NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog) [LWN.net]

Over on the Collabora blog, Faith Ekstrand has announced that the NVK Vulkan driver for NVIDIA devices will be part of Mesa 24.1 and is ready for real-world use. It should be appearing in Linux distributions later this year.

Back in october, I announced that NVK had reached Vulkan 1.0 conformance on Turing hardware. As of today NVK is now a conformant Vulkan 1.3 implementation on Turing (RTX 2000 and GTX 1600 series), Ampere (RTX 3000 series), and Ada (RTX 4000 series) GPUs. Not only have we jumped forward three Vulkan versions, but the new test runs were done with the GSP firmware enabled and includes Ampere and Ada GPUs. Also, unlike the initial 1.0 run, there are no hacks this time. Every test we passed in those conformance test runs also passes on upstream Mesa.

to post comments

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Feb 29, 2024 20:45 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (31 responses)

Great news for owners of— (looking it up quickly) — 5 year old gaming graphics cards.

It is, though. R600 still gets surprising improvements through Mesa too and that's even older.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Feb 29, 2024 22:01 UTC (Thu) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link] (3 responses)

The first RTX 4000 series were released less than one and a half years ago, not five. Furthermore, they are current cards.

What I always wonder about is, of course, performance. Correctness (of which conformance is a proxy) is crucial, but not the whole story.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Feb 29, 2024 22:56 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

> What I always wonder about is, of course, performance. Correctness (of which conformance is a proxy) is crucial, but not the whole story.

"Zink + NVK has already surpassed the old OpenGL in terms of performance in many cases. Performance is still a work in progress and continues to improve regularly. A lot of titles are running at 60 FPS or better on recent GPUs"

So that's a start. I am hoping this new driver can match the proprietary driver in the near future because of the new GSP firmware

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Feb 29, 2024 22:57 UTC (Thu) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779) [Link] (1 responses)

The GSP firmware only fixes reclocking, not things such as breadth and quality of compiler optimizations.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 1:07 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting it is a silver bullet but it is part of the path.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 13:51 UTC (Fri) by birdie (guest, #114905) [Link] (26 responses)

Reading comprehension issues?

The Geforce 40 series is a current series of NVIDIA GPUs. There's nothing newer.

And it's only gonna get better because NVIDIA has promised to release firmware for new generations and they will continue to develop their open source kernel driver. Their user space will remain closed. That's not changing.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 14:53 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (25 responses)

> The Geforce 40 series is a current series of NVIDIA GPUs. There's nothing newer.

From the article summary: " Turing (RTX 2000 and GTX 1600 series), Ampere (RTX 3000 series), and Ada (RTX 4000 series)"

In other words, three major generations of hardware, the oldest of which was launched about 5.5 years ago.

> Reading comprehension issues?

Right back at you...?

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 15:35 UTC (Fri) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

I read flussence as saying "Collabora have been working on 5 year old hardware not the most recent hardware", and whether that's intended or not, it's very misleading. This driver supports the most recent three generations of nVidia hardware, which includes every device launched in the last five years.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 2, 2024 0:10 UTC (Sat) by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039) [Link] (23 responses)

> Right back at you...?

For what it's worth my initial reading of flussence's jest was also "at least five years old". The alternative "no more than five years old" reading is, in my experience, extremely irregular.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 8, 2024 7:26 UTC (Fri) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link] (22 responses)

Yes, I also read it as implying that younger graphics cards do not benefit. OTOH, then there is the sentence about R600 (released 2007), which does not imply any such thing, so I guess that was not implied for the Nvidia parts, either.

Anyway, all those with an older Nvidia card are out of luck, but then it's their own fault for buying Nvidia who has been hostile to free software for a long time. (There have been some announcements about being more friendly recently, have they been followed by action?)

By contrast, thanks to AMD's support for free software my graphics card with a Juniper XT chip (released 2009) has free drivers that are still supported (do you still get Windows drivers for this chip)?

If that card dies, thanks to Intel's support for free software the HD530 graphics of my Skylake CPU (released 2015) also has free drivers that are still supported (AFAIK Windows 11 does not support the original Skylake as a CPU, never mind the graphics).

