Hardware donations

[ddevault]

We would appreciate hardware donations to help some of our developers build support for as many devices as we can. Currently we would find these useful:

• [x] HiDPI displays
• [x] Displays that use DisplayPort MST
• [x] Drawing tablets that offer mode switching on the tablet pad
• [x] A FreeSync monitor
• [ ] A multi-GPU setup that supports GPU hotplugging, e.g. via Thunderbolt (https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/issues/1278)
• [x] HDR-capable monitor & GPU
• [x] VR headset (that can be driven using only open source software/drivers)
• [ ] A device that doesn't have a render engine, such as DisplayLink

Email [email protected] if you'd like to donate any hardware. You can also donate cash and explain that you'd like it to be spent on a particular kind of hardware.

---

wlroots has migrated to gitlab.freedesktop.org. This issue has been moved to:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wlroots/wlroots/-/issues/171

[ddevault]

I have received a $50 donation with the stated intent of purchasing HiDPI hardware for testing on wlroots.

[ddevault]

I have purchased a 4K display.

[maletor]

Can this be closed or do you think you'll need to test a 5K monitor too ;)

[ascent12]

I think some 10-bit and/or YUV capable hardware would be helpful.

[ddevault]

And I could use a drawing tablet with more capabilities than mine, too.

[ghost]

Do you still need drawing tablets, and what is the cheapest you'd need to get this working?

[ddevault]

Cheap probably isn't feasible for the drawing tablet we need. Support for cheap drawing tablets is fleshed out and working well, the main issue is fancy drawing tablets with mode switching and ring controls and crazy shit. Something like this could get us pretty far: http://a.co/fF75wSn

Could also just get in touch with Wacom and ask if they'd be willing to give away any hardware in exchange for adding support for them.

[ghost]

Cheap probably isn't feasible for the drawing tablet we need.

True that, but cheap for what I was thinking is under $600. Let me know if there is something else that has the requirements for testing to help get this closed out.

Could also just get in touch with Wacom and ask if they'd be willing to give away any hardware in exchange for adding support for them.

Would you want me to reach out? In the meantime, depending on how important this is to anyone else, I wouldn't mind contributing for the hardware.

[ddevault]

Would you want me to reach out?

Sure, if you have the connections that'd be great.

In the meantime, depending on how important this is to anyone else, I wouldn't mind contributing for the hardware.

It's more about how important it is to you, I guess. I want to support drawing tablets well on wlroots (and Sway) but I'm not sure how much the drawing tablet audience (mainly artists, I guess?) intersects with the wlroots-compositor-user audience (mainly geeks, famed for their artistic inability).

[ddevault]

My reason for wanting drawing tablet support is so I can play osu!, and that use-case is already well supported :smile:

[ghost]

There may be some other higher priority items, but precision drawing support is really important to me as well. I want to try Inkscape and Krita tablet support, and see what other applications exists. I'm sort of envisioning sway compositor as being a good replacement for Android eventually, or at least that is my hopes.

[Ongy]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=379174 towards kirta... Fell free to bug them a little. They are under the KDE umbrella and kwin put X11 under maintainance mode, so there may be some argument.

Drawing tablets "should" work I have tested pen, buttons on pen, buttons on pad and strips. I could test erasor but don't think I did.

We have an implementation for rings, but that's largely untested, since nobody has the hardware atm. What's unimplemented is mode-switching. Tbh. I'm not even 100% sure what that is about, but I think the tablet linked earlier is the cheapest that has it.

[ghost]

@SirCmpwn

It's more about how important it is to you, I guess. I want to support drawing tablets well on wlroots (and Sway) but I'm not sure how much the drawing tablet audience (mainly artists, I guess?) intersects with the wlroots-compositor-user audience (mainly geeks, famed for their artistic inability).

It is important to me, but I hope that it helps the community and I believe that it will. I just saw your new update to your Hackathon regarding Purism and I see other opportunities. Optimized code and a properly configure Vim with patched fonts is art to me.

[ddevault]

Thanks to @braderhart for hooking me up with a nicer drawing tablet. When it arrives I'll update this issue with details on its capabilities.

[ddevault]

Drawing tablet showed up - thanks again! I have confirmed that it supports rings and will add support for them to wlroots accordingly. However, it does not support modes. I'm still not sure how "modes" even translate to marketing material, it will be hard to find one of these.

[ddevault]

Clarification: it does support modes! It does not seem to support "mode groups", whatever that is. Anyway, very good tablet, has a large spread of capabilities to improve support for. Thanks @braderhart!

[ddevault]

First pass on improved tablet support: https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/commit/bfc0e95d2cfeab96d771cb34e78ca92afee4464c

Still to come is support for the drawing tablet Wayland protocol extension, but I'll be doing that a little later.

[ddevault]

I added another call for donations:

• VR headset (that can be driven using only open source software/drivers)

[ghost]

@SirCmpwn This is the one I'm familiar with, but may be a bit dated:

http://www.osvr.org/hdk2.html

Will that work for your efforts?

[ddevault]

Yes, that'll do nicely. But let someone else have the pleasure of donating, too :smile:

[emersion]

We could also make use of one of these things:

• A FreeSync monitor
• A multi-GPU setup that supports GPU hotplugging, e.g. via Thunderbolt (https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/issues/1278)

[emersion]

In addition to the FreeSync/VRR/Adaptive Sync monitor which is blocking https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/issues/84, we could also use a HDR-capable monitor (those are pretty expensive).

[Algram]

I've emailed Lenovo asking about one of their displaylink docking stations as a hardware donation. Maybe this will ease the implementation of https://github.com/swaywm/wlroots/issues/1823 since the person can test on real hardware.

I hope this is fine for you.

[nstickney]

@emersion Is there any particular FreeSync monitor someone wants? Or should we just get the cheapest one we can? I would like to donate towards that one.

[emersion]

Sorry about the delay. I just noticed that my GPU is AMD GCN 1.1 and doesn't support FreeSync, which makes things more complicated.

[nstickney]

@emersion No worries... it looks like an RX570 can be had for about $120, or an RX 550 for $100. Is that a useful way to spend the money?

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#A=2&sort=price&page=1

[emersion]

I'm now getting stable income, so I'm considering throwing some money at a new screen and/or GPU. To maximize the number of DRM features I could work on, the best would be to have FreeSync and HDR-capable hardware. It seems like a Polaris (RX 400/500) would have support for both. I looked at my local second-hand exchange website, and the prices are around 100 euros too. Regarding the screen, it seems BenQ offers cheaper HDR screens than other vendors (something like EW3270U or EW2780 would do). Otherwise, could always go for a non-HDR screen, any FreeSync-capable one would do.

[nstickney]

@emersion :+1: Let me know how to send the money. Merry Christmas!

[emersion]

Sent a message on Mastodon with details. Thanks!

[luzidd]

I'd donate 50$ towards FreeSync/VRR implementation. Doesn't matter if the money goes into a monitor or into a GPU.