Open-Source ARM Mali Driver Update (Lima)

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source ARM Mali Driver Update (Lima)

This weekend at LinuxTag 2012, an update was shared concerning the state of the Lima driver project -- the initiative to create a reverse-engineered, open-source ARM Mali driver...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTEwODA

[e8hffff]

Will the Vivaldi be using the Lima driver or using the proprietary X11 2D driver from ARM?

[Ancurio]

Will the Vivaldi be using the Lima driver or using the proprietary X11 2D driver from ARM?

I don't think they're gonna rely on Lima being ready on time, so for now, most likely the proprietary one (I think).

[benjamin545]

were they going to ever focus on making a gallium driver for the mali 400? thats what im most interesdet in, mesa not too long ago gained support for android so it would be able to provide a very capable modile gl implementation

[libv]

were they going to ever focus on making a gallium driver for the mali 400? thats what im most interesdet in, mesa not too long ago gained support for android so it would be able to provide a very capable modile gl implementation

There will be no gallium driver for mali. Turns out that gallium is too intertwined with TGSI to be able to run the framework with ARMs binary shader compiler. We need the ability to swap around the ARM compiler and our own free compiler (current plan is that it will be TGSI based), so that we can compare them directly and extensively. This is the only sane way for us to get actual performance comparable to the closed driver. This means that we will be writing a "standard" mesa driver instead, which will give us the flexibility we need.

About the timing, it depends, mostly on how much time i get to work on the project. We are doing this job in a structured way, and complete the tasks in a logical and efficient order. There is no point throwing halfarsed stuff into a mesa framework from afar while fundamental REing work is still ongoing. That's just stupid timewasting, and is simply a big and meaningless statement. I am personally quite sick of people who take huge shortcuts, leave tons of blanks, just to be able to pee against the tree, shout "I've done it!!!!!" and then run off to the next tree. That's sort of behaviour is just damaging free software.

And please, look at the timeframe for this project, and then remember that this is all reverse engineering. Where were we 6 months ago? Where are we today?

[benjamin545]

oh, so this is still in the initial RE phase, i thought this effort was to actualy create a finished product, at least thats what the phoronix articles have been billing it as.

[Flatmush]

With no company officially financing the work

My work/time on the shader reverse engineering and tools has been sponsored by CodeThink.

[libv]

oh, so this is still in the initial RE phase, i thought this effort was to actualy create a finished product, at least thats what the phoronix articles have been billing it as.

I do not see why "still in the initial RE phase" and "effort [was] to actualy create a finished product" would be perpendicular. We are still in the RE phase, making mad progress, and we will create a working driver out of it in the near future. Actually, did you read any of the articles or see any of the slides? I do not think you can label this as "initial REing", we are bloody advanced. Whether drivers or any software is ever finished, is another matter entirely, it only becomes finished when it is a dead project.

[Rick C. Hodgin]

I saw your recent YouTube video driver demo: Lima Video Driver in Action

Totally awesome work guys!

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin

[Rick C. Hodgin]

Just ... plain ... awesome!

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin