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11 <h1>The Mesa
3D Graphics Library
</h1>
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19 <p>The current version of EGL in Mesa implements EGL
1.4. More information
20 about EGL can be found at
21 <a href=
"http://www.khronos.org/egl/">
22 http://www.khronos.org/egl/
</a>.
</p>
24 <p>The Mesa's implementation of EGL uses a driver architecture. The main
25 library (
<code>libEGL
</code>) is window system neutral. It provides the EGL
26 API entry points and helper functions for use by the drivers. Drivers are
27 dynamically loaded by the main library and most of the EGL API calls are
28 directly dispatched to the drivers.
</p>
30 <p>The driver in use decides the window system to support.
</p>
36 <p>Run
<code>configure
</code> with the desired client APIs and enable
37 the driver for your hardware. For example
</p>
40 $ ./configure --enable-gles1 --enable-gles2 \
41 --with-dri-drivers=... \
42 --with-gallium-drivers=...
45 <p>The main library and OpenGL is enabled by default. The first two options
46 above enables
<a href=
"opengles.html">OpenGL ES
1.x and
2.x
</a>. The last two
47 options enables the listed classic and and Gallium drivers respectively.
</p>
51 <li>Build and install Mesa as usual.
</li>
54 <p>In the given example, it will build and install
<code>libEGL
</code>,
55 <code>libGL
</code>,
<code>libGLESv1_CM
</code>,
<code>libGLESv2
</code>, and one
56 or more EGL drivers.
</p>
58 <h3>Configure Options
</h3>
60 <p>There are several options that control the build of EGL at configuration
64 <dt><code>--enable-egl
</code></dt>
67 <p>By default, EGL is enabled. When disabled, the main library and the drivers
68 will not be built.
</p>
72 <dt><code>--with-egl-driver-dir
</code></dt>
75 <p>The directory EGL drivers should be installed to. If not specified, EGL
76 drivers will be installed to
<code>${libdir}/egl
</code>.
</p>
80 <dt><code>--with-egl-platforms
</code></dt>
83 <p>List the platforms (window systems) to support. Its argument is a comma
84 separated string such as
<code>--with-egl-platforms=x11,drm
</code>. It decides
85 the platforms a driver may support. The first listed platform is also used by
86 the main library to decide the native platform: the platform the EGL native
87 types such as
<code>EGLNativeDisplayType
</code> or
88 <code>EGLNativeWindowType
</code> defined for.
</p>
90 <p>The available platforms are
<code>x11
</code>,
<code>drm
</code>,
91 <code>fbdev
</code>, and
<code>gdi
</code>. The
<code>gdi
</code> platform can
92 only be built with SCons. Unless for special needs, the build system should
93 select the right platforms automatically.
</p>
97 <dt><code>--enable-gles1
</code></dt>
98 <dt><code>--enable-gles2
</code></dt>
101 <p>These options enable OpenGL ES support in OpenGL. The result is one big
102 internal library that supports multiple APIs.
</p>
106 <dt><code>--enable-shared-glapi
</code></dt>
109 <p>By default,
<code>libGL
</code> has its own copy of
<code>libglapi
</code>.
110 This options makes
<code>libGL
</code> use the shared
<code>libglapi
</code>. This
111 is required if applications mix OpenGL and OpenGL ES.
</p>
115 <dt><code>--enable-openvg
</code></dt>
118 <p>OpenVG must be explicitly enabled by this option.
</p>
128 <p>There are demos for the client APIs supported by EGL. They can be found in
129 mesa/demos repository.
</p>
131 <h3>Environment Variables
</h3>
133 <p>There are several environment variables that control the behavior of EGL at
137 <dt><code>EGL_DRIVERS_PATH
</code></dt>
140 <p>By default, the main library will look for drivers in the directory where
141 the drivers are installed to. This variable specifies a list of
142 colon-separated directories where the main library will look for drivers, in
143 addition to the default directory. This variable is ignored for setuid/setgid
146 <p>This variable is usually set to test an uninstalled build. For example, one
150 $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$mesa/lib
151 $ export EGL_DRIVERS_PATH=$mesa/lib/egl
154 <p>to test a build without installation
</p>
158 <dt><code>EGL_DRIVER
</code></dt>
161 <p>This variable specifies a full path to or the name of an EGL driver. It
162 forces the specified EGL driver to be loaded. It comes in handy when one wants
163 to test a specific driver. This variable is ignored for setuid/setgid
168 <dt><code>EGL_PLATFORM
</code></dt>
171 <p>This variable specifies the native platform. The valid values are the same
172 as those for
<code>--with-egl-platforms
</code>. When the variable is not set,
173 the main library uses the first platform listed in
174 <code>--with-egl-platforms
</code> as the native platform.
</p>
176 <p>Extensions like
<code>EGL_MESA_drm_display
</code> define new functions to
177 create displays for non-native platforms. These extensions are usually used by
178 applications that support non-native platforms. Setting this variable is
179 probably required only for some of the demos found in mesa/demo repository.
