Graphics Driver Frameworks and Security

[olafBuddenhagen at gmx.net]

Hi,

On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 08:24:00AM +0200, Matthieu Herrb wrote:

> The general approach to solve this problem is indeed to move some more
> things in the kernel, but very hard part is to design the interface
> between kernel and userland to preserve performance.

Indeed. And it can only be done by people who are already intimate with
the graphics hardware/drivers. Which is really Theo's point, why the
kernel people can't do it themselfs. We need support from both kernel
*and* X developers for this to work out.

> But KGI doesn't have significant results with accelerated drivers
> afaik.

Well, the existing KGI code contains some accelerated drivers, but only
pretty ancient stuff and no 3D.

(However, with DRM having been around for a while now, 3D is really
known. And 2D stuff generally is no longer considered critical by most
people anyways...)

> This problem is still a challenge for systems that want to separate
> root and kernel privileges.

Once we have proper kernel protection, access privileges to the devices
can be safely given out even to normal users.

-antrik-