92 lines
3.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
92 lines
3.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
===
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drm
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===
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------------------------
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Direct Rendering Manager
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------------------------
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:Date: September 2012
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:Manual section: 7
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:Manual group: Direct Rendering Manager
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Synopsis
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========
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``#include <xf86drm.h>``
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Description
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===========
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The *Direct Rendering Manager* (DRM) is a framework to manage *Graphics
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Processing Units* (GPUs). It is designed to support the needs of complex
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graphics devices, usually containing programmable pipelines well suited
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to 3D graphics acceleration. Furthermore, it is responsible for memory
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management, interrupt handling and DMA to provide a uniform interface to
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applications.
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In earlier days, the kernel framework was solely used to provide raw
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hardware access to privileged user-space processes which implement all
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the hardware abstraction layers. But more and more tasks were moved into
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the kernel. All these interfaces are based on **ioctl**\ (2) commands on
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the DRM character device. The *libdrm* library provides wrappers for these
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system-calls and many helpers to simplify the API.
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When a GPU is detected, the DRM system loads a driver for the detected
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hardware type. Each connected GPU is then presented to user-space via a
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character-device that is usually available as ``/dev/dri/card0`` and can
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be accessed with **open**\ (2) and **close**\ (2). However, it still
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depends on the graphics driver which interfaces are available on these
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devices. If an interface is not available, the syscalls will fail with
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``EINVAL``.
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Authentication
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--------------
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All DRM devices provide authentication mechanisms. Only a DRM master is
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allowed to perform mode-setting or modify core state and only one user
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can be DRM master at a time. See **drmSetMaster**\ (3) for information
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on how to become DRM master and what the limitations are. Other DRM users
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can be authenticated to the DRM-Master via **drmAuthMagic**\ (3) so they
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can perform buffer allocations and rendering.
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Mode-Setting
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------------
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Managing connected monitors and displays and changing the current modes
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is called *Mode-Setting*. This is restricted to the current DRM master.
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Historically, this was implemented in user-space, but new DRM drivers
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implement a kernel interface to perform mode-setting called *Kernel Mode
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Setting* (KMS). If your hardware-driver supports it, you can use the KMS
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API provided by DRM. This includes allocating framebuffers, selecting
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modes and managing CRTCs and encoders. See **drm-kms**\ (7) for more.
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Memory Management
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-----------------
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The most sophisticated tasks for GPUs today is managing memory objects.
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Textures, framebuffers, command-buffers and all other kinds of commands
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for the GPU have to be stored in memory. The DRM driver takes care of
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managing all memory objects, flushing caches, synchronizing access and
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providing CPU access to GPU memory. All memory management is hardware
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driver dependent. However, two generic frameworks are available that are
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used by most DRM drivers. These are the *Translation Table Manager*
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(TTM) and the *Graphics Execution Manager* (GEM). They provide generic
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APIs to create, destroy and access buffers from user-space. However,
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there are still many differences between the drivers so driver-dependent
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code is still needed. Many helpers are provided in *libgbm* (Graphics
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Buffer Manager) from the *Mesa* project. For more information on DRM
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memory management, see **drm-memory**\ (7).
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Reporting Bugs
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==============
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Bugs in this manual should be reported to
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https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm/-/issues.
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See Also
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========
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**drm-kms**\ (7), **drm-memory**\ (7), **drmSetMaster**\ (3),
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**drmAuthMagic**\ (3), **drmAvailable**\ (3), **drmOpen**\ (3)
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