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 11:56 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (21 responses)

From the context where R600 which was released 17 years ago is mentioned it's obvious that @flussence was complaining that only five-year old GPUs are supported and everything older is left in the dust even in the very first comment, but I have to admit that I, too, read it as “why latest GPUs are not supported”.

I guess we all are biased: all previous GPU efforts were concentrating on something obsolete and not something you may buy in shops and that was such a common complaint that idea that someone wouldn't be happy to see old stuff left in the dust is, somehow, unnatural.

But if work is actually supported by makers of the hardware then it's typical: heck, in Android world support for something released whopping five years ago would be considered unusually complicated and strange.

Many things require something brand-new or not even released yet (how many RISC-V CPUs with vectors support are out there? that's mandatory for Android).

P.S. And your jabs about Windows sounds truly pitiful; yes, AMD stopped releasing drivers for your old AMD GPU, but Windows 11 can work even with cards released 20 years ago because you don't need to recompile drivers for each release of Windows and Skylake GPU works perfectly fine, too… heck, Windows 11 works perfectly fine even on my Nano QuadCore C4650 which couldn't even boot with last versions of linux kernel and said CPU never supported 3D in any version of Linux…

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 12:34 UTC (Sat) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link] (20 responses)

yes, AMD stopped releasing drivers for your old AMD GPU, but Windows 11 can work even with cards released 20 years ago because you don't need to recompile drivers for each release of Windows

And yet, when I look for drivers for the HD6770 card, AMD lists Windows 10, but not Windows 11.

Skylake GPU works perfectly fine, too

Not according to Microsoft, who do not list any Core ix-6xxx (Skylake) processor as being supported by Windows 11.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 15:41 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (19 responses)

> And yet, when I look for drivers for the HD6770 card, AMD lists Windows 10, but not Windows 11.

So what? Windows 11 works fine with drivers for Windows 10 (I think it should even work with drivers for Windows 7, but haven't tested that personally).

> Not according to Microsoft, who do not list any Core ix-6xxx (Skylake) processor as being supported by Windows 11.

Indeed Skylake is not in the list of CPUs that you may legally sell with Windows 11 and appropriate holographic sticker.

But why is that relevant? If you want to use Windows 11 on Skylake CPU you can, on Microsoft's support page. And it works.

While in Linux world often even things that “officially work” require a lot more dances than opening one config file and changing one value.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 17:21 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (18 responses)

> But why is that relevant? If you want to use Windows 11 on Skylake CPU you can, on Microsoft's support page. And it works.

If you follow that page, it says you need a "compatible 64-bit processor", and includes a link to the very long list [1].

In other words, some things may function, but there's no guarantee that everything will, and things could cease to function after any minor update. Additionally, any software that requires Win11 may also not function. because it assumes a minimum baseline of processor (&|platform) functionality.

So sure, go ahead and use it, but you're in hackintosh-equivalent territory at that point, and if it breaks, you're SOL with no recourse.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design...

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 17:48 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (17 responses)

> So sure, go ahead and use it, but you're in hackintosh-equivalent territory at that point, and if it breaks, you're SOL with no recourse.

You mean I can have hackintosh which:

Works with official image directly provided by Apple on the unsupported hardware.
Received automatic updates together with supported Apple devices.
Can automatically download updated drivers when and if they arrive for supported hardware (even if unsupported one wouldn't receive any updates

Wow, that's so cool 😍. Where in Apple.com can I find such a deluxe Hackintosh version?

</sarcasm off>

This whole story is perfect illustration for ages old adage: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

> In other words, some things may function, but there's no guarantee that everything will, and things could cease to function after any minor update.

That's theory. Which doesn't sound so nice. But practice is different: I have lots of friends who are using Windows 11 with different systems, including 2012 year Ivy Bridge (old T430s ThinkPad) and except for a some games which insist on having Secure Boot and/or TPM 2.0 everything just works.

Now, you may point on these few games and say “see, I told you it's unsupported and now there are trouble”, but in practice Windows 11 on unsupported hardware gives you more options and works better than Linux on supported hardware.

You may not like it, but that's just the fact. It's possible to find some exotic hardware config which would work with Linux better than with Windows 11, but in majority of cases Windows 11 works with no tweaks or with some very minimal tweaks while Linux requres looking on bazillion forums and doing lots of arcane movements before it would support many things which “unsupported” Windows 11 just does automatically.

