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Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers

From Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch>
Newsgroups linux.kernel
Subject Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers
Date 2016-12-08 11:20 +0100
Message-ID <sM3XX-4Va-3@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References <sGAMV-2jc-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <sLVnH-7LF-7@gated-at.bofh.it>
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On Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 12:01:19PM +1100, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:
> On Wed, 2016-11-23 at 10:03 +0200, Tomi Valkeinen wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Since the fbdev framework is in maintenance mode and all new display drivers
> > should be made with the DRM framework, remove the fbdev drivers from staging.
> > 
> > Note: the patches are created with git format-patch -D, so they can't be
> > applied. Only for review.
> 
> I missed the discussion where this decision was made, I admit I am
> unimpressed by it.
> 
> DRM drivers don't strike me as suitable for small/slow cores with dumb
> framebuffers or simple 2D only accel, such as the one found in the ASpeed
> BMCs.

We have a helper for simple drivers now, if you take into account the
massive helper libraries for everything that comes along with drm I expect
if even dumb panels behind slow spi buses drm is now the more suitable
subsytem.

> With drmfb you basically have to shadow everything into memory & copy
> over everything, and locks you out of simple 2D accel. For a simple text
> console the result is orders of magnitude slower and memory hungry than
> a simple fbdev.

Not true, we have full fbdev emulation, and drivers can implement the 2d
accel in there. And a bunch of them do. It's just that most teams decided
that this is pointless waste of their time.j

> At least that was the case last I looked at the DRM stuff with Dave,
> maybe things have changed... 
> 
> Not everything has a powerful 3D GPU.

That's correct, and drm can cope. And compared to fbdev there's a very
active community who improves&refactors it every kernel release to make it
even better. Since about 2 years (when atomic landed) we merge new drivers at
a rate of 2-3 per kernel release, and those new drivers get ever simpler
and smaller thanks to all this work.
-Daniel
-- 
Daniel Vetter
Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
http://blog.ffwll.ch

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Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 02:10 +0100
  Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Tomi Valkeinen <tomi.valkeinen@ti.com> - 2016-12-08 09:10 +0100
    Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 22:30 +0100
      Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 22:50 +0100
        Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 09:20 +0100
  Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-08 11:20 +0100
    Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> - 2016-12-08 13:20 +0100
      Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-08 15:20 +0100
        Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> - 2016-12-08 15:30 +0100
          Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com> - 2016-12-08 15:40 +0100
            Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> - 2016-12-08 15:50 +0100
              Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-08 16:30 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 22:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 23:00 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 09:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 09:50 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-09 12:50 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 14:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-09 22:20 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-09 12:50 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> - 2016-12-09 13:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Lucas Stach <l.stach@pengutronix.de> - 2016-12-09 14:20 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 14:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@gmail.com> - 2016-12-09 15:00 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 15:10 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-09 21:40 +0100
                Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-09 09:40 +0100
          Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@linux.intel.com> - 2016-12-08 16:10 +0100
        Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Daniel Vetter <daniel@ffwll.ch> - 2016-12-08 15:30 +0100
    Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-08 23:40 +0100
      Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com> - 2016-12-09 01:10 +0100
        Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org> - 2016-12-09 09:10 +0100
        Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] staging: remove fbdev drivers Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> - 2016-12-09 12:50 +0100

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