Several Old DDX Drivers Got Updated For X.Org Server 1.19, Even Voodoo Graphics

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Several Old DDX Drivers Got Updated For X.Org Server 1.19, Even Voodoo Graphics

X.Org Server 1.19 was released last November while today there was finally an X.Org developer giving some love to the older DDX drivers for those still with vintage GPUs and wanting to run the modern xorg-server...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=X.Org-1.19-Old-Driver-Updates

[tildearrow]

Typo:

Voodoo Ggraphics

[kneekoo]

My old i740 said thanks!

[cb88]

This is why you make things modular... and maintain mostly stable API/ABIS. There is very little advantage to the kernel churn that goes on in Linux... if anything it forces us into incremental and virtually irreversible bloat because bloat is a feature. Kudos to the X developers for not trashing old drivers.

The BSDs maintain their drivers and keep them working reliably with much less effort than Linux... I am pretty sure all the BSDs can still fit on a floppy. Linux unfortunately can't really do that even with a gutted kernel you'd still end up with 3 floppies on with a bare kernel and another for enough kernel modules to do anything and a third for the rest of the rootfs... and that's if I'm being optimistic.

[slacka]

The real story here is

The xf86-video-intel driver hasn't seen a new (development) release in two years

In my own testing and from benchmarks on this site, xf86-video-modesetting is slower than SNA. When you have dedicated 2D hardware, it runs more efficiently and faster then trying to emulate it with 3D hardware. The modesetting driver still lacks basic features preventing old software from running properly and when it crashes it tends to lock the whole system, whereas the xf86-video-* drivers seems to fail much more gracefully.

[torsionbar28]

Man I remember the original Voodoo card, I bought it new in December 1996. It was positively groundbreaking at the time, I remember being blown away by how amazing it was. Lots of fond memories playing GLquake with that card, and later an SLI pair of Voodoo 2's.

[Hi-Angel]

The modesetting driver still lacks basic features preventing old software from running properly

Thanks to linking to bugreport about a gamma control to modesetting driver… oh, wait.

Google doesn't show anything for "modesetting gamma control". Do the devs even know it's not working?

and when it crashes it tends to lock the whole system, whereas the xf86-video-* drivers seems to fail much more gracefully.

Did you try "sysrq" combinations?

[devius]

Good stuff

[You-]

This is why you make things modular... and maintain mostly stable API/ABIS. There is very little advantage to the kernel churn that goes on in Linux... if anything it forces us into incremental and virtually irreversible bloat because bloat is a feature. Kudos to the X developers for not trashing old drivers.

bloat? it has led to drivers that are generally much smaller than on other platforms.

The BSDs maintain their drivers and keep them working reliably with much less effort than Linux... I am pretty sure all the BSDs can still fit on a floppy. Linux unfortunately can't really do that even with a gutted kernel you'd still end up with 3 floppies on with a bare kernel and another for enough kernel modules to do anything and a third for the rest of the rootfs... and that's if I'm being optimistic.

Get rid of all the extra drivers that Linux supports, along with other features that the BSD's before comparing sizes.

[Guest]

Man I remember the original Voodoo card, I bought it new in December 1996. It was positively groundbreaking at the time, I remember being blown away by how amazing it was. Lots of fond memories playing GLquake with that card, and later an SLI pair of Voodoo 2's.

I had a voodoo rush, then voodoo 2, then voodoo 3 then voodoo 5 before jumping on the nvidia bandwagon.
Those things were incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVwx20WE9UU