Intel Rejects Supporting Ubuntu's XMir

An anonymous reader writes "Just days after Intel added XMir support to their Linux graphics driver so it would work with the in-development the X11 compatibility layer to the Mir display server premiering with Ubuntu 13.10, Intel management has rejected the action and had the XMir patch reverted. There's been controversy surrounding Mir with it competing with Wayland and the state of the display server being rather immature and its performance coming up short while it will still debut in Ubuntu 13.10. Intel management had to say, "We do not condone or support Canonical in the course of action they have chosen, and will not carry XMir patches upstream." As a result, Canonical will need to ship their own packaged version of the Intel (and AMD and Nouveau drivers) with out-of-tree patches."

Comments

Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if mir is a good idea, and neither do I trust the Xorg bunch, after their numerous fsckups, to really get it right, honest, with wayland. The shambles with xorg is because they made it one, and now they're refusing to fix it. Oh well.

The thing is, though, that intel's management throwing a tantrum will ultimately lead to less options and less pressure on the failing failbunch at xorg to get it right. So I'm not thanking intel's management for this.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel probably has something of their own in the pipeline and realized that supporting XMir would be bad for their own interests in the long run.

Drivers can't support competing* products or protocols. It's amazing any OS can support more than one of anything.

* competing: our stuff and everybody else's stuff.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I trust them more than Canonical, that's for sure.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Stumbles]

Well I don't trust any corporation of any industry. But like you I lean more in favor of Intel than Canonical.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Well I'm not paranoid. I give my trust to those who deserve it and Canonical definitely do not.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

More like disinterested third party sees which way the winds are blowing and decides to pull resources away from supporting what is going to be an also-ran. Intel has been a very good citizen where it comes to provided chipset and video driver support to the Linux community. They are still making drivers for X.org ( you know the display server people actually use ) and likely will develop drivers for Wayland.

Why you or anyone else ( who does not run Ubuntu ) would want them dividing their efforts a third way writing software that will only be useful to a tiny segment escapes me. Normally I am not anti-choice but the best outcome here is for MIR to go down in flames.

The one factor that has made desktop UNIX/Linux a reality is the near universality of X11. Despite all the toolkit and desktop environment / window manager fights X11 was something software devs could depend on being there. As far as end users some integration issues aside they could run multiple toolkits and other high level stuff when needed. It would be really hard though for users to efficiently run multiple display servers. The display server is pretty much a core platform component now. I honestly think MIR is a Cononical attempt to create a walled garden for their platform. It isn't about better software for them but control.

I am glad Intel is abandoning the platform; hopeful Cononical's garden will simple become a ghetto.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Intel create documented access to their hardware but then use secret underhanded methods themselves to boost benchmarks? You know, kinda like what they did with their CPUs and compilers.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Their Linux drivers are open source. What "secret methods" are you smoking?

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I think you're either replying to the wrong person, or you have severe reading comprehension issues.

Re:Monopolist acts anticompetetively, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather annoyingly, the HD4600 driver (the one in the latest i5/i7 which is supposed to support triple-head on the motherboard), doesn't.

Surprised?

[Teun]

I can't say I'm terribly surprised.

Though Intel will be open to an alternative to X11 they are in no way obliged to carry an immature release just because Canonical wants to push theirs.

Layering?

[multi io]

Why does the Intel Xorg graphics driver have to know anything about XMir, which, as far as I understand it, is just an Xorg driver for running Xorg as a Mir client?

Re:Layering?

[gigaherz]

Quoting the first link:

The other big change is the merging of XMir handling in the xf86-video-intel driver. When using XMir for running X11/X.Org applications atop a Mir display server, modified DDX drivers are still required. These modifications are now present in the xf86-video-intel driver by default rather than Canonical carrying the work as out-of-tree patches.

Re:Layering?

[Billly Gates]

I thought they were switching to Wayland anyway.

X was really hated here on slashdot in the early days 12 years ago! I guess modern hardware hides its issues with bloat and a client and server relationship. It was made for dumb terminals and it shows. Low latency for things like glx openGL has had issues and many hacks just to get it to work mediocre wise.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question was "why?". Merely stating that it is so doesn't answer that.

Re:Layering?

[multi io]

Quoting the first link:

When using XMir for running X11/X.Org applications atop a Mir display server, modified DDX drivers are still required.

Well, that just restates/confirms the layering problem I mentioned, without explaining it.

Re:Layering?

[Lemming Mark]

I'm honestly not super clear myself! But the DDX is, as I understand it, the in-Xorg portion of the graphics driver. So I guess it's not unreasonable that that component needs to know it's not got complete control of the hardware, as opposed to the Xorg-only case where it would have. Presumably it needs to proxy some operations through Mir (or Wayland, for XWayland) that it'd normally just set directly.

A *bit* like running X under X using Xnest or Xephyr, though I'd imagine it's less extreme than that (since those, I'd guess, have to issue X-level drawing commands to their host X server, whereas to get graphics under Wayland/Mir they'd just render to a memory buffer like any Wayland/Mir client).

All slightly speculative since I'm not familiar with the in-depth technical details!

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the DDX is, as I understand it, the in-Xorg portion of the graphics driver. So I guess it's not unreasonable that that component needs to know it's not got complete control of the hardware, as opposed to the Xorg-only case where it would have.

That makes sense if the Intel driver is running inside XMir itself, but then the question becomes, why do you need to do that in the first place? Surely XMir shouldn't have to care what the underlying hardware is? Can't it just send all graphics operations to Mir, the same way that any other Mir client would?

Re:Layering?

[GigaplexNZ]

Everyone except Canonical are switching to Wayland.

Re:Layering?

[multi io]

I'm honestly not super clear myself! But the DDX is, as I understand it, the in-Xorg portion of the graphics driver. So I guess it's not unreasonable that that component needs to know it's not got complete control of the hardware, as opposed to the Xorg-only case where it would have. Presumably it needs to proxy some operations through Mir (or Wayland, for XWayland) that it'd normally just set directly.

Well..why would the Intel driver even be used when Xorg runs "hosted" as a Mir client? In that configuration, XMir should be the "driver", and any Intel driver code in Xorg should lie dormant. Or did this patch actually touch something other than Intel's Xorg driver?

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such is the political football called Linux Developers.

Remember Android fragmentation? Linux Fragmentation is exactly the same, only from the hardware vendors end. AMD/Intel/nVidia only provide what support that they do as a token of letting the platform have a small arms race in who supports "Linux" better. Currently that holder belongs to AMD, with Intel support still on Sandy Bridge.

To enable GPU support at all in Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, Windows, etc, there are requirements on the OS's virtual memory system, that don't normally exist if it's just a server running in a data center. Typically the drivers you see for Linux stop short of "working as well as Windows" because there are less people working on it, and the more cluster-****ery political divides , the even less support it gets. The entire client-server x11 dumb-terminal interface itself is something that GPU's were never designed to run as. Indeed, if you go back to early X11, prior to "3D" cards, this was pretty much considered a better idea, since you could in theory control a server miles away, and have the rendering of the UI done locally. This stopped making sense when OpenGL and OpenCL started doing things like needing to communicate with each other.

