General Graphics Interface: Difference between revisions

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{{More citations needed|date=April 2025}}

{{Infobox software

| name = General Graphics Interface

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| genre = [[Application programming interface]]

| license = [[MIT license]]

| website = {{URL|httphttps://www.ibiblio.org/ggicore/index.html}}

}}

'''General Graphics Interface''' ('''GGI''') was a project that aimed to develop a reliable, stable and fast [[computer graphics]] system that works everywhere.<ref name="IncHall2001">{{cite book|author1=Loki Software, Inc|author2=John R. Hall|title=Programming Linux Games|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7eAPUdU3hRUC&pg=PA56|year=2001|publisher=No Starch Press|isbn=978-1-886411-49-4|page=56}}</ref> The intent was to allow for any program using GGI to run on any [[computing platform]] supported by it, requiring at most a [[compiler|recompilation]]. GGI is [[free and open-source software]], subject to the requirements of the [[MIT License]].

The GGI project, and its related projects such as KGI, are generally acknowledged to be dead.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTYyNg|title=The Kernel Graphics Interface (KGI) Is Effectively Dead - Phoronix|last=Larabel|first=Michael|date=3 July 2011|website=www.phoronix.com|access-date=2019-06-08}}</ref>

==Goals==

The project was originally started to make switching back and forth between [[Virtual console (computer user-interface)|virtual consoles]], [[svgalib]], and the X [[display server]] subsystems on [[Linux]] more reliable. The goals were:

*Portability through a flexible and extensible [[API]] for the applications. This avoids bloat in the applications by only getting what they use.{{Clarify|date=January 2009}}<ref>{{CitationCite web needed|date=January2025-08-20 2009|title=Portability Through a Flexible API: The Role of General Graphics Interface (GGI) in Enabling Portable and Secure Graphics Applications |url=https://dev.to/abhijith_rs_04018cf67d112/the-role-of-general-graphics-interface-ggi-in-enabling-portable-and-secure-graphics-applications-3c9p |access-date=2025-08-20 |website=DEV |language=en}}</ref>

*Portability in cross-platform and in backends{{Clarify|date=January 2009}}

*Security in the sense of requiring as few privileges as possible

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==History==

Andreas Beck and Steffen Seeger founded '''The GGI Project''' in 1994 after some experimental precursors that were called "scrdrv".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/160|title=Linux-GGI Project|first=Andreas|last=Beck|date=1996-11-01|access-date=2023-12-20|website=[[Linux Journal]]}}</ref>

Development of scrdrv was motivated by the problems caused by coexisting but not very well cooperating graphics environments (mainly [[X Window System|X]] and [[SVGAlib]]) under the Linux operating system at this time which frequently lead to lockups requiring a reboot. The first scrdrv design was heavily influenced by the graphics subsystem of the DJ DOS extender and some concepts from the [[Scanner Access Now Easy|SANE]] project. The basic problem that scrdrv solved was that it provided a kernel mode driver that knew enough of the video hardware to set up modes, thus allowing to get into a sane state even from a messed-up or crashed graphics application.

The first official version appeared in 1995. About 1996, GGI 1.0 was released under the LGPL license. GGI only consisted of the core lib named [[''libggi]]''. It included input handling, a set of 2d graphic primitives and some userspace drivers for graphic boards along with a Linux kernel patch with the userspace interface for the drivers. The patch was known as KGI, the Kernel Graphics Interface.

In 1997, GGI went into a complete re-design. Many new ideas and a decision from Linux made GGI to what it became in GGI 2.0 released in August 2001 under the MIT release.

In 1998, there was a big flame war on the linux kernel mailing list about getting KGI into the kernel. [[Linus Torvalds]] explained his concerns<ref>[http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=89089527200744&w=2 marc.info]</ref> about GGI stating, "I think that [[X Window System|X]] is good enough" and expressing concern regarding the overall direction of GGI.