</p>
183 <dt><code>EGL_LOG_LEVEL
</code></dt>
186 <p>This changes the log level of the main library and the drivers. The valid
187 values are:
<code>debug
</code>,
<code>info
</code>,
<code>warning
</code>, and
188 <code>fatal
</code>.
</p>
192 <dt><code>EGL_SOFTWARE
</code></dt>
195 <p>For drivers that support both hardware and software rendering, setting this
196 variable to true forces the use of software rendering.
</p>
204 <dt><code>egl_dri2
</code></dt>
207 <p>This driver supports both
<code>x11
</code> and
<code>drm
</code> platforms.
208 It functions as a DRI driver loader. For
<code>x11
</code> support, it talks to
209 the X server directly using (XCB-)DRI2 protocol.
</p>
211 <p>This driver can share DRI drivers with
<code>libGL
</code>.
</p>
217 <p>The ABI between the main library and its drivers are not stable. Nor is
218 there a plan to stabilize it at the moment.
</p>
222 <p>The sources of the main library and drivers can be found at
223 <code>src/egl/
</code>.
</p>
225 <h3>Lifetime of Display Resources
</h3>
227 <p>Contexts and surfaces are examples of display resources. They might live
228 longer than the display that creates them.
</p>
230 <p>In EGL, when a display is terminated through
<code>eglTerminate
</code>, all
231 display resources should be destroyed. Similarly, when a thread is released
232 through
<code>eglReleaseThread
</code>, all current display resources should be
233 released. Another way to destroy or release resources is through functions
234 such as
<code>eglDestroySurface
</code> or
<code>eglMakeCurrent
</code>.
</p>
236 <p>When a resource that is current to some thread is destroyed, the resource
237 should not be destroyed immediately. EGL requires the resource to live until
238 it is no longer current. A driver usually calls
239 <code>eglIs
<Resource
>Bound
</code> to check if a resource is bound
240 (current) to any thread in the destroy callbacks. If it is still bound, the
241 resource is not destroyed.
</p>
243 <p>The main library will mark destroyed current resources as unlinked. In a
244 driver's
<code>MakeCurrent
</code> callback,
245 <code>eglIs
<Resource
>Linked
</code> can then be called to check if a newly
246 released resource is linked to a display. If it is not, the last reference to
247 the resource is removed and the driver should destroy the resource. But it
248 should be careful here because
<code>MakeCurrent
</code> might be called with an
249 uninitialized display.
</p>
251 <p>This is the only mechanism provided by the main library to help manage the
252 resources. The drivers are responsible to the correct behavior as defined by
255 <h3><code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code></h3>
257 <p>In EGL, the color buffer a context should try to render to is decided by the
258 binding surface. It should try to render to the front buffer if the binding
259 surface has
<code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code> set to
260 <code>EGL_SINGLE_BUFFER
</code>; If the same context is later bound to a
261 surface with
<code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code> set to
262 <code>EGL_BACK_BUFFER
</code>, the context should try to render to the back
263 buffer. However, the context is allowed to make the final decision as to which
264 color buffer it wants to or is able to render to.
</p>
266 <p>For pbuffer surfaces, the render buffer is always
267 <code>EGL_BACK_BUFFER
</code>. And for pixmap surfaces, the render buffer is
268 always
<code>EGL_SINGLE_BUFFER
</code>. Unlike window surfaces, EGL spec
269 requires their
<code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code> values to be honored. As a
270 result, a driver should never set
<code>EGL_PIXMAP_BIT
</code> or
271 <code>EGL_PBUFFER_BIT
</code> bits of a config if the contexts created with the
272 config won't be able to honor the
<code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code> of pixmap or
273 pbuffer surfaces.
</p>
275 <p>It should also be noted that pixmap and pbuffer surfaces are assumed to be
276 single-buffered, in that
<code>eglSwapBuffers
</code> has no effect on them. It
277 is desirable that a driver allocates a private color buffer for each pbuffer
278 surface created. If the window system the driver supports has native pbuffers,
279 or if the native pixmaps have more than one color buffers, the driver should
280 carefully attach the native color buffers to the EGL surfaces, re-route them if
283 <p>There is no defined behavior as to, for example, how
284 <code>glDrawBuffer
</code> interacts with
<code>EGL_RENDER_BUFFER
</code>. Right
285 now, it is desired that the draw buffer in a client API be fixed for pixmap and
286 pbuffer surfaces. Therefore, the driver is responsible to guarantee that the
287 client API renders to the specified render buffer for pixmap and pbuffer
290 <h3><code>EGLDisplay
</code> Mutex
</h3>
292 The
<code>EGLDisplay
</code> will be locked before calling any of the dispatch
293 functions (well, except for GetProcAddress which does not take an
294 <code>EGLDisplay
</code>). This guarantees that the same dispatch function will
295 not be called with the sample display at the same time. If a driver has access
296 to an
<code>EGLDisplay
</code> without going through the EGL APIs, the driver
297 should as well lock the display before using it.