Re: [ketil@ii.uib.no: Bug#77511: relationships between packages for 3d support]
Ketil, the problem is, it *is* a complex relationship. Trying to explain
the relationship in a package description is going to either bloat the
package descriptions to many many pages, or will drive the author of any
such description to commit themselves to a nearby mental institution.
The main problem is keeping track of who did what when. Precision
Insight has worked on integrating direct rendering into X based on a
grant from SGI of technology, using Mesa-supplied code to support things
in the meantime, all the while relying upon the kernel guys to include
AGPGART support, and other people to write drivers capable of using the
DRI technology as kernel modules (dri.sourceforge.net). Of course, all
of this is complicated with the various versions of mesa (including the
utah-mesa or mesa-utah people supporting similar things under X 3.3.x),
X, and kernels available, and the occasional driver supplied by the card
makers (often only available as a binary) for specific kernel versions,
and compounded by Debian's ability to have practically everything
available installed at once.
It is even more complex with 3dfx cards. (Zephaniah will attest to this
in a heartbeat I think. :)
You will need the xlibmesa and xlibosmesa libraries installed. You will
also need the 3dfx kernel module, which is probably available as a
backport for some of the 2.2.x series, and probably available for
2.2.18-presomething, as well as being in the 2.4.0-testsomething series.
I am pretty sure you will need some additional packages for your 3dfx
card. Check the debian-x archives (if debian does not host any, I
imagine geocrawler has archives available) -- search for emails from
Zephaniah E. Hull <warp@whitestar.soark.net> as he has done a wonderful
job describing just what is required in getting those goofy 3dfx cards
to work well. >:->
All told, it isn't as easy as it would like to be -- but I have a
feeling that once 2.4.0 is out, and 4.0.x is the predominate version of
X available, that support will improve over time to the point of
simplicity. But it won't happen overnight.
Cheers.
* Branden Robinson <branden@deadbeast.net> [001120 00:52]:
> ----- Forwarded message from Ketil Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no> -----
>
> From: Ketil Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no>
> To: submit@bugs.debian.org
> Subject: Bug#77511: relationships between packages for 3d support
> Date: 20 Nov 2000 09:44:09 +0100
> Delivered-To: branden@localhost.deadbeast.net
> Delivered-To: branden@deadbeast.net
> Reply-To: Ketil Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no>, 77511@bugs.debian.org
> Resent-From: Ketil Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no>
> Orignal-Sender: Ketil Malde <kma@networks.nera.no>
> Resent-To: debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org
> Resent-Cc: Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>
> Resent-Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 08:48:02 GMT
> Resent-Message-ID: <handler.77511.B.97470988820077@bugs.debian.org>
> Resent-Sender: owner@bugs.debian.org
> X-Debian-PR-Message: report 77511
> X-Debian-PR-Package: xserver-xfree86
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> Message-ID: <KETIL-vk1ofzbrq1y.fsf@eris.bgo.nera.no>
> User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) XEmacs/20.4 (Emerald)
> Delivered-To: submit@bugs.debian.org
>
>
> Package: xserver-xfree86
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Hi,
>
> After getting XFree 4 to work with the tdfx module, I'm now trying to
> get accelerated 3D. It appears that, according to
> http://dri.sourceforge.net/DRIuserguide.html
> that I need the 3dfx DRI kernel module, GLX modules for XFree86, and
> an XFree-supplied libGL - and, in particular, *not* libGL from Mesa,
> nor libglide - is this correct?
>
> As it is now, when I try to run a 3d demo like "gears", I get a
> message about setting a 3DFX env var, and it appears to be
> unaccelerated, software only. An artifact of retaining Mesa with
> Glide, I suppose.
>
> So, for the wishlist, I'd think the package descriptions for XFree86,
> as well as Glide/Mesa might do well to describe the relationship and
> compatibilities in a bit more detail. As it is now, the Glide
> packages suggests their installation if you have an appropriate card,
> for instance. And perhaps have libGL from
> XFree (is it included? where?) to conflict with libGL from Mesa
> (although one might want to retain it under the libMesaGL name, of
> course)?
>
> The whole thing probably makes sense when you know how it's supposed
> to work, but with only a rudimentary overview of the packages, it's
> hard to figure out, I think.
>
> -kzm
> --
> If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
>
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> --
> G. Branden Robinson | Experience should teach us to be most on
> Debian GNU/Linux | our guard to protect liberty when the
> branden@deadbeast.net | government's purposes are beneficent.
> http://deadbeast.net/~branden/ | -- Louis Brandeis
--
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