A Look At Why Linux Graphics Drivers Have Issues

[DanL]

Read the chart's title...

Oh, thanks.

[AJenbo]

uhhhhm...so why do they have issues? also why does it look like that all drivers have peaks at the same time everytime?

The chart is cumulative so maybe you are looking at it the wrong way.

[crazycheese]

I would just say, it's mostly used.

One thing I noticed: If you don't want to use MS Windows, stay away from Nvidia hardware...

What? Im using 260 gtx with linux whole time, but only when I had 4770 I had to boot into wincrap.

So my experience is opposite: If you don´t want to use MS, stay away from AMD hardware. This does not include Optimus though, which in essence is Nvidias greatest fail. :/

[RCL_]

What? Im using 260 gtx with linux whole time, but only when I had 4770 I had to boot into wincrap.

So my experience is opposite: If you don´t want to use MS, stay away from AMD hardware. This does not include Optimus though, which in essence is Nvidias greatest fail. :/

Exactly - NVidia has very good drivers which are *almost* on par with Windows ones feature-wise (except for DirectX-specific features).

Open source drivers seem to be lagging - if not for NVidia, Linux as a platform would be much less attractive to people who are interested in realtime graphics (not that it's particularly attractive at the moment, but it could have been worse).

[russofris]

Interesting chart. The article is short on analysis and meaningful hypothesis. The chart colors appear to have been chosen by a tetrachromat.

[RonJohn]

One thing I noticed: If you don't want to use MS Windows, stay away from Nvidia hardware...

Nvidia drivers have been great (though obviously not perfect) for years. Much better than the laggy, buggy and multiply-confusing AMD drivers.

Anyone who wants good 3D performance in Linux knows to use the nvidia binary driver. Anyone who wants GPU-assisted video playback knows to use the nvidia binary driver and the vdpau library.

[pingufunkybeat]

Nvidia drivers have been great (though obviously not perfect) for years. Much better than the laggy, buggy and multiply-confusing AMD drivers.

Anyone who wants good 3D performance in Linux knows to use the nvidia binary driver. Anyone who wants GPU-assisted video playback knows to use the nvidia binary driver and the vdpau library.

Well, you're not really running Linux, are you? Crucial parts of the kernel are bypassed and replaced by a huge blob that's much bigger than the rest of the kernel combined. You're running a strange hybrid, with some Linux parts in it. The linux kernel provides 3d functionality and GPU drivers, and you are replacing them with a binary something.

Why is it Linux? Because of the filesystem layout? Or ext4?

You can run Nvidia drivers, firefox, libreoffice, gimp, cygwin and KDE on a Windows machine and you'd have something similar.

When I was starting with Linux, you had to run binary Netscape, binary WordPerfect or binary StarOffice... Now these things are open, and things are much better. Injecting binary stuff into the kernel before you're allowed to use your computer is a step backward. Intel is leading the way, AMD is getting their act together.

If you want to use Linux, there are manufacturers who will support Linux with code, documentation, and programmers. For people who want to run binary apps on a binary kernel, there is Cygwin, which does exactly what you need.

[Vanir]

with the confusion between an issue and a bug.

I have some (lots?) issue with some bug free software.

Regards,

Pendatic software engineer
ie
AKA as a PITA to managers

[lakerssuperman]

I have traditionally used the closed drivers on both my NVIDIA and AMD hardware. Recently, I have started using the open source drivers on my laptops, as I don't have Windows on those devices, nor do I play games on them at all. Overall, but certainly with the AMD hardware, I get better desktop performance, especially in Gnome Shell. The FGRLX driver has horrible 2d performance when using Tear Free Desktop (not so with the radeon driver) and my other laptop, with a Geforce 210m, also has a few issues that are resolved when the nouveau driver.

The driver situation isn't perfect. I would love some level of video decode assist to use on my AMD E-350 powered device. Hopefully we soon get fully functional VDPAU support for everything up to h264 video, even if it uses shaders and not the decode block.

[pmorph]

I would just say, it's mostly used.

One thing I noticed: If you don't want to use MS Windows, stay away from Nvidia hardware...

I would just say, it's mostly used.