Now, please don't tell me that it's because hardware makers care about Windows while they are mostly ignorant about Linux… I know that.

The end result is still precisely what I'm talking about: “unsupported Windows” works with hardware better than “supported Linux”.

It's not very efficient, mind you, anyone who would attempt to use Windows 11 on HDD is in the world of pain, I have no idea how they managed to write an OS that does such a crazy amount of I/O even when idle while filling about 8GB of RAM with just system, itself… but if you have an SSD and 16GB+ RAM then 10-15 years hardware is just automatically detected, drivers are downloaded from Windows Update and the whole thing just work.

That's more than I would say about Linux, unfortunately. And not even remotely close to Hackintosh which wouldn't recognize the majority of hardware what even Linux recognizes automatically.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 9, 2024 18:43 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (13 responses)

> Now, you may point on these few games and say “see, I told you it's unsupported and now there are trouble”, but in practice Windows 11 on unsupported hardware gives you more options and works better than Linux on supported hardware.

Sure, if "more options" includes "your devices don't work because its manufacturer didn't provide drivers"

Because that's what *SUPPORTED* gets you.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 10, 2024 12:07 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (12 responses)

> Because that's what *SUPPORTED* gets you.

Sure, but in Linux world it's even worse: distributions that even have supported hardware list (like ChromeOS/SteamOS, or even Ubuntu) support such a narrow set of hardware it's not even worth comparing it to what Windows 11 supports.

Majority of distributions don't even bother with naming system that they are ready to support (not sure if there are such list for Debian).

Thus complaining that Windows 11 have narrow list of supported hardware when Linux doesn't even have ⅒ of that… sounds hypocritical.

> Sure, if "more options" includes "your devices don't work because its manufacturer didn't provide drivers"

Yes, but for Windows 11 to not recognize your harwdare manufacturer shouldn't provide drivers for everything: Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10.

There are not much hardware on desktop which don't have drivers for at least Windows 7 these days.

It's not year 2001 when drivers from Windows NT often refused to work on Windows XP and drivers for Windows 9X were completely useless for it. Today, on desktop specifically, situation is radically different: amount of hardware that worked with Windows 7 or Windows 8 but doesn't work with Windows 11 is much smaller than amount of hardware that doesn't work reliably with Linux.

Again: situation on servers is different, but trying to close eyes and singing la-la-la after finding some imaginary blemishes in Windows is not a way to bring more people to Linux.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 11, 2024 14:34 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (11 responses)

> Thus complaining that Windows 11 have narrow list of supported hardware when Linux doesn't even have ⅒ of that… sounds hypocritical.

That's an odd claim to make; modern Linux runs on order of magnitude more hardware than Windows 11. Even if you restrict hardware to "traditional" x86-based PCs, modern Linux runs on a greater variety of hardware than _any_ given Windows release.

(Of course, that doesn't mean any given piece of kit will work properly with a specific Linux or Windows version. But it's hardly hypocritical to point out that it's a damn good idea to check to see if what you have is supposed to work or not, in advance. Anectdotally, I've had a _far_ better success rate with current Linux than current Windows.)

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 11, 2024 14:59 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (7 responses)

> Of course, that doesn't mean any given piece of kit will work properly with a specific Linux or Windows version

Which is precisely the only thing that matters. Joe Average wouldn't collect statistic about which particular piece of exotic hardware can be used with Linux and which can be used with Windows. Joe Average wouldn't try to install Windows 11 on the Chromebook or PlayStation 5. Joe Average would visit random cheap computer shop and would buy something. Used if Joe Average is not wealthy. And then Joe Average would plug USB stick to install clean OS. Or, even more likely, Joe Average would ask seller to plug USB stick and install OS for Joe Average.

And Windows 11 would be installed while Linux would have the issues. That's just how thing work in real life.

> Anectdotally, I've had a _far_ better success rate with current Linux than current Windows.

That tells more about you than about Linux or Windows.

Windows works perfectly if you use it in the most common scenario: go in shop, buy something, plug USB stick and install with default settings.

