HW acceleration,
> modesetting from the userspace) critical to his software are missing.
> intelfb2, being straight fbdev implementation, provides that.
> 
> So now I'm being asked to merge it somehow somewhere,
> because it the least broken solution at present time.
> 
> Basically it's yet another intel graphics driver with modesetting,
> which deviated from original intelfb so far that presenting it as a
> series of patches is not feasible.  I believe it can only be treated
> as a separate experimental driver, rather that intelfb upgrade, with
> intention of phasing intelfb1 out in the future.
> 
> So I'm asking what I can possibly do with the code I have now, and
> whether it is viable to include it in the -staging tree.

Why not work with the i915drm developers to provide those missing
features?  That way everyone benifits.

thanks,

greg k-h