Nouveau - Jul 2009 - When will nouveau kernel tree be merged into master

Hi,

I've been using nouveau driveau for 8 months or so, using automated
build from drm git, xf86-video-nouveau git and even sometimes mesa drm
git  and discovered the linux-core build did not build the nouveau
driver the hard way: X was refusing to start as the nouveau.ko modules
was not loaded nor build. Build process did chnage without obvious way
to know womething was wrong.

Then I tried to build it by hand as the nouveau directory is still there
but compilation fails! I wonder why the code is still in the tree as it
make me waste quite some time trying to find where the missing
definitions had gone.

After some hours of goggling I discovered there was an git kernel tree
for nouveau. Got the feeling from dri-devel posts it was supposed to be
merged for rc1, checked master tree and found it was not merged.

So my question are:
    - Why not purely delete nouveau files from linux-core and issue
error messages?
    - When will nouveau in kernel git tree be merged? I know the merge
windows is closed but that usually does not hold for new drivers

Thanks. Using nouveau is quite painfull. Please be aware that as
distribution move too slowly into nominal nouveau driver support, I'm
not probably the only guy lost in the dust.

-- eric

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Eric Valette<Eric.Valette at free.fr>
wrote:
> Maarten Maathuis wrote:
>> This merging you probably read about, was merging 2.6.30-rc1 into the
>> nouveau tree, because that had upstream ttm support.
>>
> OK. I read it the other way round! I saw people complaining someone
> removed the support form drm fit without adding it anywhere else.
>> There were no plans (and there are still no plans) to merge nouveau,
>> simply because the code is still too untested and interfaces are still
>> changing.
>>
> And it will continue as long as it is difficult to compile it from
> source and it is not provided by distribution. So you are just hidding
> problem not solving them. There is a "staging" tree for
unpolished
> drivers already in the kernel. The more people read the code and use,
> the more it will stabilize rapidly.
>> A merging tree would always be a personal tree, belonging to a single
>> person, not a public development tree like this.
>>
>> http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/InstallDRM lists several
>> installation options
>>
> Will try a soon as I get back home.
>> Also the frontpage was updated to reflect the changes. It also clearly
>> states the kernel tree is not upstreaming. Thanks to pq for all the
>> updating and the "compat" tree.
>>
>> I have and still am away, so i haven't tried it all, but it looks
>> quite ok from a distance.
>>
>> I know transations are not nice, but they had to be made for the sake
>> of the project. There is also no intent on rushing things into the
>> kernel before they are ready (i certainly hope not).
>>
> I beg to disagree on this point as the code is already used by people
> and some distrib maintainers.
Going into the kernel means having your interfaces frozen for many
many years. Don't forget that this new tree brings many changes
(memory manager and kms) and these need to be tested.
>> Maarten.
>>
>
>

On Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:00:29 +0200
Eric Valette <Eric.Valette at Free.fr> wrote:
> I've been using nouveau driveau for 8 months or so, using automated
> build from drm git, xf86-video-nouveau git and even sometimes mesa drm
> git  and discovered the linux-core build did not build the nouveau
> driver the hard way: X was refusing to start as the nouveau.ko modules
> was not loaded nor build. Build process did chnage without obvious way
> to know womething was wrong.
Nouveau was removed from make targets, therefore you get this:

$ make nouveau.o
make: *** No rule to make target `nouveau.o'.  Stop.

The removal was done in a commit, that removed the old ttm code, and at
the same time broke the nouveau.ko build, hence nouveau is not a target
anymore.

The plain 'make' of course works, since there are other modules that
(supposedly) still work.

