Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

Posted Sep 1, 2009 23:17 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler by rrdharan
Parent article: Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

> It's possible that all of the developers at all these companies are stupid or incompetent, but I'd put forth the claim that it's simply really hard to do quality *proprietary* software for Linux. Things change way too fast, APIs break all the time, and you pretty much have to rely on the community being able to fix your code, which they can't do, because it's proprietary.

In this specific case I am talking about.. the state of Linux graphics support.. makes life hell for both open source and proprietary drivers equally. It's all graphics, games, media playback, that suffers. Not just proprietary.

Thats why I mentioned the situation with Gnomeshell and it's clutter dependency (which requires opengl) and people complaining about it. It should be a slam-dunk good thing, but it isn't because Linux graphics right now sucks.

To be fair things are improving quite a bit and I am hoping that Gallium design will bring the one biggest feature that Linux requires: constistantly.

They did it for Wifi with mac80211 and Network-Manager. They are getting there with PulseAudio... but right now graphics and GPU support is the major thing lacking.

I've mentioned it here before that GPU support is now a hard requirement for desktop. In the future it's only going to get worse if Linux does not improve.

Already Intel is introducing it's PineView stuff for it's next generation graphics stuff. That integrates the GPU into the CPU die. And guess what? I think it's PowerVR-based. So for some highly mobile Intel platforms you will require proprietary drivers just to use your CPU fully. ATI and Nvidia are going that direction also.

Nvidia currently sucks, but if your a gamer on Linux or you need to do heavy 3D stuff on Linux it's plainly obvious that anybody not using Nvidia proprietary drivers are second class citizens. The developers are all using Nvidia (more or less). Even with fully open source software.

I just feel that although Flash sucks a lot of it's problems are in fact Linux problems and they are getting blamed for things that are beyond their control.

Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

Posted Sep 1, 2009 23:25 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

as near as I can tell ATI (AMD) is moving away from proprietary drivers, not towards them.

Nvidia has always been proprietary and seems to have no interest in budging

so if Intel is moving from open to proprietary the score is one moving each direction and one standing still. hardly a decisive movement in any direction.

if Intel is in fact not moving to proprietary drives (and given their history with linux and involvement with X.org development, this would seem like an odd thing for them to do), then the result is two of the big three moving to open drivers, and one staying with proprietary drivers.

Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

Posted Sep 2, 2009 4:12 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Anyone with an nVidia card should be helping out the nouveau project:

http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/

Here is where intel stumbled WRT free graphics drivers:

http://mjg59.livejournal.com/111853.html

Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

Posted Sep 2, 2009 5:48 UTC (Wed) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link] (1 responses)

>>> Intel is introducing it's PineView stuff for it's next generation graphics stuff. That integrates the GPU into the CPU die. And guess what? I think it's PowerVR-based

Are you sure about that ?

Con Kolivas returns with a new scheduler

Posted Sep 2, 2009 19:58 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

No I am not.

But I think that it's PowerVR core, like the Poulsbo/GMA 500 stuff which required proprietary drivers for 3D support.