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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.
Still no OpenGL required for Fluxbox. Still snappy on old hardware too.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You're wrong OP,
There's no requirement for OpenGL on the desktop. Modern desktops which supply Unity also supply Unity 2D, which is an implementation based on Qt.
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...
KDE (Kwin) has one of the most advanced compositing window managers around. You can toggle compositive off with alt+shift+F12 and go back to a 2D desktop. If it detects that it cannot run with compositing due to hardware limitations, it will do that by default, or you can configure it not to if you just don't like that.
There is no requirement for OpenGL in any reasonable window manager.
Give me a break.
"New PC with x86-64"? The last mainstream Intel CPU that didn't support 64-bit instructions was the original Core. (Not the Core 2, which was a rather different beast). This was a bit of an anomaly - Intel already had 64 bit processors out in 2005 though the Core was released at the beginning of 2006. It only ever made it into mobile chips. It's still available, though I wonder how many Intel sell - they often have processors available for purchase long after they've gone out of mainstream use.
AGP similarly was being phased out in 2004.
I get that Linux has a huge hardware compatibility list, but you know something? I don't really care about hardware that hasn't been generally available in five years and hasn't been seen in the wild in two.
Why does Mesa even exist? It was supposed to be a software implementation of OpenGL, but it never had good enough performance for much of anything. Instead it became some sort of wrapper for OpenGL drivers. They said it could be used as a fallback for any features not implemented in the hardware drivers (but with terrible performance). And now with the LLVM pipe driver it's not even used for software rendering any more. Somehow it just keeps sticking around. What's up with that?
Something that was brought to my attention. If AMD dies then OpenGL development as far as implementation gets left up to Nvidia. Doesn't matter what platform you run.
An alternative "external compositor" can be found here. Was fairly trivial to prepare deb packages and it is on the wishlist in debian. Looking now, I see they just tagged the first version of it two days ago so maybe it's time to update the deb package and submit.
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).
Does KDE requires OpenGL support now as well?
you could always runs Window Maker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, Open Box, or one of many other window managers without a compositor.
I think I can just disable the compositor on KDE and re-enable it if I wish. Or does the author have a bias against KDE that he/she is not mentioned one of the most used Linux desktops?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
While I don't understand the summary at all, I am quite happy with running openbox and xcompmgr. All I ever want is konsole transparency, anyway. Couldn't care less for other eye-candy.
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.
Oh come on, are Slashdotters getting to be _that_ humorless. I need a Windows server like I need a hole in the head, but I laughed at the comment.
"Both Linux and windows servers I administrate involve (a) GUI management applications for the services/daemons "
You need to improve your unix CLI skills if you have to use a GUI to manage system daemons.
There are plenty of other choices - both for Linux distros and desktops, many specifically targeted towards the old hardware. Furthermore, if you are running so old hw that has AGP or some ARM devices, you probably don't want to run a full-blown Gnome/Unity on that anyway.
Do you think GNOME (and Co.) is the Linux desktop?
Ah! Have you ever heard about KDE, LXDE, XFCE etc. etc.? They seems not to require OpenGL at all! You insensitive Gtk-clod!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Of course then you lose compositing
Oh the humanity! Think Of The Children!
Seriously though, no non-technical end users whom the desktop is being aimed at (why?) know what compositing is. Need to describe it in terms of what it looks like. You need to explain that its, um, well, you know those useless decorations that make the computer seem slower than it really is? Yeah its them. Oh you mean my computer will run faster? Cool!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
One of the main reasons I switched to Linux was to avoid having to buy a bloody gaming computer just to render the desktop animations while working.
LXDE/XFCE all the way. Compositing was invented for people with more spare GPU cycles than they can reasonably use.
$20 can get a decent PCI-e video card that can be used for accelerating desktop compositing. Resourceful people can probably even find suitable cards for free if they look around.
We are way beyond the point where a 3D accelerated video card is a luxury item in a PC.
dennis
Kwin can work without OpenGL and it's damn snappy. Not everything is gnome.
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?
The headless horseman only needs a pumpkin
"I don't really care about hardware that hasn't been generally "available in five years and hasn't been seen in the wild in two.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
And a snickers.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Unity and GNOME aren't the only user environments you can run, on any linux distro. If you're using Linux on an older machine specifically because that machine is old, then you should probably be using a distro designed for that, like DSL or tiny linux (for really low power computers) that don't use intensive UI's
/endrant
Just one issue:
$1,099.99 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit 1 Server 10 CAL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116853&name=Server-Software
I'll keep my thousand dollars and you can keep your buggy, virus ridden, proprietary OS.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Your 'Solution' isn't even close. The 'problem' the OP raised is about /linux/ *desktops*
If you need a server with a graphical desktop, his solution is close.
Is why I will never install Ubuntu again, and why this distribution is doomed to irrelevance. [...]