See http://people.freedesktop.org/~daniels/lca2013-wayland-x11.pdf "The X server became it's own OS!" to "The Window manager became it's own X server"

Or basically the people fond of using Unix were so so wrapped up with "not fixing" the core of X, that they decided, hey how about we just throw away X.

Then Ubuntu comes along and goes "NOOOO", and decides to do it differently. Can't say Linux is any better for it's various forks and fragmentation, but undeniably the lack of funding the "Linux Mobile Phone" http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge speaks enough that there is no demand for a Linux smartphone and Ubuntu might in actual effect be barking up the wrong tree.

Re:Layering?

[gbjbaanb]

Then Ubuntu comes along and goes "NOOOO", and decides to do it differently.

yep, this is the way of Linux. You throw many different things at a wall and see which one sticks best. Then you standardise on that thing.

Too many people are just about bitching that one thing is better than another thing without any comprehension that this is the way FOSS systems evolve. I imagine (or would hope) that Wayland and XMir will stand on their own and one will become a dominant player over the other. Politics aside this is the way it should be. Unfortunately, once the politics and the 'my thing is better than yours' attitude gets involved, it makes dropping the poor version for the better one difficult - people try to maintain the poorer one regardless.

You see this in Openoffice v LibreOffice. Surely by now one of these would have their best bits of code migrated to the other so development and evangelism could focus efforts on just one product, but instead we still have the bitching about which one is better. (though maybe its just too soon for this example)

Re:Layering?

[Teckla]

yep, this is the way of Linux. You throw many different things at a wall and see which one sticks best. Then you standardise on that thing.

In the FOSS world the "standardize on one thing" often doesn't happen, you end up with all kinds of incompatible competitors, no single one with a great deal of popularity.

Re:Layering?

[lcampagn]

The multitude of audio systems and the failure of the FOSS community to standardize on one is one of the more frustrating failings of desktop Linux in my memory.

Re:Layering?

[Tranzistors]

The way of Linux is to have one awesome kernel with no viable competition.

Re:Layering?

[jedidiah]

You mean ALSA or something layererd on top of ALSA?

The rest is nonsense perpetrated by a lazy corporate developer who couldn't keep up with what the community can do on it's own?

Some whine. Some just take care of business.

Re:Layering?

[luther349]

that's the point mir isn't even close to ready so to shove it down users throats much like unity they just threw xorg on top of it.

Re:Layering?

[Lemming Mark]

I can speculate a bit with things that sound plausible to me given my knowledge of the system - but I might still be a bit off target... Still, maybe it helps a little.

Mir and Wayland both expect their clients to just render into a buffer, which clients might do with direct rendering, in which case the graphics hardware isn't really hidden from the client anyhow. AFAIK it's pretty normal practice that there's effectively in-application code (in the form of libraries that are linked to) that understands how to talk directly to the specific hardware (I think this already happens under Xorg). The protocol you talk to Wayland (and Mir, AFAIK) isn't really an abstraction over the hardware, just a way of providing buffers to be rendered (which might, have just been filled by the hardware using direct rendering).

In this case Xorg is a client of Mir, so it's a provider of buffers which it must render. The X11 client application might use direct rendering to draw its window, anyhow. But the Xserver might also want to access hardware operations directly to accelerate something it's drawing (I suppose)... So the X server needs some hardware-specific DDX, since Mir alone doesn't provide a mechanism to do all the things it wants.

As for why the Intel driver then needs to be modified... I also understand that Mir has all graphics buffers be allocated by the graphics server (i.e. Mir) itself. Presumably Xorg would normally do this allocation (?) In which case, the Intel DDX would need modifying to do the right thing under Mir. The only other reason for modifying the DDX that springs to mind is that perhaps the responsibilities of a "Mir Client" divide between Xorg and *its* client, so this could be necessary to incorporate support for the "Mir protocol" properly. That's just hand-waving on my part, though...

Bonus feature - whilst trying to find out stuff, I found a scary diagram of the Linux graphics stack but my brain is not up to parsing it at this time of day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linux_Graphics_Stack_2013.svg

Re:Layering?

[nonicknameavailable]

we have to many standards make a standard for everyone and we have a another standard added to the list

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

That diagram is not scary if you actually follow it - it's just a little verbose. That's a good thing for those of us who are not really into Linux graphics but are familiar with the library/implementation names just from reading the news.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good decision. Canonical should make their code mature instead of doing this kind of shortcuts. If the same thing works smoothly with Wayland, I don't see why XMir needs special code in drivers. Let them ship out-of-tree stuff until they do a proper thing, although I think they especially shouldn't rush with code of high complexity and intrinsic dependency on other complex code (gpu drivers) before it's fairly stable and tested. Their plan is just rushed and stupid. The usual "free beta testing" paradigm won't keep the horde of unsatistified Ubuntuers (without much clue about anything) from spamming the forums and support channels.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a special "Mir" mode of Xorg that they implemented. So they need drivers also to cooperate with that. Why they actually need Xorg DDX? Probably because Xorg does some (2d and the like) accelerated stuff that Mir/Wayland nor applications using their API don't do in the same way, so they patched the driver to work with their special mode of using Xorg (Intel DDX driver has a lot of optimizations for Xorg stuff). I think that XWayland does something similar, however Wayland is a project where Intel hired developers and Mir is not (neither do Nvidia and AMD support Mir for now; AFAIR).

In principle, they could use Wayland interface and possibly improve it to the point where it works for both. Wayland was first in asking for such feature so it got added. Adding another version of the same isn't going to work. Also, immature project like Mir could at some point throw changes away (e.g. for the next version) for something else and then Intel is left with mantaining it (although this is limited to a few kernel versions..). So they won't take the responsibility and will happily let Ubuntu ship the patches for the time being.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

X was hated by the Windows users, because it showed just how far from a modern OS Windows was. Someone even coined the term "Serial multi user", to claim that Windows of old allowed multiple users, as long as they didn't show up at work at the same time. Which was then rebutted by claiming the Amiga was "serial multi user".

Windows, on the other hand, was ridiculed for being unable to support more than one user at a time, and even one user remotely required crappy hacks like VNC.

While Windows has been trying to catch up with X, apparently now Wayland and Mir are working hard to catch up with Windows 98.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

There shouldn't be "something layererd[sic] on top of ALSA", that in itself is brokenness. The kernel is supposed to multiplex hardware, that is IT'S ONLY JOB.

That the stock kernel sound drivers fail at their only purpose is the problem.

It also fails at multiplexing graphics hardware, so we have a network display server which also attempts to cover another fail of the Linux kernel by implementing graphics drivers which are supposed to be the responsibility of the OS kernel.

