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drm: Add TODO item for fbdev driver conversion
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The DRM TODO list now contains an entry for converting fbdev
drivers over to DRM.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@suse.de>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
Link: https://patchwork.freedesktop.org/patch/msgid/20191017074705.9140-2-tzimmermann@suse.de
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Thomas Zimmermann committed Oct 17, 2019
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27 changes: 27 additions & 0 deletions Documentation/gpu/todo.rst
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Expand Up @@ -462,3 +462,30 @@ Contact: Sam Ravnborg

Outside DRM
===========

Convert fbdev drivers to DRM
----------------------------

There are plenty of fbdev drivers for older hardware. Some hwardware has
become obsolete, but some still provides good(-enough) framebuffers. The
drivers that are still useful should be converted to DRM and afterwards
removed from fbdev.

Very simple fbdev drivers can best be converted by starting with a new
DRM driver. Simple KMS helpers and SHMEM should be able to handle any
existing hardware. The new driver's call-back functions are filled from
existing fbdev code.

More complex fbdev drivers can be refactored step-by-step into a DRM
driver with the help of the DRM fbconv helpers. [1] These helpers provide
the transition layer between the DRM core infrastructure and the fbdev
driver interface. Create a new DRM driver on top of the fbconv helpers,
copy over the fbdev driver, and hook it up to the DRM code. Examples for
several fbdev drivers are available at [1] and a tutorial of this process
available at [2]. The result is a primitive DRM driver that can run X11
and Weston.

- [1] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/tzimmermann/linux/tree/fbconv
- [2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/tzimmermann/linux/blob/fbconv/drivers/gpu/drm/drm_fbconv_helper.c

Contact: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@suse.de>

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