Posts:
39
From:
GB
Registered:
10/29/09
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Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D, legacy graphic cards
Posted:
Nov 2, 2009 2:21 AM
To: OpenSolaris » discuss
Cc: OpenSolaris » code
Cc: Communities » advocacy » discuss
Cc: Communities » device drivers » discuss
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It is a shame that Sun does not support XVR-500, XVR-1000, Expert 3D and several other graphic cards on OpenSolaris because of copyright/NDA/patent issues.
I think that Sun should make an effort to liase with 3D Labs to open their drivers source to allow for implementation into OpenSolaris.
In the meantime could Sun at least provide binary drivers for these cards, even as separate downloads, to allow those like me with legacy Sun workstations to install, use and contribute to OpenSolaris?
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Posts:
5,507
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: [osol-code] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D,
legacy graphic cards
Posted:
Nov 2, 2009 8:32 AM
in response to: jennalee
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Jensen Lee wrote:
> It is a shame that Sun does not support XVR-500, XVR-1000, Expert 3D and several other graphic cards on OpenSolaris because of copyright/NDA/patent issues.
>
> I think that Sun should make an effort to liase with 3D Labs to open their drivers source to allow for implementation into OpenSolaris.
>
> In the meantime could Sun at least provide binary drivers for these cards, even as separate downloads, to allow those like me with legacy Sun workstations to install, use and contribute to OpenSolaris?
The binary drivers have been available as a separate download for several years.
You can install them and get kernel level support, but at the X server level,
they only support Xsun, not Xorg, so that really doesn't give you much other
than not seeing a "no driver for frame buffer" messages from the kernel at boot.
Xsun cannot be included in OpenSolaris due to other licensing issues, and since
it was already planned to be EOF'ed as part of the transition to Xorg, there was
no point in resolving those. (Resolution of those licensing issues would
probably be a 6-12 month engineering effort to replace Xsun's font backends with
open source ones.)
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan dot coopersmith at sun dot com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
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opensolaris-code at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/opensolaris-code
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Rainer Orth
ro@TechFak.Uni-Biele...
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Re: [osol-code] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D,
legacy graphic cards
Posted:
Nov 2, 2009 10:06 AM
in response to: alanc
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Alan Coopersmith <Alan dot Coopersmith at Sun dot COM> writes:
> Xsun cannot be included in OpenSolaris due to other licensing issues, and since
> it was already planned to be EOF'ed as part of the transition to Xorg, there was
> no point in resolving those. (Resolution of those licensing issues would
> probably be a 6-12 month engineering effort to replace Xsun's font backends with
> open source ones.)
But if you just take Xsun and dependent libraries from the SVR4 packages
and install them on an IPS-based system, it should just work? I wouldn't
expect much breakage if the software hasn't seen many updates lately and
the interfaces are stable.
The only issue might be with installing into the /usr/openwin hierarchy
when that is replaced with a symlink to /usr (or to subdirs thereof).
Rainer
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainer Orth, Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University
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Posts:
5,507
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
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Re: [osol-code] Sun UltraSparc: XVR-500, Expert 3D,
legacy graphic cards
Posted:
Nov 2, 2009 10:30 AM
in response to: Rainer Orth
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Rainer Orth wrote:
> Alan Coopersmith <Alan dot Coopersmith at Sun dot COM> writes:
>
>> Xsun cannot be included in OpenSolaris due to other licensing issues, and since
>> it was already planned to be EOF'ed as part of the transition to Xorg, there was
>> no point in resolving those. (Resolution of those licensing issues would
>> probably be a 6-12 month engineering effort to replace Xsun's font backends with
>> open source ones.)
>
> But if you just take Xsun and dependent libraries from the SVR4 packages
> and install them on an IPS-based system, it should just work? I wouldn't
> expect much breakage if the software hasn't seen many updates lately and
> the interfaces are stable.
>
> The only issue might be with installing into the /usr/openwin hierarchy
> when that is replaced with a symlink to /usr (or to subdirs thereof).
/usr/openwin is a problem - you can mostly workaround that by removing the
/usr/openwin -> /usr/X11 symlink before installation and replacing it with
a loopback mount of /usr/X11 onto /usr/openwin.
I have been trying to isolate the the Xsun specific bits into Xsun specific
packages, both to allow the OpenSolaris packages to build without failing
because the Xsun bits are missing, and to allow post-EOF installation by
those who are willing to take the risks on of unmaintained software.
However, a lot of other parts of the OS (gnome, etc.) are going to start
assuming there are only Xorg based X servers on the system and stop
supporting Xsun servers - at least for local use. Clearly anything that
interacts with a remote X display has to support Xsun for roughly another
decade or so, until Solaris 10 is EOL, but things that only deal with the
console X server may not keep the support going for it.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan dot coopersmith at sun dot com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
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opensolaris-code mailing list
opensolaris-code at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/opensolaris-code
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