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The Challenge In Delivering Open Source GPU Drivers
yuhong writes "After the recent Intel Sandy Bridge launch left Linux users having to build the latest source from Git repositories in order to have full support for the integrated graphics, Phoronix looked at the problems involved in delivering new graphics drivers for Linux."
You've just gotta have your own cake and get to eat it too!
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
I would have expected Intel to have released drivers. They are involved heavily in Open Source. They have the Open Source Technology Center. Has anyone asked Intel about it?
http://www3.intel.com/cd/corporate/icsc/apac/eng/teams/331393.htm
The truth shall set you free!
There aren't really any compelling ($$$) reasons to support sweet graphics drivers in Linux. Talk to Adobe, Autodesk, et al... give users a reason to demand driver support.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Unlike the proprietary drivers from ATI/AMD and NVIDIA or any of the drivers on the Microsoft Windows side, it's not easy to provide updated drivers post-release in distributions like Ubuntu due to the inter-dependence on these different components and all of these components being critical to the Linux desktop's well being for all users.
That's a funny was of saying Linux doesn't have a stable ABI because its architects are crazy.
I honestly hope in five years you can all go back and laugh at articles like these, but more than likely you'll have slightly bigger version numbers and different silly names.
hurl
blech
Wow. First you deny them a nice binary blob and force them to build from the source code. What's next? Throwing them into the briar patch?
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
This thread discusses the availability of FOSS drivers for those snazzy ARM Cortex chips found commonly in touch-screen devices.
Even if you can 'root' your Android phone, getting a 3D accelerated x.org experience is unlikely. Even Nokia's forthcoming Meego device will be a binary blob affair, I suspect.
I'm just glad drivers get written at all. In the last ten years, Linux has gone from daunting to a snap to install and maintain. If you can contribute, and you aren't doing so, you have no reason to bitch about the tardiness of drivers. Heck, you don't have a right to bitch anyway about something that's free.
wow! intel is really keeping up with whats What hot and new , intel open source Now sounds like intel really wants to please OSS users like on Arrandale when they pull these kinds of stunts, TFA:
Intel decided not to send out any Sandy Bridge CPU samples to us, so we are unable to deliver test results, but all I got were frustrated journalists asking me how to get the Sandy Bridge graphics working under Linux.
Arrandale is also a complete mess on some platforms like fedora for e.g.Currently now running gentoo with xorg 1.9. and kernel 2.6.37.7 and feeling lucky that most things are now working on an Arrandale platform.
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-intel/log/ If you look 2.13.903 is out this will become 2.14 unless something major is found. This took a whole day !! to go from final release candidate to release for 2.12. I wonder what those linux users who imported from Malaysia will do.
Intel are lucky to have managed to write a driver that works for the kernel "X" and the window manager "Y ". How a developer will be able to make a driver that works in all the infinite combinations of software that constitute a Linux distro? How to make then to work in a graphics system that is actually a complete mess?
And how many times the work has been completely lost because some idiot had the "brilliant idea" to change something in a vital library, completely breaking compatibility? Is a difficult job.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
It would be nice to have some stable HPI, too. Everything that the old hardware can do, the old driver for the old hardware should be able to do with the new hardware. So with no change at all to the driver, everything that worked with the old hardware shall work with the new hardware, faster where applicable.
New features are then the issue. If the hardware interface is designed in a flexible way, then the low level drivers should not need to care at all about what is going on with the device. They should, instead, be working entirely and exclusively on making sure all the operation requests and responses get properly shuttled back and forward, say in the form of messages. That way, to use some new feature in the hardware, you only need to add on the component that understands that new feature. And with a message passing interface to hardware, that can easily never need to involve the kernel.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As Intel increasingly kowtows to the DRM desires of the Content Lords, I'm not sure how much longer their open-sourcing will continue.
Windows 7. It just works. You can put aside your HobbyOS now.
resources are better spent
This resource conflict is a fiction that exists exclusively inside your head. Mobile Linux isn't having these problems; the future of PowerVR and Tegra depends Linux+Android capabilities. Not surprisingly those accelerated drivers appear to 'just work'. No drama involved. No lag. No missing features.
Point is Linux will get real desktop graphics support when a compelling ($) reason exists to create it. Not before. You get some PTC or AutoDesk folks specifying workstation grade graphics (for example) on Linux and you can bet your sweet bippy the hardware vendors will deliver, and right now too. Probably the worst thing that happened to Linux graphics was when PTC walked away.
_hardware_ manufactures who think they want to be in the _software_ maintenance market.
The difference between calling an API to render color fast, and knowing that cramming a 0x721 into a register at 0x3392 to render color fast isn't particularly a hemorrhaging of 'intellectual property'.