Don't misunderstand me: Ubuntu is fine if you are an absolute Linux beginner. For the rest of us, frankly, this is just one more nail in its coffin, as far as I am concerned, Ubuntu is fast becoming the Mandrake of the 20xx.
Ubuntu isn't just for "Linux beginners". It's for an audience that isn't able or doesn't want to spend time choosing, configuring and optimizing their operating system. These are also users who like an easy to use system that offers similar paradigms and visuals as other contemporary graphical interfaces, and will generally pay the price for that (e.g. not being able to use it comfortably on old hardware).
Your use of the term "Linux beginner" in this context only makes sense if you assume that Linux users with limited technical knowledge and interest are necessarily those who have recently started to use it - those who have just begun their journey towards more technical knowledge and will soon graduate to more hardcore distributions. But it doesn't account for people who have only basic computer skills, and are fine with that.
Ubuntu is built around the idea to make Linux accessible to mainstream users. In my opinion, this gives it a very important role at a time where competitors such as Windows 8 are moving to walled garden models for their closed-source software: It is the most credible offer for non-technical users who prefer a free-as-in-freedom operating system.
Ubuntu, Mint etc users: You can add another older window manager using apt-get. XFCE etc are lightweight. Just because your distro pimps one WM over another doesn't mean jack. Come to think of it, why didn't anyone mention Xubuntu or Lubuntu or one of the other Ubuntus? This post is so n00b.
Your WM is just one software package in your Linux distro. Your Linux distro is just one of many. Pretty much any Linux distro can be re-installed completely from source (and necessary binary blobs) to -BE- another Linux distro.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
When wasn't Ubuntu as heavyweight as Mandrake / Mandriva? Ubuntu has always been a GUI prominent distribution.
Let's not forget that Windows has it's own set of requirements, that in XP DX9 compliant hardware is required and in later versions more advanced DX hardware is required for certification.
So Windows has requirements. Also, there *should* be a GL implementation that works as well. Only the lamest manufacturers and newest hardware would be lacking these.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Windows Server 2003 also has a working OpenGL implementation. Best of both worlds.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So much for Linux being good for old computers?
No. Slackware. Gentoo. You Name It.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
I have found compositing to be problematic in day to day use on LINUX and up until Ubuntu moved to the Unity platform I kept it disabled (right after the initial luster of Compiz Fusion wore off). This is one of several issues that drove me away from Ubuntu and I now prefer Debian Squeeze. Usability is my primary selector in a LINUX distro, whether I'm browsing the web, developing, editing an image, running a 3d Windows game in Wine, or rendering a video. If my 7 year old laptop becomes sluggish and unresponsive because the memory shared with the GPU is being used to create a shiny new tablet-friendly interface, then that OS no longer qualifies as usable on that platform. The idea that I should have to buy a new laptop with a better 3D accelerator so that I can continue to use the latest newest shiniest LINUX distro is ridiculous.
In my opinion, all modern OS developers seem to have forgotten that the primary purpose of the OS is to provide (easy ?) access to the software the end user needs to run and a stable platform for it to run upon. A desktop environment should not require a 3d capable GPU to be rendered efficiently. The idea that it should is roughly akin to claiming it would be more efficient to drive a five minute commute with a high performance sports car.
This is not progress, it's the illusion of progress.
If Windows is the answer, then it must have been a really stupid question.
I have used unity and kde and both look nice and run fast with or without opengl hardware rendering. You will have distro's running xorg and than you will have distros like ubuntu running wayland so it's no biggie you still have tons of distros and windows managers available to you. It seems to me that for some linux users if a distro takes a different path it will somehow affect all distros, which is not true. Ubuntu and Fedora are two different operating systems.
It seems to me that the "half the time" is when Gnome sucks badly.
Gnome crap, used KDE
KDE4 ran like crap, switched to Gnome
Gnome3+Unity = sucks, switched back to KDE4
KDE4 on Ubuntu is actually quite nice. The major issue is the Nepomuk file indexing slowing stuff down (I recommend just disabling Nepomuk).
It's really weird to say this, but Windows 7 seems to be friendlier to older hardware now; I've certainly run into less trouble putting Windows 7 on older machines; that includes an old PIII Dell C610 I used to have, albeit without Aero support but with general 3D. I wonder how a modern Linux distro would have treated it?
The kids use an ancient Dell P4 with Nvidia 5200 AGP card and 2GB RAM which runs Win7 just fine, perfectly well for the kids schoolwork (incl MS Office) and simpler games (including Flash web games). That machine used to run Linux quite well long ago, but I suspect it'd have problems with a modern distro without a bit of tweaking.
I have a Thinkpad T42 that Ubuntu will no longer even install on (without a hacked installer anyway), though I did get Fedora to work on it. Its Radeon mobility 9600 used to be great, but now it's sluggish. Win7 runs noticeably faster on it, at least graphics-wise.