Btw. Nouveau should fall back to NoAccel mode, if the kernel modules are
not available.
> Then I tried to build it by hand as the nouveau directory is still there
> but compilation fails! I wonder why the code is still in the tree as it
> make me waste quite some time trying to find where the missing
> definitions had gone.
The nouveau directory?
> After some hours of goggling I discovered there was an git kernel tree
> for nouveau. Got the feeling from dri-devel posts it was supposed to be
> merged for rc1, checked master tree and found it was not merged.
I assume you refer to the discussion
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2009-June/003103.html

The only merge mentioned is newTTM, which went into -rc1 along with
the radeon KMS driver. Nouveau depends on newTTM, and we wanted it
upstream before setting up the master branch.
> So my question are:
>     - Why not purely delete nouveau files from linux-core and issue
> error messages?
The code is still in the tree for historical reference, and for BSDs.
I'm not sure if BSDs still need it.
>     - When will nouveau in kernel git tree be merged? I know the merge
> windows is closed but that usually does not hold for new drivers
This Nouveau kernel tree will never be merged from. A completely
separate git repository will be created for upstreaming Nouveau.
A proposition was made in
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2009-March/002765.html
and we are approximately following that. The precise development
model is still under discussion and has to be decided before
creating the upstreaming tree.

There's a good chance the upstreaming tree is created this year, and
Nouveau starts its journey into mainline, but first into staging.
> Thanks. Using nouveau is quite painfull. Please be aware that as
> distribution move too slowly into nominal nouveau driver support, I'm
> not probably the only guy lost in the dust.
Yes, and we are trying to alleviate the pain by keeping the guides
in the wiki up-to-date. Granted, there were the few days, when drm.git
nouveau.ko build was broken, and the InstallDRM page was not written
yet, nor InstallNouveau updated. IIRC that was less than a week.

Unfortunately, some people want to translate wiki pages to their
mother tongue, and then do not bother updating them for a long time.
The English pages contain the latest information.

This is the original announcement:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2009-June/003000.html
later we got master and master-compat branches up and deprecated
everything else. For further info, see
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2009-June/003134.html
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2009-July/003148.html
and the Nouveau wiki.

The nouveau kernel tree was annouced on the wiki front page, and on
the nouveau mailing list. What more should we have done?

-- 
Pekka Paalanen
http://www.iki.fi/pq/

On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 17:31:43 +0200
Maarten Maathuis <madman2003 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Eric Valette<Eric.Valette at free.fr>
wrote:
> > Maarten Maathuis wrote:
> >> There were no plans (and there are still no plans) to merge
nouveau,
> >> simply because the code is still too untested and interfaces are
still
> >> changing.
> >>
> > And it will continue as long as it is difficult to compile it from
> > source and it is not provided by distribution. So you are just hidding
> > problem not solving them. There is a "staging" tree for
unpolished
> > drivers already in the kernel. The more people read the code and use,
> > the more it will stabilize rapidly.
Stabilization includes the developers being happy with the API first.
This is not true yet. Testing is essential only after that. To me
it seems there is a nice user base already, generating more bug reports
than there is developer power to solve.

-- 
Pekka Paalanen
http://www.iki.fi/pq/

Pekka Paalanen wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 17:31:43 +0200
> Maarten Maathuis <madman2003 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Eric Valette<Eric.Valette at
free.fr> wrote:
>>> Maarten Maathuis wrote:
>>>> There were no plans (and there are still no plans) to merge
nouveau,
>>>> simply because the code is still too untested and interfaces
are still
>>>> changing.
>>>>
>>> And it will continue as long as it is difficult to compile it from
>>> source and it is not provided by distribution. So you are just
hidding
>>> problem not solving them. There is a "staging" tree for
unpolished
>>> drivers already in the kernel. The more people read the code and
use,
>>> the more it will stabilize rapidly.
> 
> Stabilization includes the developers being happy with the API first.
> This is not true yet. Testing is essential only after that. To me
> it seems there is a nice user base already, generating more bug reports
> than there is developer power to solve.
> 
kde4 kwin not running using openGL as composing type is maybe my
favorite bug!

Then comes messa git nouveau being out of sync with the rest of nouveau code

-- eric