Linux allows you to do so many tweaks… support so many strange and exotic things… but it doesn't matter for the Joe Average because Joe Average wouldn't do that, Joe Average would do the simplest test Joe Average could imagine and after Linux would fail in that one Joe Average would know that Linux doesn't work.

P.S. I wish it was easier to calculate number of actual WSL Linux. It's not yet the most popular way to run Linux, but it's use grows steadily because more and more people just stop caring about FUD-spewing zealots who find new ways to do that “Windows is not working” spiel when the opposite may be seen by the majority of people on their desk.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 10:39 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (6 responses)

Joe Average wouldn't try to install Windows 11 on the Chromebook or PlayStation 5. Joe Average would visit random cheap computer shop and would buy something. Used if Joe Average is not wealthy. And then Joe Average would plug USB stick to install clean OS. Or, even more likely, Joe Average would ask seller to plug USB stick and install OS for Joe Average.

I think – judging from my own experience – that by now, Linux is vastly more likely to support the old(ish)/cheap(ish)/used computers your non-wealthy Joe Average can afford than Windows (especially Windows 11, which is picky and seemingly arbitrary about the sort of computer it will run on at all, and on some computers requires exactly those tweaks you claim Joe Average doesn't know about to be made to work, whereas on others, particularly older models, it will simply flat out refuse to even be installed).

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 11:21 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (5 responses)

> I think – judging from my own experience

Your own experience? How many non-technical users have you observed? How many technically illiterate people asked your for help? Have you looked on what they actually do?

> On some computers requires exactly those tweaks you claim Joe Average doesn't know

Sure. But the trick is: Joe Average doesn't know these tricks and Joe Average wouldn't even know them but would have Windows installed.

I have seen about dozen guys who tried to do that (from different countries, even: Egypt, India, Thailand) and when something doesn't work they do what… right, they open YouTube and try to find there something like How to Create A Windows 11 Bootable USB Flash Drive. And right now (if you ignore ads, if there's one thing that Joe Average learns in their life is how to skip ads) the top video to this one. It's always changing, sure, depending on country and other things, of course, and there are even videos in different languages but right now it sends you to this one (note: 2024 Easiest Method, that is what Joe Average would look for, something easy and simple). And, of course, this video tells Joe Average to look for Rufus which would do all the required mdifications for Joe Average.

In my experience the need to type even a single “arcane command” is a hard roadblock for Joe Average (some of my friends learned to do that but that wasn't easy to convince them that you don't need a PhD to do that). Thus, if course, after Microsoft published these “arcane commands” the whole cottage industry sprung up which makes them available at the click of the mouse!

And the current leader does everything automatically without Joe Average changing anything anywhere. And videos which show how to use it and they are readily available on YouTube.

Show me some comparable videos, filter out the one which need to you to, gasp, look on the command line — and we would have something to discuss.

P.S. I, personally, hate videos on YouTube and that whole industry which make Joe Averages even dumber than they would be otherwise. But I, at least, spend some effort to see how life outside of my “bubble” of technical-savvy friends work, when I could. You, on the other hand, like most Linux proponents try very hard to ignore what happens outside of your “bubble”. That's why results are so radically different.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 12:51 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> Sure. But the trick is: Joe Average doesn't know these tricks and Joe Average wouldn't even know them but would have Windows installed.

By that same argument, Jane Average wouldn't need to know those tricks either, as Jane Average would already have Linux installed. In both cases, someone else went through all the hoops and utiilized all the tricks needed to get the respective OSes installed on whatever that hardware happened to be, and Joe / Jane are none the wiser.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 13:20 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

> By that same argument, Jane Average wouldn't need to know those tricks either, as Jane Average would already have Linux installed.

Seriously? Which country would that be, which state? North Korea?

I'm not sarcastic, just genuinely curious: if there exist some area where the majority of devices come with Linux pre-installed or, at least, where shop owner are ready to solve that problem for you then you may start from there with your expansion, but if that's just a complaint that “it's unfair comparison” then I need only to remind you that life is unfair.

IBM wasn't complaining that world where there thousands of CP/M titles existed and Apple ][ was one of the most popular computers when it designed and presented IBM PC. Microsoft wasn't complaining that life is unfair when it's Multiplan was losing against Lotus 1-2-3 and it's Microsoft Word was losing against WordPerfect.

