Ubuntu NVIDIA Graphics Driver: Windows Competitive, But Only With KDE

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Ubuntu NVIDIA Graphics Driver: Windows Competitive, But Only With KDE

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 13, 2012 @05:07AM from the layers-to-work-through dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The NVIDIA Linux driver across multiple GeForce graphics cards can compete with Microsoft Windows 7 on Ubuntu, but only when using the KDE desktop and not the default Unity/Compiz. It turns out based upon recent desktop environment benchmarking, Ubuntu's Unity desktop is now noticeably slower than GNOME/KDE/Xfce/LXDE with multiple GPUs/drivers. Sam Spilsbury of Canonical/Compiz acknowledges the problem but it may take longer than one Ubuntu cycle to correct."

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Remember that thread from the other day... by sootman · 2012-09-13 05:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

... about problems with Linux on the desktop? Yeah. Here you go.
(I'm not saying it's Linux's fault, but it is undeniably a problem with Linux. If some guy drives into you while you're stopped at a red light, the result is still that you have a broken car.)

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1. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by BMOC · 2012-09-13 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The average desktop user is disappointed when they only get 347 FPS instead of 422 FPS on their 1080P 3D-accelerated desktop? This is news to me.
  
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2. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by Hatta · 2012-09-13 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is a problem with Ubuntu on the desktop, not Linux. Install Debian and whatever window manager you want and you have a perfectly useable Linux desktop.
  
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3. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-09-13 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ubuntu is fine one you rip out unity. Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu with mate desktop, all work great just because unity and gnome are a flaming pile doesn't make the rest bad. apt-get purge unity && apt-get install anything-else(except gnome3) problem solved.
  
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  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
4. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by Anne+Thwacks · 2012-09-13 07:20 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You may be able to use Unity. I have yet to find anyone else that can. I have installed it for about 12 users now, and none of them was able to use it for more than 10 minutes*.
  All are perfectly happy with Gnome-shell (I am not, but that is different story).
  *The essential problem is that hierarchical text menu structures work. Unrecognisable icons are completely unintelligeable and non-intuitive. Things like the Ubuntu Software Centre take huge amounts of screen space - making it very difficult to find anything - worse (horrifically worse) this particular evil beast has masses of animated crap at the top, needlessly eating your bandwidth and processing power.
  
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5. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by Grishnakh · 2012-09-13 07:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is exactly right. So many people are bitching about Unity and Gnome3, all this would be moot if they'd just dump that crap and make KDE the default desktop, and different distros customize the many configuration options in it to their liking. KDE can be made to look and act very different with the config options and themes (and of course users can use that as a starting point and make further tweaks easily in "System Settings"). People who want something lighterweight can use XFCE or whatever, so that can be offered as an alternative to KDE in some distros.
  Why all the distros are so in love with Gnome, I have no idea.
6. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by Punto · 2012-09-13 07:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yeah but this is still relevant to that other thread. Somebody at canonical decided it was a good idea to take over the GPU and RAM with their useless "unity" interface because that's their "vision for the future" and they have to force it on everyone. This is the problem that Linus and the rest of the kernel people are pointing out.
  