Imagine if Linux was as fail at multiplexing network cards or storage devices. There are microkernel OS which say multiplexing devices is not their job, and only do task multiplexing, where it would make sense according to their paradigm, but Linux is allegedly a monolithic kernel OS, but one which throws up it's hands saying "too hard!" and pretends to be a microkernel wherever something gets a little complicated.

Wayland and Mir are no improvement, sure they try and shed the network transparency, but they still embody ugly comingling of graphics drivers and windowing systems, and it looks like they are adding network functionality to Wayland because they realised they botched the design (I wonder why) and can't add network windowing to it as a client application (something even X11 can manage).

I'm a fan of microkernels, and a fan of monolithic kernels, for different reasons, but I'm no fan of schizophrenic kernels where the choice over what goes in the kernel is made over capricious political reasons, and the lead developer claims to rabidly hate microkernels as his pet OS rapidly resembles one.

Re:Layering?

[gbjbaanb]

ok, the way of FOSS - because we do have BSD if Linux isn't to your taste.

Re:Layering?

[Anonymous Coward]

you nailed it. how many graphics viewers are there? more than i care to count. how many are killer apps? for me, 1, and its main job isnt even for viewing graphics. i have to chuckle everytime i see someone post about how many choices they have, how linux is about choice, bla bla bla. the second a true contender threatens someones little pet project the claws come out. intel, as the article states has a stake in wayland. end of conversation. the solution is to go around intel with a patch. seems almost like non-news. either way im looking forward to the competition and will appreciate xmir on my phone and desktop.

Re:Layering?

[hobarrera]

Per-application volume control is THE missing feature in ALSA. If that ever comes to life, and easy enough for non-tech users, Pulseaudio will die for sure!

Until then, ALSA has stuff missing.

That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Billly Gates]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

Why can't you just use one driver written a few years ago and use it universally across all distros due to this? The other free BSDs have this and you can install the extra compat libraries to accomplish this. I guess RMS thinks that is oppressive and wants opensource hardware even though patent holders from the likes of the h.264 consortorium forbid it!

Before I get flamed remember the article mentioned ATI and NVidia drivers as well so Intel is not the asshole here. Rather they different kernels and distros being redone requiring new QA and recompiling with every release.

There is a reason many old time linux users like myself only run CentOS in a VM Now. It is because Redhat provides ABIs and APIs that do not change for 5 years. Unfortunately it also means an out of date distro as well which is not fair to non server users (even a few server users who need a newer app or framework.)

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

Never. The moves to support binary compatibility on Linux have been rejected time and time again by the Linux community. And that is far from the case for every other OS on the planet. Many OSes don't support arbitrary drivers at all.

I guess RMS thinks that is oppressive and wants opensource hardware even though patent holders from the likes of the h.264 consortorium forbid it!

RMS has little to do with this policy. Even Linus mostly supports it. The people who don't support it are mostly Windows users.

Why can't you just use one driver written a few years ago and use it universally across all distros due to this?

You can. You can use drivers from almost 2 decade ago that were sources into the kernel. You can't generally with binary drivers because Linux doesn't offer binary compatibility.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

[...] I guess RMS thinks that is oppressive

The X.org driver architecture doesn't have anything to do with either Linux or RMS.

Also, if the existing API isn't sufficient for XMir's requirements, it needs to be revised no matter how "standard" it is.

and wants opensource hardware

Why would the openness of the hardware design have anything to do with the driver APIs?

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck are you talking about?
The API for linux drivers is standard. So is the ABI, even though that does (or at least can) change from one kernel version to the next.
What does RMS have to do with this? How exactly do redhat provide an API or ABI that never changes? by not updating their damn kernel?
Or because you just don't install the updates?

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[p.g.king]

What's RMS got to do with it? Linus makes the choices for the kernel where such ABI/API would be important. The split between the two is pretty well known hence the GNU/Linux moniker being touted by the free software lot.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[mathew42]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

Ever had a perfectly useful piece of hardware (e.g. printer, scanner, etc.) and upgraded your computer with a new version of the Windows only to find that the latest operating system doesn't have drivers?

If you have, then you know the answer is hopefully never!

Binary incompatibility makes it more troublesome for companies to ship closed source drivers and makes it simpler to ship open source drivers. As a community we want to do everything we can to encourage open source.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

>Unfortunately it also means an out of date distro

If your OS does everything you need and works, it's not out of date.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

>Ever had a perfectly useful piece of hardware (e.g. printer, scanner, etc.) and upgraded your computer with a new version of the Windows only to find that the latest operating system doesn't have drivers?

No, never. And why did you change the subject of discussion to Windows suddenly? What does Linux using stanrdards APIs have to do with Windows?

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Xtifr]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

What do Xorg (totally OS-independent), Wayland (ditto, as far as I know), and XMir (again, ditto, though I'm not sure it's been tested on any other systems) have to do with Linux? These are not kernel drivers we're talking about.

Others have answered your incredibly off-topic and irrelevant questions, so I'll satisfy myself with pointing out that your questions are incredibly off-topic and irrelevant.

(Oh, and for the record, I started with Linux 0.12, and am currently running 3.10. Not every old fart is as paralyzed by the concept of change as you seem to be. Some of us even realize that very few apps actually use the kernel ABIs directly.)

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Billly Gates]

Windows 2000 can run drivers from XP and even Windows Server 2003. Yours break during a simple patch or a distro update.

I used to own a mom popIT business and customers would always return later after an update as their screens would go black due to X or an ati driver breaking. Switch them to Windows and the problem goes away.

I don' t understand how you think this is a good thing? Linux is foss so drivers will never not be supported unlike other oses. I think you assume your printer will always work. How do you know a driver will work during an update or distro upgrade?

Nvidia uses a hack to get around this.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[sharklasers]

I think anyone who's followed Linux development on the desktop has been burnt so many times by the idea that it will make some measurable impact on the desktop SOMEDAY, that no-one except new, young, idealistic users even think this is possible.

It will never happen, because no-one sees the desktop as something to strive to take over anymore. Windows won the desktop, the next frontier is mobile. Even Canonical seems more interested in mobile pursuits because they've failed on the desktop. I have never see anyone use Linux on their personal machines, at least long term once they've played around for a bit then moved back to Windows/OS X.

Re: That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a regular Windows user, then your experiences are atypical.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

Printing has nothing to do with kernel drivers. The printing systems on Linux are rather standard. There aren't meaningfully printer drivers in the Windows sense at all.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Billly Gates]

Sorry but the patent trolls who sue everybody will make you sign a NDA making your work closed source if you make hardware. So the days of having it in the kernel are over.

Microkernels and exokernels are what acemics say are supperior and the wave of the future.

Regardless what OS doesn't use abi and api for driver development? I cant think of any modern OS? How about Mac users wanting a driver that works throughout versions? With the exception of the split between powerpc and x86 it is true on that platform. Not just Windows users.

Who wants this? I, hairyfeet, and others who want things to just work and have given up putting linux on customer machines. How do I know that atheros wifi or ati driver will work when they click upgrade? My guess is this is the issue Intel has and is paying money in constant r&d and QA.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[sharklasers]

You can. You can use drivers from almost 2 decade ago that were sources into the kernel. You can't generally with binary drivers because Linux doesn't offer binary compatibility.