Sure, Microsoft played everything it could to turn things into it's favor and Bill Gates even whined a bit about it's misfortune, but it never tried to base it's strategy on crazy thought experiments where it preteded that Windows 1.0 was more popular than Mac Classic. Rather Microsoft designed a way to overcome troubles (Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 were often bundled with certain software and that was how Windows got some initial apps).

Apple tried to do that briefly with Apple III, but it “success” speak for itself. With Mac it gave users the ability to use the software they already had and later it paid a lot of attention to the way to play against unfairness of the world.

Yet GNU/Linux world don't seem to get it and invent mental exercises which only manage to make them look ridiculous.

> In both cases, someone else went through all the hoops and utiilized all the tricks needed to get the respective OSes installed on whatever that hardware happened to be, and Joe / Jane are none the wiser.

But that only happens in one case to Joe or Jane Average. I know few rare shops who may install Linux for Rare Randy for extra $$, but I don't know of any place in the world which sell the majority of devices with Linux. Do you know any? How do you plan to organize any?

World is unfair. Except if you have a concrete plan to make it unfair in your favor, somehow, then stop talking about fairness. It just doesn't work.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 13:14 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

Your own experience? How many non-technical users have you observed? How many technically illiterate people asked your for help?

Enough. I worked as a professional Linux instructor for 15 years, volunteered at Linux installation parties (back when those were still a thing), helped out at schools and the local Linux user group, etc. I've also for more than three decades now personally installed Linux on all sorts of computers (usually but not always from the used-computer recycling shop). In recent times, in the vast majority of cases this means sticking in the USB thumb drive, booting the computer, and clicking on OK or hitting RETURN until the installation process is done (possibly entering a language preference, user name, or password when prompted). Nothing that Joe Average would find overwhelming.

and Joe Average wouldn't even know them but would have Windows installed.

Let's not disregard the fact that Joe Average would be just as lost (or more so) if they had to install Windows on an otherwise empty computer, or one that had Linux already installed, especially if they wanted to keep the Linux installation, too – while OTOH installing Linux on a Windows machine while keeping Windows intact is something that current Linux distributions do as a matter of course. If Joe Average is allowed to get someone at the computer shop (or factory) to install Windows for them, we must also allow them to have somebody install Linux for them, just so we're not comparing apples with oranges.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 13:29 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

> Enough. I worked as a professional Linux instructor for 15 years, volunteered at Linux installation parties (back when those were still a thing), helped out at schools and the local Linux user group, etc.

So you have build extra-thick bubble around himself and refuse to even try to look on the world outside of said bubble?

You remind me of Sun employees who were genuinely confused why Solaris-only solutions are not working in the rest of the world and genuinely believed that Solaris would eventually take over the world, because it obvious that it's superior!

Some of them still support OpenIndiana, but the majority have accepted the fact that the world is as interested in Solaris or it's forks as it is interested in KolibriOS based laptops.

> If Joe Average is allowed to get someone at the computer shop (or factory) to install Windows for them, we must also allow them to have somebody install Linux for them, just so we're not comparing apples with oranges.

Why? You are comparing something that is popular, common and easy to find for a Joe Average to something that is rare and very hard to obtain. How is that not comparing apples with oranges?

Try to go in Cairo or Delhi and try to find someone to install Linux for you. Such people do exist there, but they are far from common. Joe Average wouldn't find them. But Windows 11? peace of cake.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 13:36 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

So you have build extra-thick bubble around himself and refuse to even try to look on the world outside of said bubble?

I wonder exactly who is building an “extra-thick bubble around himself” here. (And that's the last I'm going to contribute to this discussion.)

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 13, 2024 13:01 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (2 responses)

modern Linux runs on order of magnitude more hardware than Windows 11.

Are we talking about hardware in a museum or something that can actually be bought now? I admit, I never managed to get this 15+ years old printer/scanner on my table working properly under Linux. I *think* printing works, but scanning just does not. It works under Windows, so if I need to print, it's just faster to boot into Windows.

Interestingly, about 20 years ago I used to own a TV capture card that worked fine under Win98 and managed to get it working under Linux (I think I needed to compile some stuff from source). Then Windows XP broke it and there was a time this piece of hardware only worked under Linux. Later someone created a Windows driver, so it started to work again while pulseaudio broke the sound on Linux, so in those times it worked only under Windows.