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7. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-13 09:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Once you rip out the stock DE, what's the advantage of Ubuntu over Debian and a dozen other distros? It's no longer just right out of the box, and the amount of knowledge you need to replace the DE is about equivalent to what you need to install Debian with your DE of choice...
8. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 11:48 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Android manufacturers DO have to pay for the OS. They pay to Microsoft for several patents. Android, and by extension, Linux, are successful in the mobile space because there is a proven, simple, and reliable way to enter the market-place for the average developer and to get paid for their work. It's hard enough to develop software, but developing successful new business models is no trivial task.
  Desktop Linux is unsuccessful because most developers are not attracted to the platform.
  How do Apple and Microsoft attract developers? By providing (mostly) stable, reliable, and easy to use platforms for developers to create their own BUSINESSES, not just software. These enticements are not just limited to software like the Win32 API, .NET, Objective-C, C#, driver testing and signing, OEM integration, and other software frameworks and solutions. It also includes operational infrastructure like databases, management software, published de-facto 'standards' (but standards none the less), 'the cloud', etc.
  In other words, they recognise that their primary customer is the developer and they take great pains to help developers make money from the platform that they try to sell to their secondary customer, the user. They create a market where developers can make money, and they in turn make money, too.
  Do you see anyone at all in the desktop Linux space trying to approach things from this perspective? I don't. Canonical? Nope. Debian? Nope. Suse? Nope. ArchLinux? Nope. RedHat? Nope. Not a single one of the major desktop Linux vendors has managed to do this. They are all concerned with providing a computing platform for the user and have all bowed down at the altar of Open Source in prayer, hoping that this magical property of their software will somehow spontaneously suffice for their own business to be successful. Don't get me wrong, I love Open Source, GNU, GPL, MIT licenses, whatever. Great stuff. But those don't in and of themselves attract the developers that will create an active and vibrant eco-system for the desktop.
  What do you think Microsoft mean when they harp their "ecosystem" idea? Why do you think they're sitting on a chest of patents they claim are violated in the Linux kernel, but have not sued anyone... except mobile vendors who have created a business ecosystem that is modeled after (and compete with) their own? Vendors who create platforms that attracts developers?
  Microsoft and Apple laugh at and ignore desktop Linux because there is no one in the market worth competing against. And there's no one in the market because no one is engaging developers in any meaningful way to work on desktop Linux.
9. Re:Remember that thread from the other day... by hairyfeet · 2012-09-13 15:03 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Sorry AC but gaming is a red herring. As much as we PC gamers like to think different its a VERY small niche. Oh its a niche that spends a LOT of money, billions in fact, but the same can be said of yacht racing or Ferrari manufacture and nobody would claim either of those is mainstream.
  No the problem is that for every gamer (who just FYI doesn't have any problems with Windows so isn't a good market to target anyway) there are easily 10,000 like my GF who uses ONLY the Internet. When she gets on the PC I built her she doesn't use a single thing other than the browser and media player, that's it. Everything else is email and FB and Yahoo and 40 other websites she goes to often...so why doesn't Linux work for her?
  Simple because as that list I provided soundly demonstrates even if something works in distro foo when foo+1 comes out there is a VERY good chance one of the low level internals will be futzed with by some dev who had an itch and it'll be broken. Before anybody screams "But it works on servers!" I would point out that 1.-Servers rarely even have DEs, they don't care about sound or WiFi, they aren't using browsers, there is simply less surface area for the devs to attack and 2.-They are all controlled by highly trained well educated server admins who get paid the big bucks to deal with breakage, nobody is gonna hand out free server admins with each desktop sold.
  Until someone can fork the ENTIRE SYSTEM away from the devs, who have made it clear from Torvalds down that they WILL NOT STOP FUTZING no matter how much headaches it causes then it simply won't get better.
  I have said many times I am ready to issue a pepsi challenge to those that believe in Linux, none will take me up on it. We'll take ANY regular distro, not LTS because we have seen that stands for "don't backport shit", that was released the same quarter as Vista, the most hated and supposedly "buggy" MSFT OS. Pick Ubuntu, PCLOS, frankly I don't care which one you pick I'll still win the challenge. We will then install it beside Vista on identical boxes, hell we'll make it a dual boot if you are worried about ANY deviation in the chips, we'll make sure both systems have 100% working drivers (which I'll allow you to CLI all you want on this part, since you are the builder not the user at this point) and then we'll simulate what will happen to the user by upgrading both to current.
  I know I will win this challenge because I've done it before and have seen what happens. The Vista system? Runs perfectly, ALL the drivers and software that was running on LTS WILL be running after the last patch, the Linux system? BROKEN, HORRIBLY BROKEN. Sound will be wasted, the WiFi will be gone, hell you'll be lucky if the GPU drivers are working at all, and I don't care which chip you pick because the devs fuck Intel as bad as they do AMD and Nvidia so it'll still be fucked, it'll all fall down like a house of cards.
  So if you want to know what it'll take to have a "year of the Linux desktop" it is this: When I can take ANY release from 3 versions ago and upgrade to current and have a 100% functional system? Then and ONLY then will it be ready. But I've tried over a dozen distros so far and not one, not the rolling releases like arch nor the traditional releases like PCLOS and Ubuntu have passed the mustard, not one.
  
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Two statements: by aussersterne · 2012-09-13 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

Linux advocate:
"It may be slower, but you're not stuck with anything Windows-like and you can fix the code yourself!"
Prospective user:
"Wait... It's slower, AND it doesn't work like Windows, AND you want me to fix the code myself?!"

