LF Collab 2012: Killing Blobs, Wayland, DTrace, Etc

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LF Collab 2012: Killing Blobs, Wayland, DTrace, Etc

The 6th annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit concluding this week in San Francisco. In case you missed out on any coverage of the interesting sessions from the event, here's a run-down of the worthwhile information that was shared and discussed, plus a few other extra tid-bits from the invite-only event...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA4NDM

[RealNC]

All I have to say about those two Qualcomm guys: man I'm I glad they're not calling the shots. They're trying hard to kill Linux on the desktop. Take away NVidia's and AMD's drivers and what's left is a graphically under-performing operating system. I don't think they realize that the AMD and NVidia blobs, right now, are what keep high-performance graphics alive on Linux.

I don't like to call people names, which I'm so close to doing here with these two, so I'll just say that they're totally out of touch with reality. You kill the blobs, you kill desktop Linux.

[curaga]

"Desktop" = mainly web browser, and 2d sucks with the blobs. Therefore I respectfully disagree.

[kraftman]

All I have to say about those two Qualcomm guys: man I'm I glad they're not calling the shots. They're trying hard to kill Linux on the desktop. Take away NVidia's and AMD's drivers and what's left is a graphically under-performing operating system. I don't think they realize that the AMD and NVidia blobs, right now, are what keep high-performance graphics alive on Linux.

I don't like to call people names, which I'm so close to doing here with these two, so I'll just say that they're totally out of touch with reality. You kill the blobs, you kill desktop Linux.

That's so true. There's a chance games will come to Linux and now some [...] - no, there's no moderator here - wants to steal such opportunity. Maybe in a very, very long term something like this has sense, but not at this point.

[RealNC]

"Desktop" = mainly web browser, and 2d sucks with the blobs. Therefore I respectfully disagree.

No one cares about 2D anymore. All modern desktops are composited. The only people who still run 2D desktops are old-school fanatics who are still stuck with their xterm and think Gnome and KDE are "bloat" no one needs. We don't need these people. If we listened to them, Linux would still be the OS of geeks who like arcane computer terminals and we would be running 40MHz 486's and playing PacMan and ASCII "RPG"s.

And besides, you don't need speed to browse the web. Speed is needed to run 3D applications. Take away the blobs, and Linux joins the club of Haiku and the likes, not being able to compete with the "big boys" (MS and Apple.) Really, if all you want is a web browser, why the heck use Linux then? The blobs, at least for now and the short-term future, make sure Linux is able to stand as an alternative to Windows.

[not.sure]

No one cares about 2D anymore. All modern desktops are composited. The only people who still run 2D desktops are old-school fanatics who are still stuck with their xterm and think Gnome and KDE are "bloat" no one needs.

I think he means doing 2D stuff with the 3D engine on a composited desktop. And 1990ies-designed blobs were never meant to be good at that, while the modern OSS drivers are [meant to]. Just try scrolling firefox with a nvidia blob. Notoriously full of extremely slow software fall-backs.

I agree "right now" we still need blobs. But already in a year from now things might have changed for the better (radeon consolidation, nouveau power management, more capable intel GPUs,...)

[RealNC]

I think he means doing 2D stuff with the 3D engine on a composited desktop. And 1990ies-designed blobs were never meant to be good at that, while the modern OSS drivers are [meant to]. Just try scrolling firefox with a nvidia blob. Notoriously full of extremely slow software fall-backs.

Looks just as fast here as with the OSS drivers. I was using radeon KMS before, now changed hardware and using the NVidia blob. It's actually faster and smoother then the OSS radeon (no framedrops anymore on the desktop.) So I have no idea what you mean with "just try scrolling firefox". It works fine and smoother than the OSS driver.

I agree "right now" we still need blobs. But already in a year from now things might have changed for the better (radeon consolidation, nouveau power management, more capable intel GPUs,...)

I really don't think things will change in a year. Maybe in 4-5.

[XorEaxEax]

The only people who still run 2D desktops are old-school fanatics who are still stuck with their xterm and think Gnome and KDE are "bloat" no one needs.

I make no assumptions as to what other people 'need', but personally I have no need for Gnome or KDE (I run Openbox but there are tons of other VM's). Also you don't need Gnome or KDE to have desktop composite effects.

And besides, you don't need speed to browse the web. Speed is needed to run 3D applications. Take away the blobs, and Linux joins the club of Haiku and the likes

BS, you are exaggerating the differences in performance, I use Blender quite alot and mostly for 3d sculpting which really takes a toll on the 3d acceleration since you deal with heavily subdivided meshes and I can work just fine with nouveau on a 9600GT card. Haiku on the other hand has no 3d acceleration at all for my card (it has some for ATI cards afaik) so it doesn't even begin to compare (there is a Gallium port for Haiku on the works though).

Really, if all you want is a web browser, why the heck use Linux then?

If all you wanted was a web browser then why the heck would you use Windows or OSX?

[RealNC]

I make no assumptions as to what other people 'need', but personally I have no need for Gnome or KDE (I run Openbox but there are tons of other VM's). Also you don't need Gnome or KDE to have desktop composite effects.

Give a Windows or Mac user anything else than Gnome or KDE and he's gonna laugh his ass off.

BS, you are exaggerating the differences in performance, I use Blender quite alot and mostly for 3d sculpting which really takes a toll on the 3d acceleration since you deal with heavily subdivided meshes and I can work just fine with nouveau on a 9600GT card.

Yeah, 3D sculpting with Blender. What a killer app for multimedia and desktop users. Way to go.

If all you wanted was a web browser then why the heck would you use Windows or OSX?

You raised the issue, why are you asking me?

[Qaridarium]

All I have to say about those two Qualcomm guys: man I'm I glad they're not calling the shots. They're trying hard to kill Linux on the desktop. Take away NVidia's and AMD's drivers and what's left is a graphically under-performing operating system. I don't think they realize that the AMD and NVidia blobs, right now, are what keep high-performance graphics alive on Linux.

i switch from catalyst to radeon driver because: the catalyst never get more than 20fps with the nativ linux clind and big lag and mouse input lag.
now i play HON in WINE with the Radeon driver and it just works "Perfect"
you can never use the word "perfect" if you use the catalyst.
i play on the highest resolution and highest graphic setting!
my card is a hd4770.
i also had many performance problems with my web-browser and the catalyst.

just think only 1 time: what is graphic performance in a game if you have mouseinput lag ? Nothing!
and this is Catalyst high FPS numbers and bad mouse input latency.

also bug-free is more worth than "FPS" numbers