I recently bought an HDMI -> USB device. The Linux kernel supported it, but it was real PITA (download something, try to compile, it complains about missing dependencies, find the dependencies, compile them, etc.) to find an application that managed to grab video. Even then it was around 10 fps. I plugged the same device into a MacBook with slower CPU, downloaded one capture software - and it managed to capture with 30 fps. On my work Linux laptop when I connect to an external monitor, sometimes I get video on the monitor, sometimes don't. Many times the virtual size of the desktop is way off of the physical size - a reboot solves it. In the office I don't have a fixed place, every time I have to sit in front a different monitor, I usually have to reboot, otherwise Linux can't find the right output. Guys with Macs or Windows don't have this problem.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 13, 2024 14:04 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Are we talking about hardware in a museum or something that can actually be bought now? I admit, I never managed to get this 15+ years old printer/scanner on my table working properly under Linux. I *think* printing works, but scanning just does not. It works under Windows, so if I need to print, it's just faster to boot into Windows.

Are you implying that your 15-year-old printer+scanner isn't a museum piece or can otherwise still be purchased new today (with manufacturer support for modern OSes)?

I'd be shocked if that 15-year-old printer+scanner had full (or even partial) functionality under Windows 11. (Espcially the scanner. If the printer uses a standard PDL like PS or PCL, Linux will work just fine with it. If it doesn't, then I'd be quite surprised if Windows 11 will work with it either)

Modern printers have JustWorked(tm) under Linux for years now, and with Windows 11 _finally_ supporting IPP-everywhere, there's no longer any need for drivers of any sort, except those continue on as adware suites. There's also a related "scanner-everywhere" specification too, but I don't know what the state of it is under Linux or Windows.

(As an aside, most of my F/OSS work has been in the realm of printer drivers, but I think my first-ever F/OSS contribution was adding support to SANE for my scanner...)

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 13, 2024 14:21 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

On laptops and plugging in and out of screens - I find Linux does this much better. I havn't had a problem with display hotswap at the hardware level for a good while. Where Linux shines, and Windows (11) completely fails is remembering window placement.

Linux (Mate desktop) does a much better job at remembering window placement and putting windows back where I had them, when I've left my desk with my laptop (e.g. go to a meeting) and then go back to my desk and plug back into my dock and my main monitor becoming available again.

Windows is just a mess. Windows end up all over the place, even just a suspend and resume _at the same dock_ sometimes.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 10, 2024 8:22 UTC (Sun) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link] (2 responses)

in majority of cases [...] Linux requres looking on bazillion forums and doing lots of arcane movements before it would support many things which “unsupported” Windows 11 just does automatically.

Reality check: We have a Debian 11 installation that we just duplicate to another SSD, put that in another machine, and it just works; no "bazillion forums" or "arcane movements"; we then switch the node name of the machine with what a Windows user might consider "arcane movements". It works on a 2006-vintage Supermicro X7DB8+ Dual-Xeon machine as well as on a 2009-vintage Zotac Ion ITX A (with Atom 330), as well as on machines with Ryzen 5800X from 2021 and Xeon E-2388G from 2022.

When (in earlier times) I switched motherboards or graphics cards with Windows (on officially supported hardware), there were always arcane movements to be performed: I still remember that everybody recommended that the old graphics drivers should be deinstalled before switching the graphics card, and when the mainboard was switched, Windows typically came up in an emergency mode and required some handholding and certainly some driver installs until it worked properly again. If Microsoft has improved this experience in the meantime, good for their users.

My Linux experience at the time was that I switched the hardware, and Linux just worked; I typically upgraded Linux or X to a version that supports the new hardware beforehand, but that version then covered both the old and the new hardware without any arcane movements or handholding.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 10, 2024 11:55 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

> We have a Debian 11 installation that we just duplicate to another SSD, put that in another machine, and it just works

Seriously? You took stock Debian 11 DVD (without firmare blobs, these were only added ib Debian 12), put it on SSD and it and it “just worked”?

That wasn't my experience at all, sorry.

> If Microsoft has improved this experience in the meantime, good for their users.

