Per docs/coding-standards.md (no Unix-abbreviation exception): syscalls
shared_memory_create/map/physical, kernel SharedMemoryObject + handlers,
runtime.shared_memory (library/runtime/shared-memory.zig), the
shared-memory-server/-client test services, the shared-memory QEMU case,
and docs incl. vdso.md's danos_shared_memory_*. 87/87 QEMU tests pass.
library/runtime/log.zig wires std.log to the tagged ring: the root shim
installs std_options for every binary (programs may override), logFn
formats one line per record and emits it with its level via
debug_write — the payload no longer carries the process's name; the
kernel stamps identity structurally and the serial renderer prints the
'<binary path>: ' prefix, so the transcript keeps its shape.
Migrate every writeLine/logLine/log helper family (init, vfs, fat,
device-manager, acpi, pci-bus, ps2-bus x3, usb-hid x2, usb-storage,
usb-xhci-bus, virtio-gpu — 104 call sites) to std.log.info, dropping
the hand-written prefixes. A leveled record is a complete line by
contract (raw emissions may still build lines from pieces). Test
fixtures and the display/input services keep raw writes for now — their
ring records are attributed by the kernel regardless.
Harness regexes follow the renamed prefixes (usb-hid-keyboard,
discovery) and path-named restart lines.
Both EDID moments the system has are now captured and carried to the
compositor's frame clock:
- EFI: the loader derives refresh from the preferred detailed timing
(pixel clock / total pixels) while GOP is still alive — the only moment
it is readable — and hands it through the boot handoff into the
display0 node's DisplayInfo (new refresh_hz field, 0 = unknown).
- GPU: the virtio-gpu driver derives the same figure from its own EDID
read and carries it in the attach_scanout announce (request.y).
updateFrameClock() re-derives the interval from the active backend's
info at bring-up and again on every backend change — the boot
framebuffer's clock dies with the GOP floor at upgrade, replaced by the
GPU's rate. Unknown rate defaults to 60 Hz; the result is clamped to
[30, 120] Hz so a mis-parsed EDID can neither starve nor flood the
compositor. Rate only, never phase: without vblank, presents still
free-run (docs/display-v2.md, 'Fenced is not vsync').
Observed in QEMU: OVMF exposes no EDID for the VGA adapter, so the GOP
floor logs 'frame clock 62 Hz (default)' (real firmware does expose it);
the virtio-gpu EDID advertises 75 Hz and the upgrade logs 'frame clock
76 Hz (panel EDID)'. The display kernel test asserts refresh_hz rides
the seeded node; all 7 display QEMU cases pass.
The virtio-gpu present fence completes when the device has consumed the
frame: real completion feedback, and tear-freedom by snapshot semantics.
It is not a vblank — base virtio-gpu 2D has no display-refresh event at
all (Linux fakes one with a timer), so nothing paces presents to the
monitor. The code and docs claimed vsync anyway; now they don't.
- backend.hasVsync -> hasFencedPresent, with an honest doc comment
- marker 'display: vsync present ok' -> 'display: fenced present ok'
(display-modeset test expectation updated, passes)
- display-v2.md gains a 'Fenced is not vsync' note; the vsync claims in
both v2 docs are corrected
- true vsync arrives with a native driver's vblank IRQ, or approximated
by a compositor frame clock
The compositor now survives the virtio-gpu driver dying and re-attaches when device-manager
restarts it — the last piece of display v2.
Three parts:
- The driver hellos the device manager (role: bus). It never did, so the manager — which
spawns it supervised and expects a hello — was stopping it at the 3s hello deadline every
run (the gate markers just printed first). Now it is properly supervised: not stopped for
silence, and restarted on death.
- A kernel IPC fix so a call to a dead service errors instead of hanging. An endpoint records
its owner; when that task dies, its registered endpoints are marked dead (and any parked
senders woken with -EPEER), so ipc_call returns -EPEER rather than blocking on a reply that
will never come. Without this the compositor's first present after the driver died blocked
forever. General robustness — any client of any service benefits.
- The compositor re-attaches. Its .scanout calls now fail cleanly (caught), freezing the last
frame; when the restarted driver re-announces, attach_scanout detects the backend is already
virtio and logs "scanout re-attached", mapping the fresh shared surface and re-looking-up
.scanout. (The previous shm mapping leaks — no shm_unmap syscall yet — but its frames are the
dead driver's, reclaimed on exit.)
- device-manager gains a "test-scanout-restart" mode (like test-usb-restart) that kills the
virtio-gpu driver once after it hellos; the displayReattachTest kernel scenario drives it.
Gate: python3 test/qemu_test.py display-reattach — "scanout upgraded to virtio-gpu" then
"scanout re-attached", no CPU exception, passing 3/3. host tests, ipc/ipc-call/ipc-cap,
supervision, shm, display-service, display-demo, virtio-gpu, display-native, and
display-modeset all pass; default zig build clean. v2 (V1-V6) complete.
The native backend can now change resolution and presents tear-free.
Mode-setting without churn. The driver sizes its scanout resource + shared surface to the
largest mode it offers and treats a mode change as re-pointing the scanout rectangle within
that surface — so the resource, its backing, and the shared mapping never change, and the
surface's row stride (the max width) is fixed while the active width/height move. The
compositor is handed that stride in the announce and composes at it; a smaller mode just
paints the top-left rectangle. This sidesteps the surface re-share a true resolution change
would otherwise need (the service harness can't reply with a capability).
