The fbdev/DRI sub-project within Mesa brings hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering to the Linux fbdev environment. The X Window System / XFree86 is not needed.
Basically, the DRI drivers for hardware accelerated OpenGL for XFree86 have been ported to fbdev so that X is not needed. This means fbdev/DRI works in full-screen mode only.
DRI driver writers may find this simplified environment easier to work in, compared to the full XFree86/DRI environment.
Much of the work for this project has been done by Jon Smirl and Keith Whitwell.
To use fbdev/DRI, you'll need a Linux 2.4 or 2.6 kernel.
The fbdev/DRI Mesa code is in the Mesa CVS trunk (to be released as Mesa 5.1 in the future).
Assuming you're starting with a fresh Mesa CVS checkout, do the following:
cd Mesa-newtree cp Makefile.X11 Makefile # or use a symlink make linux-solo
When this is finished, check the Mesa-newtree/lib directory
to verify that the following files were made:
libGL.so.1.2 - the client-side OpenGL library
(and a few symlinks to it).
libGLU.so.1.1 - the GLU library (and a few symlinks to it).
libglut.so.3.7 - the GLUT library (and a few symlinks to it).
mga_dri.so - DRI driver for Matrox G200/G400 cards.
r128_dri.so - DRI driver for ATI Rage 128 cards.
r200_dri.so - DRI driver for ATI R200 Radeon cards.
radeon_dri.so - DRI driver for original ATI Radeon cards.
fb_dri.so - software-only fbdev driver.
miniglx.conf - configuration file for the MiniGLX interface
If XFree86 is currently running, exit/stop the X server so you're working from the console.
You'll need to load kernel modules specific to your graphics hardware. The following kernel modules should be included with your kernel.
If you have ATI Radeon/R200 hardware, run as root:
modprobe agpgart # the AGP GART module modprobe radeonfb # the Radeon fbdev driver modprobe radeon # the Radeon DRI kernel module
If you have ATI Rage 128 hardware, run as root:
modprobe agpgart # the AGP GART module modprobe aty128fb # the Rage 128 fbdev driver modprobe r128 # the Rage 128 DRI kernel module
If you have Matrox G200/G400 hardware, run as root:
modprobe agpgart # the AGP GART module modprobe mgafb # the Matrox fbdev driver modprobe mga # the Matrox DRI kernel module
Then run lsmod to be sure the modules are loaded.
For a Radeon card, you should see something like this:
Module Size Used by Not tainted radeon 110308 0 (unused) radeonfb 21900 0 (unused) agpgart 43072 1
The Mesa-newtree/lib/miniglx.conf file should be installed
in /etc/.
Edit /etc/miniglx.conf to be sure it's set up correctly
for your hardware.
Comments in the file explain the options.
Make sure your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is set to the
Mesa-newtree/lib/ directory.
Change to the Mesa-newtree/progs/miniglx/ directory and
start the sample_server program in the background:
./sample_server &
Then try running the miniglxtest program:
./miniglxtest
You should see a rotating quadrilateral which changes color as it rotates. It will exit automatically after a bit.
If you run other tests in the miniglx/ directory, you may want to run them from a remote shell so that you can stop them with ctrl-C.
If you try to run miniglxtest and get the following:
[miniglx] failed to probe chipset connect: Connection refused server connection lost
It means that the sample_server process is not running.
The full OpenGL API is available with fbdev/DRI.
OpenGL/Mesa is interfaced to fbdev via the MiniGLX interface. MiniGLX is a subset of Xlib and GLX API functions which provides just enough functionality to setup OpenGL rendering and respond to simple input events.
Since MiniGLX is a subset of the usual Xlib and GLX APIs, programs written to the MiniGLX API can also be run on full Xlib/GLX implementations. This allows some degree of flexibility for software development and testing.