I don't have statistics… and that's kind of the point: I don't feel the need to move SSD from one system to another. Why would I need that? Times when new system would bring something radically improved are long in the past. And when I switch system, maybe once per 5 years or so… it's more of an opportunity to clean cruft, more than anything.

That's the biggest issue with GNU/Linux desktop: it pursued the needs of some rare, almost unique users that are doing “strange things” to the detriment of what Joe Average expects.

When your OS doesn't do what 90% users expect it doesn't matter much if it works perfectly for 1% of users or not: it would be relegated to niche area and would, eventually, be turned into XWayland of an OS.

Today, to me, GNU/Linux is something you install on your Windows, macOS, or ChromeOS device to do development. It works great in that form. And you may ignore the fact that it's awkward to install it on raw hardware, because it's just one click in Microsoft Store and it' ready to use (ChromeOS and macOS setups are more involved, sure).

P.S. And yes, I freely admit that situation on the server may be different… there you may need to change hardware or move SSD from one system to another… but then, that's reflected in the market share, isn't it? We are discussing NVK here, it's not all that useful on server.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 10, 2024 17:37 UTC (Sun) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link]

You took stock Debian 11 DVD [...] put it on SSD and it and it “just worked”?

No. We don't have a DVD drive on the machine where we made the initial installation; and even if we had it, why would we want to use a DVD on a network-connected computer? As I wrote:

We have a Debian 11 installation that we just duplicate to another SSD, put that in another machine, and it just works

That's not a stock Debian installation; in particular, it uses ZFS for the root file system.

I don't feel the need to move SSD from one system to another. Why would I need that? Times when new system would bring something radically improved are long in the past.

When we get new hardware, we need a system for it. For old hardware that's repurposed (such as the 2006-vintage Dual-Xeon system), the old system (on HDDs) has a file system that wants an hour-long fsck every 180 days; and other, similar issues.

awkward to install it on raw hardware

Not in my experience. Sure, I have to select my language, keyboard and timezone, and if I then wanted no further control over the installation, I would just have to agree to the default installation, and off it goes; I prefer more control, though.

Anyway, in my experience that's also how a Windows installation on raw hardware starts. On Windows (not on Linux) I then need to install additional drivers, which can cause some bootstrapping issues (how do I pull the drivers from the Internet when there is no network driver yet?). And then I have a system where installing, say, emacs, is quite a bit more work than writing apt install emacs. Every single piece of software needs to be downloaded from somewhere, virus-checked, then run setup.exe and then perform multiple clicks, with some waiting in between. Admittedly my last Windows experience is with 8.1, maybe they have managed since then what they have not managed in the two decades of Windows NT up to 8.1 (and what Linux distributions like Debian have had for a long time; APT was released in 1998).

As for NVK, I don't find it useful on the desktop, either.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 4:27 UTC (Fri) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (4 responses)

This isn't just big news for people running games or productivity software that pushes graphics cards to their limits.

This is also great news for people trying out Linux for the first time, who will have a higher chance that everything Just Works out of the box when they install. That makes it more likely they'll have a good experience and not bounce off. And it'll reduce the incidence of people talking past each other, where people with hardware that works well with Linux not understanding those who have a painful first experience and vice versa.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 1, 2024 6:56 UTC (Fri) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

I remember that when I was at university I bought a 2nd hand nvidia card for my desktop because I was tired of dealing with the ATI (then AMD) drivers.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 2, 2024 1:41 UTC (Sat) by makendo (guest, #168314) [Link] (2 responses)

I suggest waiting until the next kernel LTS to make this statement. I do not see many distros shipping kernels 6.7 or newer at the moment, which is required for nouveau reclocking support.

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 2, 2024 10:26 UTC (Sat) by Kamiccolo (subscriber, #95159) [Link] (1 responses)

Um... Fedora, Arch and it's derivatives. I believe it's taking a good chunk. Isn't it?

NVK is now ready for prime time (Collabora blog)

Posted Mar 12, 2024 16:05 UTC (Tue) by gfxstrand (guest, #99058) [Link]

6.7 is shipping in Fedora 39 and 6.8 was just released and should be shipping in distros before long. I strongly recommend 6.8 for NVK as there are a lot of bugs that have been fixed and other improvements. We try to back-port those whenever we can but 6.8 is probably your best bet.