During this time, another design idea called [[EvStack]] also added to the flamewar. EvStack was a pretty much complete redesign of the input and output subsystem that allowed for events (thus the "Ev") to flow through a "Stack" of modules that can be configured to manipulate them. EvStack is a very powerful concept, allowing e.g. to have two keyboards attached to the same machine, one operating a text console on one graphics adapter and one operating a graphics console on the other (as was demonstrated on the Linux-Kongreß ´97<ref>[http://www.linux-kongress.org/1997/seegerbeck.html linux-kongress.org]</ref>) and even allows for having different keyboard layouts on different virtual consoles or attaching keyboards via network. However this came at the price of a huge patch to the input subsystem which did not seem acceptable. The modern Linux input event system allows programs (e.g. Xorg) to receive keyboard events other than through the console keyboard, allowing [[multiseat configuration|multiseat]] operation.

A set of talks about GGI, KGI and EvStack were given at LinuxExpo 98.

For GGI 2.0, KGI was split off and became its own project named [[''The KGI Project]]''. GGI 2.0 consisted of a set of libraries. During the 2.0 beta phase in late 1998 the license of the libraries was changed from LGPL to a MIT-style license. Much work was also done on the buildsystem to support more operating systems. It worked on FreeBSD, code for OpenBSD, NetBSD and even MS-[[Microsoft Windows]] were there as well as some support for more hardware platforms.

Input handling was moved into a library called libgii. Generic GGI code was in libgg, a sublib within libgii. The core graphic library, libggi, has a lightweight set of graphic primitives that was common enough to write any kind of graphic application, while higherlevelhigher-level API went into other libraries on top of libggi. These were called GGI extensions. libggi support a set of targets, most of them were Linux specific: fbdev, X, aa, vcsa, [[terminfo]] and some pseudo targets such as tile, multi, palemu and trueemu. The GGI extensions featured higherlevelhigher-level API. libggiwmh provides functionality for windowed only targets, at that time this was only X. libggimisc provided some basic stuff like vga splitline.

GGI 2.0.2 was released in December 2002. The most user visible change was from the scratch re-designed X backend. Another noticeable change was the huge documentation improvement. Last, but not least, the release cycles changed. From this release on, there was a development and a stable tree. The stable tree is open for bugfixes only, the development tree got the name, following the BSD scheme, -current.

GGI 2.1.x runs on many Operating Systems: [[GNU Hurd]], [[Linux]], [[*BSD]], [[System V]], [[Mac OS X]] and [[MSMicrosoft Windows]]. Support for more hardware platforms has been added. [[NetBSD]] even created a binary package for NetBSD/Vax! A new GGI library on top of libgii called libgiigic has been added. It allows to combine user actions with events at run time.

November 2004, the last bugfix from the GGI 2.0.x stable tree was released in favour for a new GGI 2.1.x stable tree.

GGI 2.1.x runs on many Operating Systems: [[GNU Hurd]], [[Linux]], [[*BSD]], [[System V]], [[Mac OS X]] and [[MS Windows]]. Support for more hardware platforms has been added. [[NetBSD]] even created a binary package for NetBSD/Vax! A new GGI library on top of libgii called libgiigic has been added. It allows to combine user actions with events at run time.

GGI 2.2 was released in December 2005. The target auto detection has been reworked and was no longer linux centric. GGI replaced its own integer datatypes with ANSI C99 types for more portability. A target for Quartz has been added. Mac OS X users no longer depend on X11 but still can use the X11 backend. The most user visible change, however, was the support for static linked in targets.

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Latest release is GGI 2.2.2, a bugfix release in the GGI 2.2.x stable series. It was released in January 2007.