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1. Re:Two statements: by Nikker · 2012-09-13 05:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If you're charging +$90/hr then, well ya I would suggest that.
  
  Hell I set up Ubuntu 12.04 + Cairo-Dock + VMWare Workstation 9.0 on a computer illiterate friends computer with a Win7 Guest in about an hour on a quad core with a decent HDD. Then I showed her the dock and some wobbly windows and she basically taught her self she was so into it.
  
  Funny thing is I don't even make close to your pay grade. You should start to wonder if you are really worth it.
  
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2. Re:Two statements: by Kozar_The_Malignant · 2012-09-13 06:14 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Time is money, and $120.00 is about an hour of my time. I'm pretty sure that I can't fix Unity in an hour.
  
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3. Re:Two statements: by Anne+Thwacks · 2012-09-13 07:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  There is no way Windows is operational within an hour of installing - a couple of days of installing, updating and rebooting are required unless you have a custom image to use. Even if its pre-installed (eg new laptop) it will take many hours to create the recovery disks, - which you need to do before anything else. And it will take a ton of money to replace the pre-installed boatware with the real versions of Office and what ever anti-virus scam you have been lumbered with.
  Ubuntu is productive within 40 minutes of deciding to install, if you have a CD to hand, even on a six year old laptop (provided you avoid Unity).
  As for drivers - a new Windows machine probably comes with drivers (which you can preserve by creating the recovery disks), but with older machines, in all probability, the network drivers won't be there, and without them, you can't access the Internet to download them!
  There is just no way Windows is ready for the average user - unless he is completely unconcerned about stability and security. Oh, wait ...
  
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4. Re:Two statements: by Patch86 · 2012-09-13 08:47 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You're pretty well paid. If you applied that logic to everything in your life, you'd struggle to get much done. "Making a coffee takes 10 minutes, which is $20 of my time. Coffee from a shop costs less than $20, so I better not make myself a coffee- it'd be a waste of my time!".
  No wonder really rich people need to pay servants to do things for them; their own self-worth must be crippling.
Ubuntu Unity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

Im sorry, but can we finally admit that Unity is a mistake. I tried (REALLY TRIED) to like unity. Its not that bad after all, but it was a step BACKWARDS. Couple that with all of the GNOME devs going Batsh**t crazy and creating GNOME3 and we have a problem. KDE is where I live now, but I miss my GNOME2. For me this is just one more nail in the coffin of Unity. Dont get me wrong though, I can see myself going to Unity in a few years, but that is a LOOOONG time as far as Linux is concerned. There are just too many issues with it right now.
1. Re:Ubuntu Unity by MrEricSir · 2012-09-13 05:25 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Dont get me wrong though, I can see myself going to Unity in a few years, but that is a LOOOONG time as far as Linux is concerned. There are just too many issues with it right now.
  Don't worry, by the time Unity's stability begins to materialize, they'll have lost interest and moved on to something else. Such is the way of the Linux desktop.
  
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how to correct it immediately by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 05:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

may take longer than one Ubuntu cycle to correct.
Actually you can correct it immediately, by using the KDE desktop. Plus, you get a richly featured desktop that isn't trying to cater to the Facebook crowd.
Who likes Unity ? by 1s44c · 2012-09-13 05:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

I hate Unity.
Everyone on Slashdot seems to hate Unity.
The rest of the Internet seems to hate Unity too.
Is there anyone that actually likes Unity? Or are Canonical just trying to piss everyone off?
Desktop linux, not linux by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-13 05:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

You keep saying "linux" when you really mean "desktop linux". Two points on that:
1. Linux is an entire world of computing, and desktop linux is actually a small part of that world. Linux is first a multi-user unix-like OS, and second everything else. Since when has a multi-user unix-like OS excelled at being a consumer-oriented desktop system? Never. They excell at being workstations and servers, and require a competant admin. That's just the reality of it, so why do you think it needs to be changed?
2. You (and others) keep implying that desktop linux is worthless ("period"), when people like me have been using it for 15 years and wouldn't even consider switching to a consumer OS. What you really mean is that it doesn't hold up as a consumer-oriented OS, and I'll be the first to admit that you're right. CONGRATULATIONS.