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  From: Jon M. Taylor <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 19:07:40 -0700 (PDT)

Re: LibGGI3D RFC

On Thu, 20 Aug 1998, MenTaLguY wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Aug 1998, Olivier Galibert wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Aug 19, 1998 at 03:50:34PM -0700, Jon M. Taylor wrote:
> > > 	KGI drivers should support whatever the hardware supports.  If the
> > > hardware supports triangle sets, so should the KGI driver.
> > 
> > Hmmm, may I  amend this sentence?  I'd  rewrite it as "The  KGI driver
> > should  support whatever  the  hardware supports   and  that cannot be
> > handled safely and efficiently in userspace".  Do you agree?
> 
> Indeed.  Really, everything that can go in userspace should go in userspace
> -- that is, if it can be done securely (i.e. KGI can still
> save/restore/reset the state cleanly, and there is no way to lock up the
> machine or anything).  For some well-designed hardware, it would not be
> unreasonable to just MMAP many of the io ports through to the userspace side
> of things, more or less like the stock fbcon drivers tend to do for most
> everything.

	Do you know which hardware is safe, and under what circumstances? 
I don't.  IMHO we should default to slower but safer ioctls and move to
MMIO interfaces as safety is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Jon


---
'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in 
becoming one with God.'
	- Scientist G. Richard Seed

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