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OpenGL Becoming a Requirement For the Linux Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "Modern Linux desktops like Ubuntu's Unity and the GNOME Shell have placed a requirement on OpenGL 2.0+ support for handling their compositing window managers and desktop effects. Wayland's Weston also needs OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Now with modern Linux distributions like Ubuntu 12.10, rather than falling back to a 2D unaccelerated desktop if you don't have a sufficient GPU or graphics driver, users are being forced to run LLVMpipe as a CPU-based software rasterizer. LLVMpipe works fine if you are on a new PC with a fast x86-64 CPU, but the OpenGL-based Linux desktops are causing growing pains for ARM hardware, virtual machines, servers, multi-seat computers, and of course all older hardware. LLVMpipe is a Mesa Gallium3D driver that uses LLVM for run-time code generation as an attempt at accelerating graphics faster on the CPU. So much for Linux being good for old computers?"
The KMS based graphics stack is already effectively unusable on AGP systems (if you have SMP + AGP, there are race conditions somewhere leading to really hard crashes that appeared a couple of years ago and dozens of years old open bugs with no resolution other than "use PCI mode" which cuts bus bandwidth by 4 or 8 times, and still doesn't work with SMP), but for those with older PCIe/IGP systems you could always runs Window Maker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, Open Box, or one of many other window managers without a compositor. Of course then you lose compositing, and there aren't any usable external compositors for some reason. The flipside to this is that moving to OpenGL as the primary interface to the GPU means one fewer driver that has to be written, and will probably lead to an overall improved experience for those with supported hardware given the limited resources Free Software drivers authors have.
There's a simple solution - install Windows Server 2003/2008. It doesn't need fancy graphics card to operate. That is, if you are looking for server/virtual server OS. Otherwise you can just go with Windows XP or Windows 7.
A headless windows server doesn't need a fancy graphics card... but neither does a headless linux server.
This ain't Windows, boy.
go back to your remote desktop, everything-has-to-interact-with-the-GUI-scripting, and other such nonsense...
Get real, the world runs on whatever the fuck it needs to run. That means Linux, Windows, BSD, HPUX, what-the-hell gets the job done (or, does approximately so, and makes the business-goons-who-make decisions happy).
Leave your fantasy idealism world and look at reality some time.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
No reason to use what some distros (that apparently have gone off the deep end) offer as defaults. Stay with x.org, use a sane window manager like fvwm, xfce, etc. where the developers actually remember what the role of a window manager is, and this stupid discussion does not need to concern you at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You'd be surprised how many people run older hardware. I don't give a damn about gaming; so all three desktops and one of the two laptops in my house are old 32-bit machines (Athlons, Pentium 4 3.06GHz HT, Celeron in the lappy). They run apps just as fast as when they were new state-of-the-art machines - it seems daft that it's the window management that's forcing me to look for leaner distros. I'm certainly not going to spend money upgrading hardware to have prettier window decorations and physics.
Ydco co
If you run older hardware, what's the big rush to upgrade to a dist offering shiny new desktop any way? Install Debian, stick a light WM on it, or stick with an older dist which the hardware is capable of running.
You're not forced. There's still plenty of lightweight window managers available in the Ubuntu repositories.
Granted, Canonical could detect old hardware and automatically install such things by default. But it's hardly the end of the world.
I know! How dare they take advantage of graphics hardware of newer systems! X11 primitives should be enough for everyone!
It's also great if you want to work with Linux and the software available to it, but don't quite want to spend as much time screwing around with the platform.
Fortunately it's not.
Hey, look at that. Options for the technology-averse technologist. Can people stop bitching about the fact that the GUI subsystem is being modernized and go take advantage of all the old, inefficient, software-powered solutions that you prefer?
Don't lump KDE in with the others. It's just Gnome and Unity doing this.
Mada mada dane.