No Closed Video Drivers For Next Ubuntu Release

lisah writes "Ubuntu's next release, Feisty Fawn, is due out in April and, according to company CTO Matt Zimmerman, proprietary video drivers failed to make the cut for the default install. Zimmerman told Linux.com that although the software required for Composite support is not ready for prime-time and therefore will not be included in Feisty, Ubuntu hasn't given up entirely on including video drivers in future releases. '[T]he winds aren't right yet. We will continue to track development and will revisit the decision if things change significantly.' Ambiguous or not, the decision to exclude proprietary drivers for now should satisfy at least some members of the Ubuntu Community. In other Feisty Fawn news, the Board also decided to downgrade support for Power PC due to a lack of funding." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

Comments

Before the flamewars start

[Anonymous Coward]

This is in no way an "ideological" decision but a pragmatic one.

The propietary 3d drivers would have been included because the original plan was to support a 3d desktop (like compiz and beryl) out of the box.
As it has now become obvious that these desktops are not yet stable enough to be the default, there isn't any need to include the propietary drivers.

Re:Before the flamewars start

[MrvFD]

The only thing that bothers me is that they add to the confusion by not dismissing the general "proprietary drivers == 3D desktop" point of view. In summary, Intel integrated graphics have 3D desktop with the free drivers, ATI Radeon up to quite new X850-series have 3D desktop with the free drivers, and by the time of feisty+1 we just might have 3D desktop working on the free Nouveau drivers for NVIDIA cards. Not the top speed of course in case of reverse-engineered ATI/NVIDIA drivers, but enough.

The situation is even more interesting considering that the proprietary ATI drivers (that are required for the X1000-series to have even 2D support) don't support Composite with AIGLX, the default in Ubuntu and X.org, while the reverse-engineered open source driver does. I think it is one aspect that has been affecting this decision - why include proprietary drivers if they don't even work.

It is to be admitted though that NVIDIA has such a large market share (probably 20-30% of all desktop and laptop PCs, compared to ca. 50% with Intel integrated graphics), that it partly makes the issue "3D needs proprietary drivers"-like, until Nouveau gets usable.

misleading title

[Verunks]

the driver will not be enabled by default, but they will be still present in ubuntu

nope, you can't read this

[Anonymous Coward]

01110100011010000110100101110011001000000110110101 10010101110011011100110110000101100111011001010010 00000110100101110011001000000110000100100000011000 10011010010110111001100001011100100111100100100000 01100010011011000110111101100010001000000111010001 10100001100001011101000010000001111001011011110111 01010010000001110011011010000110111101110101011011 00011001000010000001101101011011110110010000100000 01110100011011110010000000101011001101010010000001 11011101101001011101000110100001101111011101010111 01000010000001100001011100110110101101101001011011 10011001110010000001110001011101010110010101110011 0111010001101001011011110110111001110011

Re:nope, you can't read this

[markov_chain]

Is it a sailboat?

...and can be easily enabled when...

[aeneas]

.. trying to turn on the 3D desktop.

--snip--
    * However, new infrastructure will be implemented which allows the user to
          trivially enable both enhanced desktop effects and the necessary driver
          support.
--snip--

more than just desktops,

[Aeron65432]

Or maybe we complain just because we like our Tuxracer, UT, Doom3, and desktops to be ready to go when started.

Or, it could be because installing ATI drivers (for those of you out there who've done it know this) is an absolute pain in the ass on Ubuntu. When I installed NVidia drivers on my friends laptop, I groaned because it was so convenient.

People would complain if OpenOffice, Firefox, and some kind of movie/music didn't come packaged with Feisty Fawn, and for good reason! They are essentials to the system! I think it's really too bad they probably won't be included.

Re:more than just desktops,

[dinivin]

Or, it could be because installing ATI drivers (for those of you out there who've done it know this) is an absolute pain in the ass on Ubuntu.

What's so difficult about:

% sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.33.6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/6.10
% dpkg -i *deb

Re:more than just desktops,

[G3ckoG33k]

"What's so difficult about:

% sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.33.6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/6.10
% dpkg -i *deb"

How about:

# sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.33.6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/6.10
# dpkg -i *deb

Re:more than just desktops,

[cortana]

The difficulty comes later on when you need to install or upgrade something else and the shitty packages built by the idiots at ATI who know nothing about how Debian-based systems are put together break.

Do yourself a favour and stick with the official packages: http://packages.debian.org/src:fglrx-driver

Re:more than just desktops,

[605dave]

"What's so difficult about: % sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.33.6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/6.10 % dpkg -i *deb" Wow, and you people wonder why Linux hasn't taken hold for the average consumer. Sure it isn't difficult to type that line, but it looks confusing and intimidating to the average person. And that answer is always slightly condescending too, implying someone is an idiot for not knowing the obvious solution. Linux will not succeed anytime soon on the desktop market, because the geeks who make it don't respect the non-geeks who would use it.

Re:more than just desktops,

[Stormwatch]

Honestly, what do people expect? It's a fucking *nix.

How was that again... "Mac OS X. Because making UNIX user-friendly was easier than fixing Windows."

Re:more than just desktops,

[Blakey Rat]

Typing in the stuff isn't difficult.