==Current statusAdoption ==

[[Source port]]s of [[first-person shooter]]s ''[[Doom (1993 video game)|Doom]]'', ''[[Heretic (video game)|Heretic]]'', ''[[Quake (video game)|Quake]]'' and ''[[Descent (video game)|Descent]]'' were ported to use GGI,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ibiblio.org/ggicore/links.html|title=Software using GGI|website=[[ibiblio]]|access-date=2023-12-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2998|title=LibGGI: Yet Another Graphics API|first=Andreas|last=Beck|date=1998-09-01|access-date=2023-12-20|website=[[Linux Journal]]}}</ref> with a [[Doom modding#Editing|Linux Doom Editor]] also being based on it.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://interreality.org/~tetron/technology/lde/|title=LDE - Linux Doom Editor|first=Peter|last=Amstutz|website=Interreality|date=2002-08-09|access-date=2024-01-23}}</ref> It was also supported by the [[arcade video game|arcade styled]] ''Heroes'',<ref>{{cite web|url=https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/announcing-heroes-0-7/3553|title=Announcing Heroes 0.7|first=Alexandre|last=Duret-Lutz|date=November 2000|website=[[Simple DirectMedia Layer]]}}</ref> a [[Snake (video game genre)|snake]] game, and ''Thrust'', inspired by the [[Commodore 64]] game ''[[Thrust (video game)|Thrust]]'',<ref>{{cite web|url=https://identicalsoftware.com/games/inertiablast|website=Identical Software|first=Dennis|last=Payne|title=Inertia Blast|date=2021-09-19|access-date=2024-01-21 }}</ref> as well as the [[platform game]]s ''U.R.B.A.N The Cyborg Project''<ref>{{cite web |last=Wilson |first=Hamish | date=2024-03-12 | title=Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer Part 40: The Cyborg Project | url=https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/03/building-a-retro-linux-gaming-computer-part-40-the-cyborg-project/ | website=GamingOnLinux | access-date=2024-03-13}}</ref> and ''Dave Gnukem'',<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/2000/0106/bigpage.php3|title=Software Announcements|date=2000-01-06|access-date=2024-01-21|website=Linux Weekly News}}</ref> inspired by the original ''[[Duke Nukem (video game)|Duke Nukem]]'' for [[MS-DOS]]. GGI was also available as a video driver within the [[Simple DirectMedia Layer]] until version 2x.<ref name="sdl-faq">{{cite web |title=FAQ: Using SDL |url=https://wiki.libsdl.org/FAQUsingSDL |website=wiki.libsdl.org}}</ref>

The GGI Project was moving onward to the GGI 3.0 release.{{when|date=February 2017}} libgii had been re-designed. The input handling had been replaced with a reactor event model, which is more flexible than using select() on a [[file descriptor]]. This also simplified the input-drivers in general, particularly for those who don't use file descriptors such as input-quartz.

libgg had been moved out into a separate library.

libggi had merged some targets into one sublib, multi with tile and mono text with palemu. libggi also had gotten a new [[VNC]] target,

which allowed to run any application as a VNC server.

In GGI 3.0, the extension mechanism had been re-designed from scratch to simplify interactions between the extensions and the core libs. This required a little API change.

==See also==

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* [[Linux framebuffer]]

* [[SVGALib]]

* [[XGGI]] – an X [[display server]] that uses GGI

==References==

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

*[http://www.ggi.ps.pl/docs/faq.html The GGI Project Frequently Asked Questions List] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060709013716/http://www.ggi.ps.pl/docs/faq.html |date=2006-07-09 }}

*[https://lwn.net/1998/0226/#kernel Linux Weekly News - February 26, 1998, section: Kernel]

*[http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=89089527200744&w=2 GGI Project Unhappy On Linux]

*Christopher Browne's Web Pages: [https://web.archive.org/web/20061017132732/http://cbbrowne.com/info/ggi.html The X Window System, 15. GGI - General Graphical Interface]

*Peter Amstutz: [https://web.archive.org/web/20070430133624/http://www.tfn.net/~amstpi/techoverview.html An Overview of the GGI Project] 1998

*[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/0160 Linux-GGI Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061103092544/http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/0160 |date=2006-11-03 }} LinuxJournal article by Steffen Seeger and Andreas Beck 1996

{{Refend}}

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[[Category:Application programming interfaces]]

[[Category:C (programming language) libraries]]

[[Category:Cross-platform software]]

[[Category:Free computer libraries]]

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[[Category:Linux APIs]]

[[Category:Video game development software]]

[[Category:Video game development software for Linux]]