Files
marfrit 83e8eca56d mesa-panvk-bifrost: r3 -> r4 — iter17 XFB primitive decomposition
iter17 closes the 162 winding_* CTS failures from iter15's baseline by
replacing the upstream pan_nir_lower_xfb call with a panvk-specific NIR
pass (panvk_per_arch(nir_lower_xfb)) that handles per-primitive
decomposition for non-LIST topologies (LINE_STRIP, TRIANGLE_STRIP,
TRIANGLE_FAN, and the four _WITH_ADJACENCY variants).

Topology + per-instance output vertex count are threaded as new sysvals
(vs.xfb_topology + vs.xfb_output_count) so the NIR pass can dispatch
per-topology at runtime without compiling 7+ shader variants.

dEQP-VK.transform_feedback.simple.* result (133596 cases total):
                  iter15 baseline  ->  iter17
  Pass:             796               958   (+162)
  Fail:             243               81    (-162; resume_* by-design only)
  NotSupported:     132551            132551
  Fatal-skip:       6                 6
  Pass rate of runnable: 76.2% -> 91.7% (+15.5pp)

100% of the iter15 winding-fail cluster closed. The remaining 81 fails
are all resume_* (pause/resume XFB, by design — we advertise
transformFeedbackDraw=false).

Second-model review (janet) produced 3 findings; Findings 1+2 were
already fixed in the in-tree applied state (stale applied_state/ snapshot
read by reviewer), Finding 3 (degenerate N underflow on N<2) addressed
by gating non-LIST emission on `output_count > 0` predicate.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-21 14:07:00 +02:00
..

mesa-panvk-bifrost

Patched Mesa libvulkan_panfrost.so exposing Bifrost-gen Mali GPUs (Mali-G31/G52/G72/G76, PAN_ARCH 6/7) to Chromium-family browsers' Vulkan compositor.

Result of the panvk-bifrost campaign (~/src/panvk-bifrost/), iter9 close 2026-05-20 (technical milestone — operator-confirmed Brave window) followed by this package as the actual delivery.

What it solves

Stock Chromium / Brave on Bifrost SBCs (PineTab2, etc.) currently dies at GL bindings init:

ERROR: ui/gl/gl_context_egl.cc:120  GLES3 is unsupported and ES version fallback is disabled
ERROR: ui/gl/init/gl_factory.cc:111  Requested GL implementation not found
ERROR: components/viz/service/main/viz_main_impl.cc:189  Exiting GPU process due to errors during initialization

This package makes Brave's Vulkan compositor path work on Bifrost, side-stepping the failing GL stack. Browser chrome and standard page rendering work.

Known limitations (not addressed)

  • WebGL / WebGL2 in-page: blocked. ANGLE needs VK_EXT_transform_feedback to expose GLES3 contexts; PanVk-Bifrost doesn't currently support that. Sites using WebGL will degrade or refuse.
  • VAAPI hardware video decode: unrelated to this package — see the libva-v4l2-request-fourier package for that path.

Install

# Ensure [marfrit] is in /etc/pacman.conf, then:
sudo pacman -Sy mesa-panvk-bifrost

Use

brave-vulkan                                    # launches Brave with Vulkan
brave-vulkan https://www.example.com
brave-vulkan --your-flags-here                  # extra args passed through

The launcher sets:

  • VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/lib/panvk-bifrost/icd.json (the patched driver)
  • PAN_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 (Mesa upstream gate)
  • MESA_VK_VERSION_OVERRIDE=1.2 (apiVersion bump for ANGLE)
  • Brave flags: --use-gl=disabled --enable-features=Vulkan --use-vulkan=native --ozone-platform=x11 --no-sandbox --disable-gpu-sandbox --ignore-gpu-blocklist

What's in the package

  • /usr/lib/panvk-bifrost/libvulkan_panfrost.so — patched Mesa Vulkan driver (Mesa 26.0.6 + 2 sed-applied patches)
  • /usr/lib/panvk-bifrost/icd.json — Vulkan ICD JSON pointing at the patched .so (NOT auto-loaded; only via VK_ICD_FILENAMES)
  • /usr/bin/brave-vulkan — launcher script

System Mesa is untouched. The stock /usr/lib/libvulkan_panfrost.so and /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/panfrost_icd.json continue to work for any other Vulkan app.

Co-existence

Both stock Mesa and this package can be installed. Stock Vulkan apps (vulkaninfo, vkcube, etc.) use the stock driver by default. Only apps started via brave-vulkan (or with VK_ICD_FILENAMES manually set to our path) use the patched driver.

Campaign close criterion

Per feedback_package_done_means_installable three-point check:

  1. PR merged to marfrit-packages
  2. CI green AND packages.reauktion.de/arch/aarch64/mesa-panvk-bifrost-*.pkg.tar.zst exists
  3. pacman -Ss mesa-panvk-bifrost on a fresh consumer host (e.g. ohm after pacman -Syu from clean state) returns the package + brave-vulkan launches

When all three pass, panvk-bifrost iter9 closes.