An FBDEV Compositor Back-End For Wayland/Weston

[phoronix]

Phoronix: An FBDEV Compositor Back-End For Wayland/Weston

An FBDEV-based compositor back-end for Wayland's Weston has been published. This back-end allows for Wayland's Weston to run on a Linux frame-buffer device while the graphics rendering is done using Pixman and input is handled through evdev...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI3Njc

[blackout23]

This is a good thing I guess? What is the benefit?

[pq__]

This is a good thing I guess? What is the benefit?

We will be able to run Weston on vesafb, efifb, or any fbdev kernel driver, not just the full-blown modern hardware graphics drivers. Without proper GPU graphics acceleration, of course.

Most likely this will be the first Weston backend, that can run without any GL and without X11. Right now only the X11 backend supports running without any GL.

[runeks]

We will be able to run Weston on vesafb, efifb, or any fbdev kernel driver, not just the full-blown modern hardware graphics drivers. Without proper GPU graphics acceleration, of course.

Most likely this will be the first Weston backend, that can run without any GL and without X11. Right now only the X11 backend supports running without any GL.

Will it run on ARM hardware like the Samsung Chromebook then? This has an fbdev driver as far as I know.

[pq__]

Will it run on ARM hardware like the Samsung Chromebook then? This has an fbdev driver as far as I know.

I don't know that specific device, but if it is a modern Linux system otherwise (not a crippled libc like in Android, uses udev and evdev), yes, it should run without modifications, sans bug fixes.

[runeks]

I don't know that specific device, but if it is a modern Linux system otherwise (not a crippled libc like in Android, uses udev and evdev), yes, it should run without modifications, sans bug fixes.

Cool! Yes it uses udev and evdev. It comes with Chrome OS which is based on Gentoo. I'm running Ubuntu on it now using the kernel that came with the device. Upstream kernel doesn't work with the device yet, but Google is in the process of upstreaming their changes. One guy said 3.9 is not an unlikely target.