But most manufacturers don't WANT to provide sources to their drivers - they'd be quite happy to provide a binary interface, but that's difficult to do in Linux.

You might argue, fuck them then, sources or bust. Well, Linux use on the desktop is so low anyway, what incentive would they have to comply when they can just stick with Windows? Sometimes it's not worth the effort when your end users aren't grateful for the support in the first place.

The kernel developers can stick to their policy as much as they like. But put up barriers between businesses who make the stuff people want to use, and a small price to pay being keeping their source (IP) hidden and providing a binary driver instead, is no way to garner support. Since this policy is never likely to change, I can't see why anyone is surprised Linux has still never made it on the desktop.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

But hasn't X.org been the standard for well over a decade now, with Wayland only being non-universal in the future thanks to Canonical's self-segregating behavior? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?

I don't think that this is the reason that it hasn't really thrived on the desktop; outside the hardcore devs, most of the people (particularly non-geeks) that might/do use Linux tend to not know or care about the details as long as it works with minimal/no intervention. IMHO, the reason is that it has only really been promoted by individual enthusiasts -- there haven't been deep pockets ensuring it gets plenty of positive press coverage, basically like Google did with Android (then practically a distro) early on by using plain language to ensure people understand what it is, how it differs from the better-known alternatives and why they might want to use it.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

You can. You can use drivers from almost 2 decade ago that were sources into the kernel. You can't generally with binary drivers because Linux doesn't offer binary compatibility.

You really really can't. (At least not in general.) Structures keep changing the names of members, and removing members. For example: Recently, user id's changed from being plain old integers to being potentially a struct that you have to use accessor methods to use. Every time a new kernel comes out, our drivers invariably break and need additional code adding to check for and cope with the new kernel. (No, we can't just stop supporting old versions of the kernel. Big companies are out there demanding support for Redhat5 and some event earlier. The 2.6 kernel tree is still very much alive. And of course, yet others leap on to the new kernel as soon as it's downloadable.)

So yeah - maintaining a kernel module is currently a pain in the ass and backwards compatibility with older drivers would be a big win. Binary compatibility would be preferable; but source compatibility would be a good start.

Re: That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

You van put whatever binary blobs too the kernel.
But when you face a problem, who will debug it?

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Rich0]

Since this policy is never likely to change, I can't see why anyone is surprised Linux has still never made it on the desktop.

Who exactly is surprised by this? Certainly not those who created the policy. The purpose of the policy was not to make Linux popular on the desktop, or anywhere else for that matter. The creators of the policy do not profit from Linux, so its popularity isn't really a big concern.

Re: That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not understand your ranting.

I run Ubuntu and all the updates to ATI Radeon and Nvidia just happen along the kernel updates. No problems there.

I don't see where you are coming from. A paid PR firm perhaps?

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[dmbasso]

Sorry but the patent trolls who sue everybody will make you sign a NDA making your work closed source if you make hardware. So the days of having it in the kernel are over.

You realize you're commenting on a story about Intel, right? You know, the company that has Linux kernel developers writing open source drivers for their chipsets.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

""I, hairyfeet,""

hairyfeet has blasted the Linux universe every time I read anything involving Linux. If he is that ticked off then he should do something about it. I can understand being frustrated with the community and there lack of becoming a coherent group but he seems to support every other OS out there.

They're hacks, MS/Apple they've all hacked some other system a claim they're the only ones that created it. Meanwhile closed source has tried to destroy anything open source... If Linux created a driver/drivers for ATI, or NVIDIA, INTEL they would be sued for patent or copyright infringement. The typical computer (desktop, lasts you 5 years, and that is cutting it close) your talking about stuff that is 15-20 years old, at that point you are using a PS2 like machine for basic internet usage, and nothing more.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

When either Linux has stagnated and is dying or when Linux reaches the pinicle of perfection and can no longer be improved.

What some people see as a weakness in Linux is actually an advantage. Constant iterations and relentless evolution drive Linux forward. Designs are tried out and discarded if unsuitable; improvements are picked up right away. With the sources handy it doesn't matter if the ABI changes. Oh, a little bit of hassle for sure but changes to Linux are made for technical reasons not marketing reasons.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Windows 2000 can run drivers from XP and even Windows Server 2003. Yours break during a simple patch or a distro update."

And so can Windows 7 and 8! Oh wait ....

Just accept the fact that you are woefully misinformed. First of all, you don't know the difference between Linux and a distribution that uses the Linux kernel. Your confusion would be understandable, since it is common to refer to an entire distribution as a Linux distribution even though X, Wayland, and the whole of user space have nothing to do with the Linux kernel and could be run on any POSIX compatible OS (in other words, pretty much any kernel except Windows, except history has shown you have no desire to get a clue. Your "why don't they do it like Windows" cry is especially ironic, since Microsoft is the only one not POSIX compliant.

"Linux is foss so drivers will never not be supported unlike other oses."

Could you explain to me the topic of the article then? I'm pretty sure it is about what Intel is and isn't supporting in the FOSS community. You also may have heard of NVIDIA and AMD. They have plans to write drivers for this new Linux thing real soon! In fact, I predict that someday there will be a phone that runs an OS that uses Linux and the major chip manufacturers will have an even stronger incentive to support Linux!

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I have yet to see a single person who switched to Linux decide to request a refund for their misery.

Good thing you used "request a refund" in your statement, otherwise I would find it really hard to believe. I like Linux, I use Linux, I evangelized Linux in the workplace, and I had people come to my office and request that Linux be removed and replaced with Windows 7.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[maird]

But most manufacturers don't WANT to provide sources to their drivers

As someone who works on linux bug fixing for, among others, the hardware partners of a linux distro vendor I sense that changing day by day. Some never will publish but as a result those they compete with will generally have a lower per-developer cost of development leading to a higher rate of bug fixes alone for the vendors who do publish. Not publishing made sense when the PC was the only platform that mattered but I'm impressed by the number of x86/x86-64 build bugs I see for things being called point of sale systems. They are probably PC based but they are built in a way that means they'll never run Windows and there will be more of them in the end so the hardware with published source is probably a better choice for those manufacturers. I'm sure one of Intel's plans is to support them as hard as it can afford to. Those that follow the lead will probably do quite well. It's ironic that standardization of hardware was intended to make things cheap to mass-produce then we have mass-produced standard hardware interfaces that make incorporating a large variety of unique devices relatively easy and the cheapness comes from mass-produced software where standard libraries make the effort to handle each unique device very low cost and with just one third party developer interested in contributing to the final effort part of the cost for the hardware vendor is off-loaded. They only have to maintain control over what's accepted as code intended for their hardware.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

Sorry but the patent trolls who sue everybody will make you sign a NDA making your work closed source if you make hardware.

If you lose a patent suit and use someone else's patented work, yes.

