svn commit: r480968 - head

[Johannes M Dieterich]

Dear Mark,

On Sun, 30 Sep 2018 13:44:28 -0700
Mark Millard <marklmi at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Author: jmd
> > Date: Sun Sep 30 19:22:24 2018
> > New Revision: 480968
> > URL: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/ports/480968
> > 
> > Log:
> >   Add UPDATING entry concerning DRM metaport.
> >   
> >   Reviewed by:	x11 (zeising), imp, rene
> >   Approved by:	x11 (zeising)
> >   Differential Revision:	https://reviews.freebsd.org/D16903
> > 
> > Modified:
> >   head/UPDATING
> > 
> > Modified: head/UPDATING
> > ==============================================================================
> > --- head/UPDATING	Sun Sep 30 19:19:44 2018	(r480967)
> > +++ head/UPDATING	Sun Sep 30 19:22:24 2018	(r480968)
> > @@ -5,6 +5,15 @@ they are unavoidable.
> >  You should get into the habit of checking this file for changes
> > each time you update your ports collection, before attempting any
> > port upgrades. 
> > +20180930:
> > +  AFFECTS: users of DRM components
> > +  AUTHOR: jmd at FreeBSD.org
> > +
> > +  A metaport, graphics/drm-kmod, was introduced for users of both
> > the LinuxKPI-
> > +  based DRM components as well as the legacy ones. It is
> > recommended to use the
> > +  metaport from now on, which will select a recommended DRM
> > version based on
> > +  the FreeBSD version.
> > +
> >  20180924:
> >    AFFECTS: www/libresonic-standalone
> >    AUTHOR: jlh at FreeBSD.org  
> 
> Do the recommendations apply independently of how old the
> video card(s) in use may be, especially for amd64 contexts?
> 
> If not, might mentioning the issue exists be appropriate,
> even if no classification of specific cards is to be provided?
> In other words: document that supporting sufficiently old cards
> is a "expert user" activity for which installing DRM ports
> directly is appropriate?
> 
> I'm guessing sufficiently older card need manual handling, so
> I expect . . .
> 
> This would help guide folks with older cards in what to expect
> and what to do or ask, with less initial classification as "it
> is broken, please fix it" from lack of any hint at card vintage
> ties.
> 
> Of course I could be wrong in my guess.
Base drm2 contained i915 and radeonkms. All of the drm-*-kmod ports
contain both of these and do support in upstream AFAIK the subset of
cards supported by the old base drm2. Please let me know if I am wrong!

Now, for i915 I'd say the support for old GPUs in our port is pretty
solid, radeonkms was somewhat shaky in the beginning but more recent
ports DRMs have better support (i.e., drm-next-kmod and
drm-devel-kmod). So one really wants as recent of a DRM as possible. We
(as in: FreeBSDDesktop) have some older HW we test on but of course
welcome contributions by others in terms of tests, bug reports,
fixes, ... also in that area.

We can and will refine recommendations based on user input. I believe
we'd like to have as many people as possible on the LinuxKPI-based DRM
as active work is going on there.

Thanks,

Johannes