Why kdrive ?

[Graeme Gregory]

Ok, I messed this email up :-)

On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 11:27 +0100, Graeme Gregory wrote:
> > Hi I just recieved an interesting mail in the Xorg MailingList this was
> > the contents :
> >
> > >> Why not just go for the full X11?  Memory wise I found no difference
> > >> in the memory usage between X11 and kdrive on the OMAP.
> > >
> > >I am told that the full Xorg isn't very happy when built against
> > >uClibc.
> >
> >
> > So here's my question, if the memory footprint of kdrive is the same as
> > the full xorg, why choose kdrive over the full xorg ?
> >
> > There might be interesing features in the full server that aren't there
> > in kdrive. Plus I've read here that the X driver has got duplicate code
> > in the X driver from the framebuffer, so there's no really gain in term
> > of size of the driver either...
> >
> > So here's my question if I am totally wrong or asked a totally stupid
> > question I am sorry, as I don't know all the implications.
> 
> Ok, I may have mangled the history a little here, but this is the basics
> I hope.
> 
> When we first started on this kdrive/tinyX was the playground for new
> features within the xorg/xf86 family. xorg didn't support touchscreens,
> or a configless running. The lack of these features was a killer because
> making a user construct an xorg.conf on device was a pain. kdrive also
> had the RENDER extension so people could play with shinies.
> 
> Xglamo was then created in the kdrive family.
> 
> Now OM is going to invest some time in investigating if Xorg or Kdrive
> is the best path forward in the future. Xorg has acheived some level of
> configless running. Has touchscreen drivers. And the shinies extensions.
> It is being used on other embedded boards built from OE as well.
> 
> Graeme