Regardless what OS doesn't use abi and api for driver development? I cant think of any modern OS?

ZSeries OS (MVS), ISeries OS (OS/400), Cisco iOS, most embedded.... In general most OSes that don't care about quick and easy hardware support.

I, hairyfeet, and others who want things to just work and have given up putting linux on customer machines.

Well if you are picking the hardware then you pick hardware without binary drivers.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nvidia uses a hack to get around this.

They have a binary blob with a stable API and some lightweight glue code to interface with the linux kernel and unless you run an experimental release (debian sid for example) you will never see a kernel update break the glue code - it generally gets fixed within a week after the new kernel is release and long before the kernel is adopted by the stable/long time release.

> I think you assume your printer will always work

99% of all printers today are either network or USB printers, networking uses user space sockets and USB can use device files (found in /dev/). In other words their drivers don't even touch the unstable kernel internal APIs and Linus gets rather mad* when someone tries to break the public user space APIs.

*His rants on that topic are rather famous.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

But most manufacturers don't WANT to provide sources to their drivers - they'd be quite happy to provide a binary interface, but that's difficult to do in Linux.

Agreed. The server manufacturers didn't want to either that was until large number of customers made Linux compatibility a reason to buy hardware.

The kernel developers can stick to their policy as much as they like. But put up barriers between businesses who make the stuff people want to use, and a small price to pay being keeping their source (IP) hidden and providing a binary driver instead, is no way to garner support. Since this policy is never likely to change, I can't see why anyone is surprised Linux has still never made it on the desktop.

Have you noticed Android tablet sales? Unless by desktop you mean x86 Linux is finally doing quite well. Linux has been successful in other arenas where there were barriers. The difference was the competition screwed up more than Microsoft has on desktop. Ultimately

a) OSX provides an excellent Unix workstation OS
b) Microsoft fought very hard for the low end

So they lost.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

GP was talking about drivers not working between versions. You are talking about the complexity of maintaining a kernel module. That's a different issue. And yes stuff will break between kernel versions.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that Microsoft changed the driver APIs significantly in every single Windows version? Everyone needs to redevelop their drivers (at least if things are supposed to work properly) all the time.
The difference is just how rarely Microsoft releases new versions.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[caseih]

And microkernels continue to remain in the realm of academics and theory, and not in the real world. Even Windows went down the microkernel route for a while with Windows NT, early versions, but for for performance reasons hacked and thunked things to the point that we're essentially back to a monolithic kernel now, with everything important running in-kernel, and in ring-0. Graphics moved back to ring-0, network drivers, etc.

Darwin, though based on a microkernel core, is a hybrid kernel with a large BSD subsystemThe coupling between the core and the BSD system is so tight and depended on that the result is quite monolithic.

Despite your dislike of RMS, he also thought as you do, that microkernels were the future, and so the infamous GNU Herd kernel is a microkernel. Herd is nowhere to be found, really, and no longer matters compared to the monolithic kernels of Windows, BSD, Linux, and others.

Microkernels vs monolithic remind me of the old CISC vs RISC debate. Thought unlike CPUs where RISC lost but actually won because CISC ended up being layered on top of RISC (or VLIW at least), monolithic seems to have soundly won and likely won't go away until RAM is as fast as CPU registers to make message passing fast.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Good thing you used "request a refund" in your statement"

Well, maybe you didn't set it up completely, just as you didn't quote me completely. I said "request a refund for their misery" Obviously, if you didn't install it and configure it well, or didn't help them make the transition smoothly, then they will want to go back to the devil they know. For example, if you didn't get Java, Flash, etc set up properly they will complain. There are other things to consider as well. Is the person heavily into M$ products like office? If so, your mistake was in recommending Linux in the first place. People who are victims of vendor lock-in will not be able to switch to Linux, regardless of willingness or desire. That's the definition of vendor lock-in.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Kjella]

Microkernels and exokernels are what acemics say are supperior and the wave of the future.

Academics have been saying that since it was MINIX vs Linux and reality won. This is also orthogonal to API/ABI, you can have userspace drivers without a stable API/ABI and you can have a stable API/ABI with in-kernel drivers.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[SEE]

Microkernels . . . are what acemics say are supperior and the wave of the future.

Yep. That's what they were saying 25 years ago, too. And if you want one, GNU HURD is ready and waiting.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[unixisc]

NT was never microkernel - the drivers always resided in the kernel, not userspace. Windows 8 is more microkernel than NT ever was.

Monolithic runs better on the x86 platform, while microkernel would run better on RISC, VLIW or SMP platforms. The reason monolithic seems to have won is that x86 has won. Microkernels have a lot better shot in CPUs based on ARM, MIPS, POWER, et al

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anne Thwacks]

I had people come to my office and request that Linux be removed and replaced with Windows 7.

So have I. Then, once they found out what they had asked for, they wanted Linux back. They were hoping to get Office 2000 on Ubuntu, but did not know how to describe it.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[NotBorg]

Stop bothering the trolls with facts.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[NotBorg]

You would think with RMS calling all the shots for Linux it would be running GPL 3. Or it could be that RMS isn't running the Linux show and "Billly Gates" is a clueless troll that you should not feed.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

On average windows drivers break between versions!

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[tepples]

Have you noticed Android tablet sales? Unless by desktop you mean x86 Linux is finally doing quite well.

By "desktop" I mean an environment where I can have more than one application displaying on the screen at once. Use cases include splitting the screen down the middle between the document I'm writing and the document I'm referring to, or having a calculator that appears on top of the application I'm running.

Re: That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad someone made this comment, because I was about to. I used to work at MS in the Windows division. I saw this first hand and close up: every release, lots of drivers broke. As far as I am concerned the folks complaining about Linux's lack of stable driver interfaces are completely clueless whiners. They have no clue what goes into writing drivers on any platform. The only reason you can generally get drivers that work on all recent versions of Windows is because the hardware vendors are forced to port and maintain them due to MS's historical monopoly.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[jbolden]

That's not really a market segment it is a use case. If you want to say "high power desktops" then Linux does much better there than on the low end possibly around 4%. OSX is the big player that in general has far worse hardware support than Linux.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Binary incompatibility makes it more troublesome for companies to ship closed source drivers and makes it simpler to ship
>> open source drivers. As a community we want to do everything we can to encourage open source.

This attitude is self-defeating, short-sighted, and devastating to open source in the long term.

Tyranny is tyranny. Without choice, and the wisdom to leave others alone who are not harming us,
there is no high ground, and there is no need to encourage anything.

If open source is better on its own merits, we should not need to stoop to such tactics.

Let it be clear not everyone believes in such evangelism and "morality"

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

When will Linux finally use standard ABIs and APIs for drivers just like very other OS on the planet?

As soon as the people who want it come together to agree on a standard, and set aside enough people to write and maintain it.

That is, AMD and nVidia. Of which, nVidia isn't even willing to cooperate with the rest of the OSS community (To quote Linus: "f*ck you nVidia"), how would you ever expect them to cooperate with a competitor?