A big reason for using Linux USED to be keeping older hardware alive, or using older hardware to play around with it; that's why it sucks that you often have to jump through a few hoops to get it to run. Not that I have anything against window managers such as XFCE, but it's no longer as convenient to simply give someone a disc to try Ubuntu out on their older computer.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I humbly disagree. I found happiness when I moved to Ubuntu (from Gentoo, but that's irrelevant)
You see, the defaults might suck for power users, but it not only has all the debian goodness inside, it also has a really good amount of up-to-date software in PPAs, and it's favored by many developers who release closed-source-free-software. The 2D CAD suite I use only has binary Ubuntu packages, for example. (rest is w32/64 and mac).
And hell, Steam will come to Ubuntu, more reason for me, a gamedev (in my free time) to stay tuned.
Only power users will really need (and know how to) replace things. Nothing prevents you from using Fluxbox, IceWM, FVWM, Awesome...all of them are available in the repos, that are enabled by default, and just a few clicks away. The Software Center is surprisingly decent too.
Consider that if people is able to do such things with their smartphones, they can do it with Ubuntu too. Average Joes aren't that stupid, they just have a horrible lack of will to learn nerdy things, and Ubuntu precisely helps to address that. Unity is horrible for, in my case, developing software, but I see how it works for somebody not willing to learn. The eyecandy makes it look less nerdy for the average user, and the software center makes it familiar for those who search the iOS/Android shop for tools, which is a lot of people, nowadays.
The rest of us...are free to do our thing, no one is stopping us, and that's why I think you are being needlessly harsh. If you use another distro because you like the defaults better, more power to you, it's a bit of time you'll save during setup, but it doesn't make Ubuntu really doomed to irrelevance at all.
Lets face it, slashdot has zealots on both sides of the fence here.
Hey it's perfectly fine here on the Amiga side of the fence, it's just the *other* side of the fence that's the problem!
New nVidia cards fully support OpenGL 4.2 either in hardware or in their drivers (if there's something they are missing, let me know I've not encountered it). Mesa is only up to 3.1. So what does Mesa get you, over a regular video card driver?
So what? I can think of no reason I would want it, let alone need it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There's a simple solution - install Windows Server 2003/2008. It doesn't need fancy graphics card to operate.
Hahaha funny Windows munchkin. Linux admins do not run GUIs on their servers unless they are idiots. I know this is hard to comprehend, but please try to wrap your mind around it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Just don't tell my AGP desktop while it's (obliviously) working fine with all the KWin & Gnome compositing bells & whistles... (KDE being a tad snappier than Gnome-Shell, admittedly)
Sometimes Free linux opengl support is garbage on recent hardware (e.g. Intel Atom with PowerVR IGP), or just non existent. Any brand new VIA motherboard only supports 3D and video acceleration under Windows (you may get a 2D X11 driver by compiling code from their SVN). It's not only slower-than-atom hardware, they have VIA Nano X2 and X4 boards that take 4 or 8GB memory.
Also non-legacy and a reason for concern is ARM SoC, say you get an Asus Transformer netbook with a Tegra 3 and 1 or 2GB memory (dunno what's out) : lol, you might get OpenGL running on that in 3 years, if ever! Virtual Machines : I've never had 3D acceleration running in Virtualbox. Remote desktop? not wasting a huge lot of CPU cycles on a PC that has a working but slow OpenGL driver?
The end result is not the end of the world, it's only the major "default" desktops that are unusable (and even their well-intentioned offspring, Cinnamon). I'm happy to have linux mint 13 MATE. A desktop set up and configured out of the box is important, so that it doesn't look like garbage and has a few GUI tools ; feel free to do apt-get install fluxbox and get an empty ugly piece of crap with a default gtk theme.
You call Gnome 3, Unity, Wayland etc... modernizing the GUI? Isn't modernization supposed to make things better, more portable (to non-Linuxes), more usable? There's nothing wrong with leveraging GPUs, when available, but making them a precondition at this point is way too early: there are way too many non-capable devices out there that still need good old and trusty X.org + MesaGL (+ a decent WM like Fluxbox, or KDE if you really need the bloat).
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I wish that were true. I'm an Android and Linux kernel developer by trade.
I have Win7 installed on one computer, but I don't remember which one has it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Well, Enlightenment is not entirely a good argument. It's coming up for release very soon (E17), and the next version is already being talked about as having compositing a _requirement_.
...and it only took 20 years.
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
Get real, the world runs on whatever the fuck it needs to run
If somebody is looking for a good Linux desktop (perhaps he *needs* to run some custom or scientific or other similar software on top of the Linux kernel), then "install Windows" is hardly the answer he expects.
Ezekiel 23:20
I need a Windows server like I need a hole in the head
So you need seven Windows servers? That's going to be quite an electricity bill to pay for you.
Ezekiel 23:20