[NITPICKER] Porting X.org 1.1.1 to use NitPicker

[Norman Feske]

Hi Nicolas,

I managed to reproduce your issue with the non-working refresh of
the X11 windows with Xorg of the latest Debian unstable. The problem
was an API change of the shadowfb Module of Xorg from version 7.0 to
the current version. I updated the drivers ovlscreen_drv.so and
lxevent_drv.so in:

   overlay_wm/examples/xf86screen/ and
   overlay_wm/examples/xf86input/

Frank Mehnert's up-to-date PSLIM driver in 'l4con/examples/xf86_stub'
was a very good reference for finding the problem. The updated drivers
should be available at our public SVN repository soon.

For your convenience, I have also compiled a bootable ISO image
based on the latest Fiasco version (from SVN head), the latest
L4env components and Nitpicker, L4Linux 2.6.21-l4, and a Linux
RAM disk generated from yesterday's Debian unstable (e.g.,
X.Org version 1.3.0):

   http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~nf2/tmp/l4lx26-nitpicker-xorg71.iso.gz

You can try out the image using Qemu:

   qemu -m 256 -serial stdio -cdrom l4lx26-nitpicker-xorg71.iso

This provides you with working and current binaries to start with.
Note that the image is quickly put together and I have not tested
everything in detail - but the X11 refresh works.

> So we have started with a Linux installation (Gentoo Linux), after what 
> we have installed Fiasco, L4Env and L4Linux (2.6.20, next 2.6.21, on top 
> on our recently installed Gentoo, reusing its filesystem). To test our 
> installation, we first use L4Con, but the mouse moves were extremely 
> slow; so next we use DOpE, and it was cool, all worked (network and hard 
> disk via L4Linux, not Ore... Oh is there exist a multiplexer, as 
> Ore, for hard disk ?). But of course, the desktop-in-window aproach does 

To my knowledge, there is no hard-disk multiplexer available.

> not fully satisfied us, we want a fullscreen aproach so we start 
> investigating on NitPicker.
>  
> The problem is that all tutorials related to NitPicker + X.org are based 
> on a quite-old version of X.org, before the X.org team adopted the 
> modular approach. So we decide to port the last X.org (1.1.1) to use 
> NitPicker, following instructions found at 
> http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/pipermail/l4-hackers/2007/002774.html 
>  
> First we compiled the nitpicker-client ovlwm server, nitovlwm. Then we 
> install into the L4Linux the lxevent program, started after Linux kernel 
> boot, with creation of /dev/lxevent, and the ovltrack program, started 
> via .xinitrc. We had to change a little the Makefile of ovltrack by 
> adding the -Bdynamic option in LIBS. We compiled and generated 
> lxevent_drv.o (X.org mouse driver in xorg.conf). The last step was 
> generating the X.org screen driver, ovlscreen_drv.o. The changes toward 
> previous versions occurs at this step, as now X.org is modular and 
> consists in several small packages. But after resolving a lot of include 
> path problems, importing the needed X.org package to compile the driver, 
> we got the driver ovlscreen_drv.o compiled and copy it into the L4Linux 
> filesystem, modifying xorg.conf to use this driver.
> Also we use NitDope, so L4fb driver in L4Linux that creates /dev/fb0.

I am amazed of how far you went on your own without even asking
one question. Respect! :-) Good luck with the updated drivers.

Best regards
Norman