Intel Ivy Bridge: Unity/Compiz Continues To Impair The Linux Desktop

[jstokes]

I agree Compiz is a turd, but I think there is other problem that is causing it to become a turd. I have had to resort back to using Openbox with Ubuntu 12.04, Unity and Gnome3 are both unstable for me. I'm running AMD Phenom II N620 Duel Core + AMD 4200 on-board graphics (laptop). With Unity and Gnome3, I have Xorg and Compiz processes taking CPU to full load. I have tried both the open driver and AMD drivers from the repository and installed from the AMD web site. With the same results. I did not see this in Ubuntu 11.10 and even in the 12.04 beta. I have looked around the web and have ran across some bug reports with users experiencing the same problem all with different hardware. Some of the point to Compiz other point the finger at the PAE kernel. I have tried most of the easy suggestions to fix this, but none of theses work. I'm hoping this will be addressed in further updates.

TLDR: Compiz,Unity and or Ubuntu's Kernel is broken And it needs to be fixed.

[gilboa]

Running only 120 instead of 140 fps in ioquake3 games is an "impairment to the linux desktop"?? *facepalm*

This article sounds more like Michael had a bavaria-related impairment going on...

Not really: 10-15% makes a huge difference once the FPS drops (E.g. 25fps vs 30+fps) *

- Gilboa
* Generally speaking.

[ninez]

Wasn't there another benchmark article that basically showed Ubuntu and Windows at comparable performance on the nvidia driver?

Yet the conclusion of the article is that compiz is a turd.

There was, and you are correct.

Ivy bridge doesn't have the best support in linux, and provides a fairly crappy experience (compared to Nvidia/AMD). to quote Michael regarding win7 vs. linux on Ivy bridge;

As this Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04 graphics comparison for Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge hardware was getting underway, I certainly did not expect to see the Intel Linux graphics driver be slaughtered so badly... /... the Windows 7 driver led to frame-rates that were commonly 50~80% higher than what was provided by the open-source Intel Linux driver. /... Beyond the Intel Windows driver being faster, it has better OpenGL support too.

regarding win7 vs. linux using Nvidia gtx 680;

Overall, these results are not too surprising. For the most part the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 performance between the two operating systems was more or less the same, which is to be expected when the driver code-base is largely shared on NVIDIA's end between Windows and Linux (and BSD and Solaris).

So in reality, this article should be called "Intel Ivy Bridge Continues To Be Garbage on The Ubuntu Desktop" ...

To blame compiz at the end of it all, when you aren't even benchmarking it - seems a bit silly.

As d2kx pointed out;

Wrong. They found a major 3D performance regression within Unity affecting most applications/games. The first fix will be in "unity 5.12-0ubuntu1.1", currently in precise-proposed, but there are some more changes needed for the full fix.

See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ty/+bug/987304 & https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...y/+bug/1005074

I was told abut this a while ago, by one of the main compiz-devs. We were discussing this very issue. He stated that Unity needed some changes because it had some perofrmance issues, which compiz didn't have. He even said something along the lines of but i'm sure it doesn't matter to you (me), since you aren't using Ubuntu. ~ to which i added that Unity runs on Archlinux, so i know some people who it does matter to

[Linuxhippy]

The entire thing is about these benchmarks which are running on an Ivy Bridge CPU and graphics.

The article was about LLVMPipe, and nothing else. Ivy Bridge was in the title simply to draw attention.

[Delgarde]

The article was about LLVMPipe, and nothing else. Ivy Bridge was in the title simply to draw attention.

Are you sure you're not confusing this article (about Ivy Bridge performance) with the other one posted today, which was indeed about LLVMPipe?

[ninez]

Are you sure you're not confusing this article (about Ivy Bridge performance) with the other one posted today, which was indeed about LLVMPipe?

hippies do tend to smoke too much weed.

[ElderSnake]

It's pleasing to see KDE doing well and often even not far off XFCE in those benchmarks. Kwin has come a long way.

[SmSpillaz]

" Compiz has turned out to be a shivery wreck that is unlikely to see dramatic improvements in the near future."

I find this to be offensive. I worked myself into a severe depression trying to get everything working and this is all you can say.

[not.sure]

" Compiz has turned out to be a shivery wreck that is unlikely to see dramatic improvements in the near future."

I find this to be offensive. I worked myself into a severe depression trying to get everything working and this is all you can say.

I already find the whole article and headline offensive.

[johnc]

At this point the whole website is a shivery wreck.

I think webupd8.org and h-online.com provide better linux coverage, without all the sensationalism.