Re: Rethinking the design of xwidgets

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 19.10.2020 06:44, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> >     > do believe if Elisp
> >     > via Emacs let one do some cool visual stuff, like programming some
> >     > graphics, and doing drawing in the editor would make it more useful and
> >     > more efficient. Also I see it as a one brick in making Emacs more
> >     > popular. I personally think it would be super cool to see Emacs do 3D
> >     > with Elisp,
>
>    > > Would this be a feature that works acceptably fast
>    > > only if there is nonfree software in your system load?
>
>    > Like I described, modern Intel GPUs are reasonable fast at OpenGL
>    > already.
>
> In the Free World, we don't get the modern Intel GPUs.  The computers we can 
> use -- because we can turn off the Management Engine -- are the X200 and T400.

Ah, okay. That makes it more of a problem.

Have you looked into the use of me_cleaner for computer vendors that 
cooperate with FSF? Here's a detailed guide, which seems dangerous for 
random users but can be fine for hardware manufacturers because they can 
standardize on specific motherboards, etc: 
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Sakaki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Disabling_the_Intel_Management_Engine#Modifying_Firmware_using_me_cleaner.2C_to_Disable_the_IME

Also, some vendors have started offering machines with IME disabled 
(System76, Purism, and, most recently, Dell):

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/259879-dell-now-shipping-laptops-intels-management-engine-disabled

> Would this feature run fast enough on them?

The GPU is Intel GMA 4500, right?

We can definitely say that it's possible. From my brief research, people 
have been running games on it on GNU/Linux, such as Amnesia: Dark 
Descent and Bit.Trip.Runner (one is a 3D game, another is 2D).

This GPU is limited on OpenGL 2.1 only, though, so it might cause 
problems if whatever wrapper libraries we decide to use require a higher 
version.

Ultimately, I think the question can only be answered with certainty if 
someone wrote a prototype and then tested it on one of the X200 machines.