Direct Rendering Infrastructure

DRI-1.0
Original author(s)Precision Insight, Tungsten Graphics
Developer(s)freedesktop.org
Initial releaseAugust 1998; 26 years ago (1998-08)[1]
Stable release
2.4.x / February 2009
Written inC
PlatformPOSIX
TypeFramework / API
LicenseMIT and other licenses[2]
Websitedri.freedesktop.org
DRI-2.0
Original author(s)Kristian Høgsberg et al.
Developer(s)freedesktop.org
Initial releaseSeptember 4, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-09-04)[3]
Stable release
2.8 / July 11, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-07-11)[4]
Written inC
PlatformPOSIX
TypeFramework / API
LicenseMIT and other licenses[2]
Websitedri.freedesktop.org
DRI-3.0
Original author(s)Keith Packard et al.
Developer(s)freedesktop.org
Initial releaseNovember 1, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-11-01)[5]
Stable release
1.0 / November 1, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-11-01)[5]
Written inC
PlatformPOSIX
TypeFramework / API
LicenseMIT and other licenses[2]
Websitedri.freedesktop.org
There are two graphics hardware drivers: one resides inside of the X display server. There have been several designs of this driver. The current one splits it in two portions: DIX (Device-Independent X) and DDX (Device-Dependent X)
Glamor will simplify the X server, and libGL-fglrx-glx [needs update] could use the libDRM of the radeon open-source driver instead of the proprietary binary blob.
Rendering calculations are outsourced over OpenGL to the GPU to be done in real-time. The DRI regulates access and book-keeping.

The Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is the framework comprising the modern Linux graphics stack which allows unprivileged user-space programs to issue commands to graphics hardware without conflicting with other programs.[6] The main use of DRI is to provide hardware acceleration for the Mesa implementation of OpenGL. DRI has also been adapted to provide OpenGL acceleration on a framebuffer console without a display server running.[7]

DRI implementation is scattered through the X Server and its associated client libraries, Mesa 3D and the Direct Rendering Manager kernel subsystem.[6] All of its source code is free software.

  1. ^ Owen, Jens. "The DRI project history". DRI project wiki. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Mesa DRI License / Copyright Information - The Mesa 3D Graphics Library
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference dri2proto spec 2.0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference dri2proto 2.8 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference dri3proto 1.0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b "Mesa 3D and Direct Rendering Infrastructure wiki". Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  7. ^ "DRI for Framebuffer Consoles". Retrieved January 4, 2019.