Intel avoids being a part of this, by following the normal open source rules, and thus get the advantage of being an in-kernel driver.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but the patent trolls who sue everybody will make you sign a NDA making your work closed source if you make hardware. So the days of having it in the kernel are over.

The days of open source drivers was over in the early 1990'es. Since then, Linux has gotten more and more open source drivers, lately including graphics drivers (a long time holdout), to the point where nVidia is basically the only ones not supplying an open source driver.

(Not commenting on the quality of the ATI(AMD) driver. It's there, and besides, a lot of people will testify that ATI closed source drivers are crap too, including on Windows).

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 2000 can run drivers from XP and even Windows Server 2003. Yours break during a simple patch or a distro update.

I would have loved if that was the cause, back when I was the only one running Windows 2000, and everybody else was running XP. Most of the games they wanted to play required the DirectX version that came with XP, and Windows 2000 came with a special version that couldn't be upgraded, and wasn't really compatible with anything.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

There's of course the real risk that Google forks Linux over this. They've got the commercial reasons to make Linux popular, the volumes to set a direction, enough engineers to make it work, and the connections with HW manufacturers. And honestly, having worked in the embedded Linux world, I think that would mean a significant improvement in video quality and possibly other areas.

And I can tell you what that means for "desktop" linux. Desktop Linux today often follows Windows where in areas like NDIS drivers. If there's a Google Linux binary standard for network cards, desktop Linux will follow. But the direction will be set by Google. If Torvalds wants to be in control of the binary standard for Linux drivers, he should take control now before Google does.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently, user id's changed from being plain old integers to being potentially a struct that you have to use accessor methods to use.

As a driver developer for another free software OS, this is one of the reasons Linux cracks me up!

How poorly factored and badly designed does an OS have to be for a driver to give a damn about user ids? All it should need is malloc/free/lock/unlock, some way to register devices and controls, a way to register callbacks for events and a way to raise events to the subsystem.

It's shit like this that makes real free software OS developers laugh at you Linux guys.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

It has more to do with Linux is just not ready for the Desktop.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Rich0]

There's of course the real risk that Google forks Linux over this.

Just like how Red Hat has forked Linux over this?

I doubt they'll really fork it, per se. Red Hat ships old kernel versions with patches backported far beyond what the kernel team is willing to support. They still upstream their patches, and they have every intent to migrate to a newer kernel in line with their own processes.

But sure, they could always stick an ABI translation layer on the kernel that they maintain, much as Nvidia already does (albeit only for their own driver).

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

Well, you are close there. It has everything to do with you no being ready for a real desktop environment. Claiming Linux isn't "ready for the desktop" was a phenomenally ignorant and stupid thing to say 5 years ago. Today it is just a sign of pure incompetence. It is tantamount to saying that Porsche just isn't ready for the street yet.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[aestrivex]

Microkernels and exokernels are what acemics say are supperior and the wave of the future.

:O It is 2013, and finally we see the light!

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Doing an ad-hominem attack doesn't make Linux's current state of the desktop any better.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

I totally agree. Of course it doesn't make it worse either, but the point is immaterial since I didn't make an ad hominem "attack". Stating that a psychologist who believes in phrenology is by definition incompetent is not an ad hominem attack. It is a statement of fact. Linux on the desktop is already far superior to Windows on the desktop. The point I made is that somebody who doesn't know this is ignorant, and they compound that ignorance with incompetence when they imply or state a position that is contrary to the facts. The phenomenal stupidity comes in when you post such ridiculous drivel on Slashdot in a thread where you already know a competent person is participating in the discussion.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Linux on the desktop is already far superior to Windows on the desktop.

This is your personal opinion.

The point I made is that somebody who doesn't know this is ignorant, and they compound that ignorance with incompetence when they imply or state a position that is contrary to the facts. The phenomenal stupidity comes in when you post such ridiculous drivel on Slashdot in a thread where you already know a competent person is participating in the discussion.

So I am ignorant simply because I do not agree with your personal opinion? I not the one throwing insults at everyone on Slashdot, but then again I actually know my subject matter.

Anyway, what are these facts that you speak of? Which desktop environment of which Linux distribution do you attribute to being superior to Windows 7? Do you factor in the fact that a lot of commercial software that are common place in today's office environment can not run natively within any Linux environment? What about drivers for peripherals? Are you considering offices where the software most likely being used are specialized applications in niche markets and aren't the office suite or browser based office that some people associate with clerical work?

I agree that a Linux desktop is more powerful than Windows when used by an experience user but that is only one metric within many that makes up the total desktop experience.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

"So I am ignorant simply because I do not agree with your personal opinion?"

You really should learn the difference between an opinion and a fact. It is a fact that Porsche makes a superior car with respect to Ford. You might prefer a Ford just the same; that is a matter of opinion.

"Which desktop environment of which Linux distribution do you attribute to being superior to Windows 7? "

Now you are entering into the area of personal preference. This brings to the forefront your lack of experience and knowledge. It doesn't matter which one, so long as you choose the one that suits you. I have to assume this question is rooted in your inability to distinguish between fact and opinion.

" Do you factor in the fact that a lot of commercial software that are common place in today's office environment can not run natively within any Linux environment?"

You have a very short attention span. I started out by explicitly stating that using Linux as a substitute for Windows in a vendor-locked-in environment is probably the source of your discontent. Your error is concluding that Windows, which locked you into that no options scenario, is somehow better because they provide - by design - the only option you have left after stealing all the others while you weren't paying attention.

"I agree that a Linux desktop is more powerful than Windows when used by an experience user but that is only one metric within many that makes up the total desktop experience."

OK. I just figured out why you sound so clueless. You don't know the difference between a system administrator and a user.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Give me a specific example on why you believe that once you switch to Linux that you'll never return to Windows. Please I'm waiting for something actually substantial to come from you. Well not really... I don't expect much.

You spend a lot of energy dancing around the question, but you never actually say anything remotely intelligible about the actual topic at hand.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

It is called Empirical evidence. As I said, the reason your experience differs is because your experience with real operating systems is severely lacking. If you knew what you were doing as a Linux system admin your users wouldn't be coming back to you asking to switch them back.

For the record I used DOS when it first came out; Apple DOS before that, and had a good look at the source for Apple BASIC, written by Gates and Allen. I used Windows/286 prior to becoming a VAX./VMS System manager in a network environment that included PCs running Windows. I have written Windows device drivers. My system currently dual boots to Windows 7 and Linux so that I can use some audio hardware that lacks Linux drivers. On the rare occasion when I want to use a Windows specific application that won't run under WINE or Crossover I run Win 7 in a VirtualBox VM. I recently set up multiple Windows Servers with M$ SQL-Server in a redundant configuration. In other words, I know Windows, and I know it well.

OTOH, I have used Linux as my desktop OS for more than 15 years. It was almost on a par with Windows 10 years ago. It has since far surpassed Windows in every way. (You can't blame the device driver issue on Linux developers like I'm sure you are trying to in your head right now. That is 100% a result of illegal business practices on the part of Gates and crew.)