- scanout-protocol gains get_modes + set_mode; the driver offers {640x480, 800x600} and
re-points set_scanout on set_mode.
- backend.VirtioGpu carries the surface stride, exposes modes()/setMode(), and reports
canModeSet = hasVsync = true.
- runtime.display gains modes()/setMode() (display-protocol get_modes/set_mode, forwarded to
the backend) — the client-facing API.
- EDID: the driver negotiates VIRTIO_GPU_F_EDID when the device offers it, reads the monitor's
EDID, and logs its preferred mode (parsed from the first detailed timing descriptor).
- vsync: every resource_flush is fenced (VIRTIO_GPU_FLAG_FENCE); the device signals the fence
when the frame is on screen, which the used-ring ack the synchronous present already waits
on gates — so a completed present is a tear-free one.
After the native upgrade the compositor runs a one-shot mode-set self-check: query the modes,
switch to a different one, re-composite, and confirm the backend reports the new geometry —
the gate's markers.
Gate: python3 test/qemu_test.py display-modeset (reuses the display-native boot) — "display:
mode set to 800x600, verified" + "display: vsync present ok", passing 3/3. host tests,
display-service, display-demo, shm, virtio-gpu, and display-native still pass.
The compositor now boots on the GOP framebuffer and upgrades to the virtio-gpu driver
the moment it announces itself — the pluggable-scanout payoff.
The shared surface. The scanout resource is an shm region the driver creates
(shm_physical, a new syscall, hands it the guest-physical for attach_backing) and passes
to the compositor as a capability. The compositor maps it and composites straight into
it: on x86 DMA is cache-coherent, so the cacheable shared pages the CPU paints are exactly
what the device transfers-and-flushes — no copy, no explicit flush.
The handshake. After bring-up the driver looks up .display and sends attach_scanout with
the geometry + the surface capability. The compositor maps the surface, looks up the
driver's .scanout endpoint itself (the driver registered it — no need to pass it), switches
to backend.VirtioGpu, and re-composites the current frame. present() over the native
backend is a present request on .scanout -> transfer-to-host + resource flush. The first
native present is deferred to a one-shot timer: presenting inline from the announce handler
would deadlock, since the driver is still blocked on our reply and not yet serving .scanout.
After it lands, the compositor reads a pixel back from the shared surface to confirm the
frame reached the device's backing.
- shm_physical (syscall 36) + runtime.shm.physical.
- scanout-protocol (the compositor->driver present channel), separate from the
client-facing display protocol; the display protocol gains attach_scanout.
- backend.VirtioGpu joins backend.Gop in the tagged union; select() still boots GOP.
- the virtio-gpu driver's scanout backing is now shm (was DMA); it announces + serves
.scanout present requests (transfer-to-host + flush of the shared surface).
Also fixes a latent framebuffer-geometry corruption the display service hit only when it
enumerated the device tree alongside a busy device-manager: Gop.init now captures the
geometry into a small value the instant device_enumerate returns (rather than re-reading
the 328-byte descriptor across the later claim/mmio_map syscalls) and retries on a zero
geometry. The underlying device-table clobber is a separate kernel bug, tracked apart.
Gate: python3 test/qemu_test.py display-native (QEMU -device virtio-gpu-pci) — "display:
scanout upgraded to virtio-gpu" + "display: native present verified" + "display-demo: ok",
passing 3/3. host tests, display-service, display-demo, shm, and virtio-gpu still pass.
The first native scanout backend's driver half. The device manager matches the
virtio-gpu PCI function by its Display/Other class triple and spawns the driver,
which claims the device, confirms vendor 0x1AF4/device 0x1050 from config space,
enables memory-space + bus mastering, and walks the virtio vendor capabilities to
find the common-config and notify structures in its BAR.
From there it is the standard modern-virtio bring-up: reset, negotiate VERSION_1,
stand up the control virtqueue in coherent DMA, then drive the GPU end to end —
RESOURCE_CREATE_2D, ATTACH_BACKING (a coherent DMA buffer; V4 swaps in the shm-
shared surface), SET_SCANOUT, paint a known pattern, TRANSFER_TO_HOST_2D,
RESOURCE_FLUSH, and wait for the device's used-ring ack. Reading the backing back
proves it is CPU-visible RAM; the ack proves the device consumed the frame —
together the automated stand-in for "it's on screen", no screenshot.
- system/drivers/virtio-gpu/: the driver, plus virtio-gpu-protocol.zig (control
commands) and virtio-pci.zig (the 1.0 PCI transport + split-virtqueue), both with
host-tested struct sizes.
- device-manager matches the display/other class triple to "virtio-gpu"; the driver
self-confirms the vendor/device id, since the class alone cannot distinguish it.
- ServiceId.scanout (11): the driver registers it so the compositor finds it in V4.
Gate: python3 test/qemu_test.py virtio-gpu (QEMU -device virtio-gpu-pci) — the
device-manager stack discovers the function, the driver brings up a 640x480 scanout
and flushes a test pattern: "virtio-gpu: scanout 640x480 online" + "flush acked,
pixel check ok". host tests, display-service, shm, and device-list still pass.
Note: the pre-existing pci-scan case triple-faults on main (verified at 88ad432,
before this change); it is unrelated and tracked separately.
Daniel Samson