Granted, it does let us know where the API is "cheating".
So while the example of one byte in one register is reductio ad absurdem, and the process is more about laying out memory buffers and such, who cares. Sure the manufactures may be worried about nock-off hardware, but that hardware almost certainly be nock-off quality. Think of all the SoundBlaster knock offs that have ever been made. Compare that to Creative's bottom line. Those third party cards, which are _still_ on the market made SoundBlaster a universal name. Creative has been reclined upon those laurels for years now.
It is horrifically stupid on the part of the hardware manufacturers to be palying so close to the vest. They should _want_ everybody scrambling to be compatible with _their_ hardware interface, making them the leader that the market has to chase.
First big name out of the gate with a fully open graphics hardware platform would own the segment anew for years.
But "companies" have no smarts and that "isn't the way (that) business is done" so here we languish on in a half-realized market.
(As for the "getting drivers" thing I have spent hundreds of hours of my professional and personal career "getting drivers" for windows machines. Only the "you'll damn well eat what we serve you" hardware platforms like Apple can remove the quest for drivers. And woe betide you if you want to use old gear from those guys. So the whole plaintive "waah, I had to look for drivers" complaint rings a little false.)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Didn't know you can dumpster dive for brand new computer parts now!
The fact that the linux kernel is GLPv2 (and hence allows binary drivers) *AND* has an unstable ABI is a recipe for disaster. If they want to enforce "source only", then the kernel needs to be GPLv3. If not, there needs to be a stable driver ABI. Else users get screwed.
Case in point is Android. Frustrated that you can't update your Android phone from 2.2 to 2.3 right now? Blame the lack of a stable driver ABI, combined with binary drivers for some phones. The old binary drivers don't work with the new kernel, and the vendors don't release the source. If Linux had a stable driver ABI, people could take the drivers from their carrier's 2.2 ROM, and use them in 2.3. This would allow nearly instant upgrades (assuming other hurdles, like rooting the phone & getting write access to the flash roms).
This is very frustrating, as doing a binary kernel ABI *IS* possible. Red Hat maintains a KABI across all minor releases of its RHEL OS. So a KABI compliant driver compiled for RHEL 5.0 will work with RHEL 5.5. They are both "2.6.18", but the RHEL 5.5 "2.6.18" is more like 2.6.31, with features from 2.6.31 *carefully* backported so as not to break the KABI.
Sigh..
All the kernel needs to do is run text console mode so why does it contain graphics drivers? Why arn't they just shipped with X windows as they were in the past? (This is a genuine question , I've not kept up with how linux handles graphics for years now)
If you're not willing to listen to anyone who's not a kernel dev then you're missing out on a lot of useful feedback. As well as being an arrogrant twat.
It seems today that you have to go boot your chosen machine from a LiveCD to have any idea whether it will work properly.
I carry a portable $current_distro Linux in a bootable USB drive on my keychain.
I prefer to assemble my own computers using hardware that is known to work with Linux.
However, I've helped some of my friends and relatives migrate to Linux, and they like to buy pre-assembled computers from $electronics_store.
My bootable Linux USB has come in handy for the purpose you describe: I've helped my friends purchase new PCs that are Linux friendly several times. I recently helped my neighbor buy a Linux-ready Toshiba laptop. The MicroCenter sales person didn't let me boot Linux and lost the sale because the kids at Best Buy did...
I know that most stores will sell the floor model once it is discontinued, so from a security standpoint I can understand why booting a stranger's USB is a very bad idea. I could have flashed the BIOS with malicious firmware, corrupted the recovery partition, and/or installed malware to the OS.
It would be nice if the stores would set up a Linux dual boot on their display models to avoid the security problem mentioned above, and still allow me to test out Linux on the hardware.
Note: Best-Buy's computers were largely untestable without booting my own OS because all the PCs were running the stupid in-store advertizing apps. This was a shitty experience; The incessant up-selling of warranties, additional peripherals, and pre-installed crapware & AV from Geek Squad was a strong reminder as to why I don't shop for my own computers in these big chain stores...
P.S. I've used my Linux key-fob to save my friends' data from rotting Windows installations on many occasions -- That's how they were first exposed to Linux on the desktop, and being able to boot the full OS from a USB or CD drive is the reason that 4 'em switched to Linux.
so not really a fair comparison.
The lack of a stable ABI keeps Linux as a geek toy on the desktop.
It's pretty obvious that the desktop linux market isn't worth the same amount of effort as Windows (and even OSX) so I can certainly understand why they don't devote the same amount of time but it would be nice if they released the specs to the linux community so OSS drivers can be made quickly and easily.
Thankyou...LOL!