You seem to have been under the delusion that there are people who only know how to use Linux and they are the ones that don't get it. The fact is that I have never met a person who understood and was competent with both who preferred Windows.

Also, my mother is not particularly computer savvy, but she has been using Linux for more than ten years as well, and thanks me to this day for getting her away from "that awful Windows", and from time to time relates to me stories of her friends difficulties with Windows and how she is so happy she doesn't have all those problems.

"You spend a lot of energy dancing around the question, but you never actually say anything remotely intelligible about the actual topic at hand."

It seems like you simply aren't happy unless you are spewing stupid and ignorant comments. Big surprise there I guess.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

It is called Empirical evidence. As I said, the reason your experience differs is because your experience with real operating systems is severely lacking. If you knew what you were doing as a Linux system admin your users wouldn't be coming back to you asking to switch them back.

I think you meant anecdotal evidence but please go on...

For the record I used DOS when it first came out; Apple DOS before that, and had a good look at the source for Apple BASIC, written by Gates and Allen. I used Windows/286 [wikipedia.org] prior to becoming a VAX./VMS System manager in a network environment that included PCs running Windows. I have written Windows device drivers. My system currently dual boots to Windows 7 and Linux so that I can use some audio hardware that lacks Linux drivers. On the rare occasion when I want to use a Windows specific application that won't run under WINE or Crossover I run Win 7 in a VirtualBox VM. I recently set up multiple Windows Servers with M$ SQL-Server in a redundant configuration. In other words, I know Windows, and I know it well.

Yawn. Guess what. We are close to the same age and have very similar experiences... next.

OTOH, I have used Linux as my desktop OS for more than 15 years It was almost on a par with Windows 10 years ago. It has since far surpassed Windows in every way. (You can't blame the device driver issue on Linux developers like I'm sure you are trying to in your head right now. That is 100% a result of illegal business practices on the part of Gates and crew.)

Yes Linux has a GUI that is serviceable. I'm sure you won't find any complaints about Gnome3, KDE4, or Unity on the Internet. I never said Linux was unusable, just that it really isn't ready for the average desktop. It may be ready for *your* desktop. There is a reason people dual-boot into windows or run it in a VM. It's to play a popular game or use a device that only supports Windows or OS X.

Adding anti-Microsoft rhetoric to your argument isn't making the case or on topic. No one is forcing device drivers to only be available on Windows. Since Linux has only a 2% share of the desktop market, I can fully understand why some device manufacturers don't spend money producing a driver or support software that runs in Linux. I'm sure most commercial applications are available on the Windows platform for the exact same reason. That said, the OS is becoming irrelevant for a lot of people with mobile applications and web applications assuming a larger role. It's not completely irrelevant which is why some people need Windows.

You seem to have been under the delusion that there are people who only know how to use Linux and they are the ones that don't get it. The fact is that I have never met a person who understood and was competent with both who preferred Windows.

Actually I made no such assertion.

Also, my mother is not particularly computer savvy, but she has been using Linux for more than ten years as well, and thanks me to this day for getting her away from "that awful Windows", and from time to time relates to me stories of her friends difficulties with Windows and how she is so happy she doesn't have all those problems.

Good for your mother. I'm glad Linux fulfilled her home usage needs.

It seems like you simply aren't happy unless you are spewing stupid and ignorant comments. Big surprise there I guess.

You haven't demonstrated the ability to have a rational discussion without insulting people who are trying to converse with you. Besides your original premise was:

I have never see anyone use Linux on their personal machines, at least long term once they've played around for a bit then moved back to Windows/OS X."

I have yet to see a single person who switched to Lin

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

" I mean if it is so fucking awesome as you say it is that even your mother loves it then it should have an out-of-box experience that keeps them using Linux. I'm sure we all can find instances where this wasn't the case."

You just aren't interested in getting a clue. Choice means there is no such thing as an out of the box experience that is universally good for everyone and loved by all. Just admit that you made a phenomenally idiotic statement - that Linux isn't "ready for the desktop" - and move on with your life. The more you try to justify your ludicrous statement the more idiotic you look. Complaining that I am some kind of bad guy for calling you on your ridiculous statement just makes you that much more ridiculous. It doesn't make me say "gee, I should be nice to idiots who spread viral memes." If you want to be an idiot I'm fine with that. When you spread ridiculous bullshit like "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" it is just a phenomenally stupid thing to say. Period. I support your right to be a moron. I don't support your effort to misinform people and try to spread your own misconceptions based on ignorance and incompetence.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

We'll just put a pin in this discussion and return to it when Linux finally reaches 5% of the desktop market.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Zero__Kelvin]

I have a better idea. Let's pick it up again when you are smart enough to continue it; in other words, never. Plonk.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[metaforest]

The last time I used Windows as a primary desktop was at a startup. We were working on a dedicated Linux server app. As new employees we were given a choice to use Linux or Win XP as our host OS with the other as a VM. Initially I chose to use XP as the host OS thinking that I'd have more control over the target OS (Linux) if it was the VM'd OS. That lasted about two weeks. I had so many problems with XP tripping over it's own two feet that I reversed the situation. After that I never looked back. For the next 5 years I will probably have to run some version of Windows for some damned thing or other, but it will NEVER, EVER, not even if pigs fly, be my host OS.

If I could easily run OSX as client OS I'd consider Linux as the host. With OSX as the Host am quite happy, and I can run Win, and Linux clients very reliably and with excellent performance. Everything just works.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Let's pick it up again when you are smart enough to continue it; in other words, never. Plonk.

Oh okay insane dude. FYI in the middle of your insulting rants I didn't mention a couple of things you let slip.

My system currently dual boots to Windows 7 and Linux so that I can use some audio hardware that lacks Linux drivers. On the rare occasion when I want to use a Windows specific application that won't run under WINE or Crossover I run Win 7 in a VirtualBox VM.

If Linux was so ready for your desktop then why did you need to dual boot into Windows 7 at all? I understand the need to run a specific Windows application, but you couldn't get some audio hardware to work? I thought you freed yourself from the "horror of windows".

And that's the crux of the argument. If people can be satisfied by either OS but need a specific OS to run some of their applications then why should they bother trying to run both? The lack of popular commercial applications and the inability to use some devices natively is why people consider Linux to not be ready for the desktop. It may also be due to the fact that once useable desktop GUIs went off the deep end with their latest versions and drove people to fork into yet two more choices of desktops.

I laugh at your delusional thoughts and maybe one day you'll pull your head out of your ass.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they place engineering constraints on kernel code, prevents refactoring, code-fixes and other optimizations. The Linux kernel supports a single USB driver stack, wheras Windows has to keep multiple stacks for every different ABI of the USB stack that they've ever used. Another example is the movement of code from IDE to ATA. Basically it would put a lot of constraints on the kernel while mainly benefiting players that don't have a direct interest in the kernel code quality.