Figuring out what to type in is. Rebooting, then coming up with a text screen because "startx" failed and there's nothing but an instruction telling you to restore your backed-up config (with, of course, no instructions on HOW to do that or, even better, an option to automatically do it)... that's very difficult.

Of course typing in those commands *is* difficult for somebody who's visually (or otherwise) impaired. You can install a driver on Windows or OS X using a screen-reader... try typing in 6-x86.x86_64.run with a screen-reader.

Re:more than just desktops,

[rantingkitten]

Guys, I hate to break this to you, but "most users" can't install the drivers on Windows either. You ever walk someone through that process?

"Okay, so go to nvidia.com and find the driver for your card."
"How do I do that?"
"Click Downloads, select your operating system..."
"Is that Windows?"
"Yes. So select that and--"
"It says.. Windows XP slash 2000... Windows 98 slash 95..."
"You're on Windows XP. So select that."
"Okay."
"Now which video card do you have?"
"I don't know."
"Right click on the desktop. Go to properties. Go to Advanced. Do you see it?"
"No."
"Right above the colorful thing."
"Oh. Okay.. uh.."
"..it'll say Nvidia something, or maybe GeForce something."
"Ohhhh. GeForce 5200?"
"Okay, select that then."
"Where?"
"On the WEBSITE."
"Exit out of this?"
"YES, EXIT OUT OF THE PROPERTIES THING AND GO BACK TO THE WEBSITE."
"Okay."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Did you select the 5200 yet?"
"No, am I supposed to?"
"YES. Click that. Click next."
"Do-I-want-to-download-the-following-file: installer dot exe."
"Yes. Download that."
"Where should I save it?"
"ANYWHERE. The desktop, okay?"
"Okay... it's downloading."
"..."
"Do-I-want-to-run-the-following-application: installer dot exe."
"Yesssss."
"It says.. warning-some-software-can-damage-your-computer-are -you-sure-you--"
"Yes."
"Accept terms and conditions?"
"...yes..."
"This-will-install-nvidia-drivers-blah-blah-blah, continue?"
"...yes..."
"Setup is preparing the... uh, install..shield.. wizard?"
"That's fine, just let it go."
"Do I click Next?"
"YES. YES. JUST KEEP HAMMERING NEXT UNTIL IT SAYS FINISHED."
"Okay. ...it says finished, do I click Ok?"
"YES FOR GOD'S SAKE ALREADY!"
"Okay, now it says I must reboot. Should I do that?"
"@#%"

Yeah. That's much, much easier for most people. The CLI looks intimidating but, to most people, both Windows and Linux CLI are incomprehensible gibberish anyway, so what's the difference?

Sorry, but ATI binary drivers just suck too much.

[MrvFD]

I'd understand the "give us our whatever-blobs"-attitude better if the "half" of the proprietary drivers people want wouldn't suck so bad. On my 64-bit Ubuntu, the proprietary ATI fglrx drivers:
- Hang the whole machine every time I logout (apparently because I'm using DVI output... gosh!), so I exit that installation of Ubuntu (which is not my primary, just testing the fglrx drivers etc. there) with alt-sysrq-e/i/s/u/b because it's safer.
- Give only green stripes and a complete hang if using _both_ DVI and VGA outputs at the same time (oh my god, we never though that could happen!).
- Do not give any 3D support if I happen not to disable Composite/AIGLX in Xorg.conf.

...while the reverse-engineered drivers give my Radeon X800 card 3D acceleration, DVI output, DVI+VGA output, accelerated Beryl 3D desktop via AIGLX etc. just finely. So I just don't belive in the FUD (from eg. NVIDIA) that they are so complex and extremely difficult to write, that the worldwide OSS community couldn't do that - those handful of reverse-engineering people are already doing better drivers than ATI with all the in-house knowledge!

I do symphatize with the people who just want "stuff to work", and know that NVIDIA proprietary drivers happen to be better quality at this time, but all my experiences with binary blobs has been so bad that I will take reverse-engineered drivers anytime, even for NVIDIA.

For those who haven't read it yet, David Airlied's LCA 2007 talk is a really good and entertaining piece: http://www.skynet.ie/~airlied/talks/lca07/nouveau. odp (yes, server's mime-type is probably wrong, you have to save it first)

Re:This is the Aqua and Aero "equivalent" ?

[arevos]

Apparently what is probably the premier desktop-oriented Linux distro doesn't think it's stable enough to include, but it's just as good - nay, better - than Aqua and Aero ? From a stability perspective, Beryl and Compiz have quite a way to go. However, the base systems seem more flexible than their proprietary counterparts from what I've seen. Do you know if Aqua or Aero have a plugin system that enables one to add third party effects to the graphics system? For instance, could I write a plugin for either desktop that would make my windows "wobble" when moving them around? Or explode in a shower of sparks when closed? Or would adding such features be built into the operating system and unable to be altered or extended by third party developers?

I don't think it's accurate to say that 3D acceleration on Linux is necessarily better than Aqua and Aero, as it's currently more immature. However, the X based systems seem to me to be more flexible, with a more clearly defined architecture. When this reaches stability, it seems that Linux will enjoy a not insignificant advantage over its competitors. Until then, I'd have to consider it as not better, but perhaps "more promising".