THE DEVELOPMENT LOG
Stories from the driver workbench, with the latest entries first: the machines, first pixels and experiments behind poulsback.
WANTED: YOUR MACHINE
We develop poulsback on two machines, and there were dozens of GMA 500 designs. A new live USB stick collects a device report in one boot, with nothing to type and nothing installed. Here is how to make one and send it.
read the notePOULSBO FIELD NOTES
A 5.6-inch Fujitsu LOOX U/C50N pairs the same Poulsbo SGX535 with a 2.00 GHz Atom Z550. Separating the display aperture from the SGX 2D window brought it up cleanly, and matched benchmarks show where a faster CPU moves the frame rate.
read the noteTEXTURES / FRAMEBUFFERS
The smallest mip holds four bytes of pixel data. Reaching it on SGX535 meant understanding tile writes, ordering six GPU passes and checking application draw state and queries.
read the noteOAK TRAIL FIELD NOTES
A working Linux console, a deliberate driver refusal and an unexpected x87 test failure: the Q550 turns a second machine into a useful set of questions.
read the noteOUR OWN 3D TEST
A benchmark we can understand gives the neon cube another job: connect what the GPU draws with the time and CPU work needed to draw it.
read the notePERFORMANCE NOTE
Moving vertex work onto SGX535 was the first step. A frame trace showed how much time the GPU still spent waiting for its own engines.
read the noteGEARS REACH THE SCREEN
Getting glxgears onto the Dell's panel joined Mesa, the kernel driver and X11. Moving its vertex work onto SGX535 was a later milestone.
read the noteFIRST PIXELS
The first successful cube gave poulsback a recognisable shape. It also taught us to ask exactly which parts of a rendered frame were working.
read the noteTHE REFERENCE MACHINE
Around July, a non-working Dell from HARD OFF in Japan became the next poulsback machine. Repairing it gave the project a reference it could keep testing.
read the notePROJECT ORIGINS
I started on February 1, 2026, because I wanted Linux to work better on my VAIO P. A broken motherboard and a ¥500 Dell changed the plan.
read the note