Subject: [bug#74522] [PATCH 21/73] move libgl provider from mesa to libglvnd+mesa

From: John Kehayias <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2025 04:40:30 +0000

Hi all,

On Tue, Apr 01, 2025 at 07:50 PM, Andreas Enge wrote:

> Hello,
>
> as this bug is "tag:science-team", I am pinging everyone previously
> cc-ed and some more to ask how this should proceed.
>

Using libglvnd has come up a few times in the past, and unfortunately I
don't have a way to test what it may be most helpful for (on foreign
distros? or multi-gpu setups?).

I had to refresh myself on this long patch series, so my apologies if I
missed something, but this looks to be a lot of unnecessary work, no?
The "libgl" package and all the dependent input changes is essentially
the same as propagating libglvnd from mesa? (I'm not sure about the
build changes in there though, didn't look, but I have built mesa with
libglvnd before just fine.)

In any event, I think the approach discussed way back in
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/49339#8> makes the most sense to me and
seems like not as much work:

1. Add libglvnd to Mesa, that enables libglvnd support automatically

2. Propagate libglvnd from Mesa, assuming that fixes many packages;
seems like it would be okay as libglvnd isn't something a user would
install on its own

3. Fix any packages searching their input's mesa for libraries to search
libglvnd, as needed. From the old discussion this seemed to be a
manageable (small) number of packages with a straightforward fix.

Probably can keep this as one commit too? Or build after each step and
implement as needed.

I currently have the mesa-updates branch built on Berlin, with Mesa at
the current version 25.0.2. There is <https://issues.guix.gnu.org/76337>
pending, along with the many other branches, though. So I was going to
bump mesa with #76337 while waiting.

Let's do this change on a separate branch based off this one, if we
agree on the path forward? I'm happy to do these changes, though as I
said I don't think I have a way to test if libglvnd support helps with
anything in particular. I can set this up as a "wip" branch and someone
can add a CI job, though maybe after some other branches clear?

> Relatedly, it looks like we have no team around Mesa etc., maybe it
> would be time to create one.
>

Yes, I keep meaning to do this and haven't, while I've been managing the
Mesa updates mostly on my own (with some help from Efraim often). It
would be nice to not have all of (gnu packages gl) in the team scope,
while also having related bits in the xorg, freedesktop, and other
modules. But anyway, yes, let's do this, maybe "graphics team"?

> Thanks,
> Andreas

Thanks for the ping on this!

John