More Details On The OpenGL Situation In KDE's KWin

[V!NCENT]

Of course GNOME is developed by volunteers, as most opensource projects. The difference of GNOME is that it doesn't push untested volunteer work to users, like KDE does...

What part of the "The Mesa driver is broken, not KDE" did you not get?

Is this going to be fixed on some front?

Kwin Composting fucking sucks for me with gallium!

Your problem can be fixed with tissues.

[yotambien]

I can't speak for everyone running Linux, but I have always upgraded to the latest KDE version offered by my distro (whether Debian, RedHat, SuSE or Gentoo), and I know plenty of people who do so. And the stuff that seems to be controversial (blur plugin) has been released for a long time already.

For most people, upgrading to a stable KDE version is much less scary than upgrading the driver stack (including the kernel) to a git snapshot.

I do agree though that Debian often provides outdated drivers and such.

Actually, it appears that he is using Debian Squeeze, which is now frozen. So the situation is not at all the one I mentioned previously, where I implied a lag between KDE and graphics development of years. I guess the logic still holds to some extent, though, due to the particular state of development of the graphics stack.

As for installing KDE vs mesa git, you're comparing it unfairly. Of course it's easier to install the whole KDE binary packages from the repositories than fetching the ddx, mesa, drm and (possibly) a new kernel and compile them. But what about KDE from source? I took a look at their 'documentation' and didn't even know where to start. The Kwin developer himself stated that it's not a trivial task, taking him over 1 day to compile. Even if I wanted, I couldn't test new KDE versions at all. Although I never had to compile the whole X server to test new drivers, I'd feel much more comfortable doing so than tackling KDE.

[pingufunkybeat]

As for installing KDE vs mesa git, you're comparing it unfairly. Of course it's easier to install the whole KDE binary packages from the repositories than fetching the ddx, mesa, drm and (possibly) a new kernel and compile them. But what about KDE from source?

I haven't done this since KDE 3 days. Back then it wasn't too difficult, but anything that involves compiling hundreds upon hundreds of megabytes of source is bound to be a drag. They've changed the build system in the meantime, and I don't know how it is today, but the source code has really grown in the meantime.

Still, I think that desktop packages are more easily available than drivers (because broken konqueror will break fewer things than broken a broken filesystem or Xorg), and people tend to install them even on older distributions. While many distros offer experimental drivers as packages, it kind of comes with a big "hazard" sign, not like an upgrade to a mature desktop environment, so people don't like installing them.

TBH, I used to be quite into tinkering and experimental software, but I got a bit tired of it. I run the experimental code when I need it (like portage or ATI drivers), and stick to the stable stuff for the rest. But with KDE, I always get recent stuff. If I were a GNOME user, I'd probably be running Mutter and GNOME Shell right now.

[pingufunkybeat]

Of course GNOME is developed by volunteers, as most opensource projects. The difference of GNOME is that it doesn't push untested volunteer work to users, like KDE does...

Boy, you haven't been around for long, have you?

Otherwise you would have remembered the Nautilus fiasco -- the only file manager in the world that didn't work. But it had to be the default since we spent 7 million bucks on it.

GNOME could be cutting edge too you know, if GNOME's devs had KDE's mentality...

Spin it as you like, but to push the untested work of a simple volunteer to the public, is not the policy of a serious project...

You're not following recent stuff either, I see.

Mutter requires hardware acceleration, with no fallbacks. This means that it won't work with Mesa on many Nvidia cards. At all. I'm sure they'll file a bug, though.

[TemplarGR]

I have yet to see this happen. More FUD.

None of the stuff discussed here can make your desktop segfault. In fact, they even blacklist drivers so this is not possible.

KDE has had some stability problems during 4.0 and 4.1. That's because of a huge update of all core technologies. GNOME is still running on much older software. Wait till the GNOME 3 transition, it will be a riot.

Don't tell me what i and others i know have faced or not... I am not the only one having problems, KDE's reputation for instability has a reason...

And no, GNOME 3 will not be the failure KDE 4.0 was...

[TemplarGR]

Boy, you haven't been around for long, have you?

Otherwise you would have remembered the Nautilus fiasco -- the only file manager in the world that didn't work. But it had to be the default since we spent 7 million bucks on it.


You're not following recent stuff either, I see.

Mutter requires hardware acceleration, with no fallbacks. This means that it won't work with Mesa on many Nvidia cards. At all. I'm sure they'll file a bug, though.

Let's see now, who is spreading FUD now?

Mutter will require hardware acceleration, but that doesn't mean metacity will be dropped. Users will still be able to not use gnome-shell and mutter.

Inform yourself before posting next time...

[V!NCENT]

Don't tell me what i and others i know have faced or not... I am not the only one having problems, KDE's reputation for instability has a reason...

Lol, dude, you fscking FAIL. Update your outdated and bugridden dbus and we'll talk

[pingufunkybeat]

Don't tell me what i and others i know have faced or not... I am not the only one having problems, KDE's reputation for instability has a reason...

That reason is FUD. KDE3 was the most stable desktop environment for any operating system anywhere. KDE 4.3 and later have been rock solid as well. I haven't had a single KDE-related crash since then, and I use it daily on a number of computers.

But yeah, keep on with your FUD. I'm pretty sure you don't even use KDE, but see this as some sort of political battle between good and evil, where any low blow is allowed.

Mutter will require hardware acceleration, but that doesn't mean metacity will be dropped. Users will still be able to not use gnome-shell and mutter.

Sure, but they will lose all the new functionality.

Meanwhile, Plasma and KWin work just fine with 2D acceleration, or even with no acceleration at all.

Bitching about an OPTIONAL eye-candy plugin which will refuse to run on Mesa drivers, and claiming that it will segfault and break your system -- that's FUD.

[TemplarGR]

You KDE fanbois do not know what are you talking about...

But it is ok. No matter how much you are yelling, KDE's marketshare will continue to shrink, especially when the only edge it has(eye candy) will be gone. People do not choose based on fanbois' opinions, they choose based on what WORKS. And KDE after each upgrade brakes stuff...

In 5 years from now KDE will only be used by its devs...

[TemplarGR]

Lol, dude, you fscking FAIL. Update your outdated and bugridden dbus and we'll talk

My dbus is up-to-date, unlike KDE fanbois like you i use a real distro...ArchLinux.