Bug 1128372 - Disable deprecated egl_gallium backend.
Summary: Disable deprecated egl_gallium backend.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: mesa
Version: 22
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Adam Jackson
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2014-08-09 16:43 UTC by Felix Bellaby
Modified: 2015-08-12 16:44 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2015-08-12 16:44:23 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Felix Bellaby 2014-08-09 16:43:48 UTC
Description of problem:

Mesa is built with --enable-gallium-egl in rawhide/21. This flag enables the egl_gallium backend. I think that the egl_gallium backend is deprecated and Fedora should be using the egl_dri2 backend instead.

Running configure --help shows that --disable-gallium-egl is the default and emphasizes that this option is not required to use EGL (because the default egl_dri2 backend already supports the gallium device drivers). The implication is that you need a good reason to enable gallium-egl.

Mesa has been moving over to the egl_dri2 backend for some years. The mesa git logs for egl_dri2 (src/egl/drivers/dri2) and egl_gallium (src/gallium/state-trackers/egl) show that the overwhelming majority of development is now in the egl_dri2 backend. The few cases where egl_gallium offers advantages over egl_dri2 should disappear as development continues on egl_dri2 backend. On the other hand, the disadvantages in the egl_gallium backend may remain in place forever. Indeed, the egl_gallium backend may be dropped at some point to simplify the mesa code base. 

The mesa configure disables the egl_gallium backend by default because the default EGL backend changes from egl_dri2 to egl_gallium as soon as --enable-gallium-egl is set (see src/egl/main/egldriver.c). When the egl_gallium backend is enabled then the obscure environment variable EGL_DRIVER=egl_dri2 must be set to be certain of using the egl_dri2 backend.

One major disadvantage in the egl_gallium backend is its failure to implement gbm_surface_create under the drm platform. gbm_surface_create is vital to wayland compositors like weston or cogl. These compositors only run on Fedora rawhide because _eglMatchAndInitialize in src/egl/main/egldriver.c fallbacks to the egl_dri2 backend when the egl_gallium backend refuses to accept the gbm_device that the compositor created to use KMS. If the obscure environment variable GBM_BACKEND=gbm_gallium_drm.so is set then the compositors will create a gbm_device using the gbm_gallium backend. This gbm_device will then be accepted by the egl_gallium backend and the compositors will segfault when they try to call gbm_surface_create.

You should consult with the gallium, dri2 and freedreno developers before  disabling the egl_gallium backend, since there may be special cases where the egl_gallium backend is useful. I guess that the arm platform might be one case.

Comment 1 Jaroslav Reznik 2015-03-03 16:11:37 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 22 development cycle.
Changing version to '22'.

More information and reason for this action is here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Program_Management/HouseKeeping/Fedora22

Comment 2 Dawid Gajownik 2015-08-12 16:44:23 UTC
It looks that this option was removed from mesa and it's no longer used in Fedora >= 21.

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2014-November/070204.html
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2014-November/070205.html


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