Re:That is why Linux wont win the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory a microkernel could allow a third-party to write a driver on an interface. Say a specififc PATA controller module for your block device driver. Now say you obscure security flaw in the block device driver and have to change the say several interfaces work. Now either all the third-party drivers need to update, which may be impossible. Force the modules to talk through a translation layer (which adds delays, either more with each layer or requires a translation shim for every previous layer to the current one), Or in some cases a module to juggle the two previous modules as necessary and manage contention. It may be just bugs are so rare it doesn't matter, but more than likely the drawbacks seriously decrease maintainability and average code quality.

Time for a Yoda yodel

[dbIII]

Dumb framebuffer wars begun have they?

Re:Time for a Yoda yodel

[Anonymous Coward]

Begun the dumb framebuffer wars have.

Prefer one over the other because of hype and NIH

[Anonymous Coward]

This all will end up badly.

There is nothing wrong woth Mir or Wayland. But what's wrong is this "game" of hype and NIH. A lot of political decisions and talks and the defacto winner now is Wayland. But why ? I as normal user haven't seen Wayland nor am I able to decide yet whether its good or not. All I know is that GNOME Developers are pusing Wayland with all kind of patches to GNOMIFY it for the future GnomeOS (Fedora).

Sure, I am not a friend of Xorg either. It's bulky, old, doesnt come up the way like former Amiga or similar operating systems. It's something ontop of something else. But well see. We don't know yet, whether Wayland or Mir will be a good option. We can't know where it's vision and development leads to.

We still need to wait. Nonetheless I believe it's good for graphic cards manufacturer to support the current - in process - Xorg alternatives.

Open-Source is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no future!
We all are doomed!
A nightmare came true!
The world is swallowed by evil!

You probably don't understand or do not want to, but that's the truth. That doesn't have anything to do with Religion or anything Alien, you only have to actually open your Eyes, the facts are everywhere.

Open-Source was killed by politics, ignorance, the lack of knowledge and sabotage. That also applies to various other things and thats also the reason for our doom and my very personal grief.

It's your fault and sooner or later you will pay the price, no matter if you want to or not. The world is about to end and it's your fault, get it, it's your fault.

Re:Open-Source is dead

[jones_supa]

What on earth are you talking about?

Re:Open-Source is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that its sabotage.

<tinfoil_hat_mode>

I think Microsoft, suffering from its abject fear of X, took a page from the NSA's IPSEC playbook and populated various display interest groups with its own operatives. They submit multiple, immature, in some cases incompatible proposals. All sharing one common theme: Cripple the functionality of X that Microsoft cannot duplicate.
</tinfoil_hat_mode>

Screw it. Want to play full screen games? Switch to frame buffer mode and write directly to the screen. Want to go back to your X desktop? Switch back. My stinking Linux sub-notebook can do it. And its OLD tech. If you don't like network aware displays then don't use them. Don't fuck with other peoples' tools.

Re:Open-Source is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

He's just a gay pedophile, like you are!!

Dumb Management

[mathew42]

This sounds like dumb management decision that hopefully community outrage will cause Intel to reverse.

I say this not because I support Canonical's decision to build XMir or even run Ubuntu, but because I don't think politics of this nature should see source code removed from kernel. I would encourage other kernel developers to re-apply the patches.

Re:Dumb Management

[jbolden]

This is X11 not the kernel and other developers aren't going to take over Intel's whole subsystem. If Intel doesn't want the XMir in there, it won't be in there.

Re:Dumb Management

[MtHuurne]

Canonical decided to write their own Mir display server instead of adopting the existing Wayland. They stated their reasons for doing so, but I'm not convinced they really had to start their own project instead of modifying Wayland.

It seems only fair to me that if Canonical wants to do their own thing, they'll have to put in the effort to maintain it. Because that is what this is about: Intel management decided that they're not going to pay their engineers to maintain code that benefits only Canonical.

Re:Dumb Management

[mathew42]

It seems only fair to me that if Canonical wants to do their own thing, they'll have to put in the effort to maintain it. Because that is what this is about: Intel management decided that they're not going to pay their engineers to maintain code that benefits only Canonical.

This point of view I can appreciate and support, but the decision by Intel management means that they have removed functionality for purely political reasons. If they left the code in place and said 'unsupported', then Canonical could choose to continue development at their expense.

Re:Dumb Management

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the instant you put code in and mark it unsupported, someone expects you to maintain that code, because people are dumbasses.

Re:Dumb Management

[MtHuurne]

There is a cost to keeping the code in there, even if it's not supported. If interfaces change, the unsupported code can break the build. Finding things in the code, by reading or grep, becomes harder since there is more of it. Static code analysis might flag issues in the unsupported code. Bugs will probably be filed that they'll then have to close as WONTFIX.

Also the question is what purpose would be served by keeping unsupported code in the main repository. If it's not regularly updated and tested, it will be broken sooner or later. Canonical will have to maintain the code anyway, so there will be a separate repository somewhere that contains the working version of XMir support.

Re:Dumb Management

[bakedbread]

As much as I agree with what you say, I also think it misses the main problem. After Canonical announced that they would switch to Wayland, they could have gotten active in the discussions and development of it. They decided not to (or at least they didn't). Sometimes groups try to work together and then realize that they have different visions or disagree over technical (maybe even political) reasons, that they decide that it would be more efficient to work separate. Google Blink forking from Webkit is a recent example. Canonical however didn't even try.

Re:Dumb Management

[bcmm]

Canonical decided to write their own Mir display server instead of adopting the existing Wayland. They stated their reasons for doing so, but I'm not convinced they really had to start their own project instead of modifying Wayland.

The nice thing about Wayland is that, because all the real work is being done by things like evdev, KMS and widget toolkit the actual display server is *much* simpler than Xorg. Weston is only a reference implementation of a Wayland compositor, and it's expected that desktop environments will implement their own that work the way they want them to (for example, work is underway to let KWin function as a Wayland compositor).

So it's not even a question of having to do some hackish modification of upstream to get their own way - they could have just implemented Wayland in Unity's WM, like other major DEs have done. The concerns about running on Android drivers are weird - the Wayland protocol doesn't care how you actually do your compositing and display the finished screen (there is already a modified version of Weston for the Raspberry Pi, which uses the device's video scaling hardware to do the actual composition work), so a seperate client protocol (as opposed to rendering backend) makes no sense.

Re:Dumb Management

[Anonymous Coward]

Canonical also said they intended to ship Ubuntu with Wayland in 2013. Who has shipped a non-experimental distro with Wayland in 2013? Wayland is late.

Re:Dumb Management

[Anonymous Coward]

This is approximately how I see it. Management thought the engineers were taking on unreasonable responsibility. The nice thing about it is that with the engineers having already released the code Canonical can simply pick it up and maintain it. Both parties win and we can see how well Canonical can make Mir work in the real world.

I think it was strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be entirely wrong, but my suspicion is that Mark Shuttleworth changed from Wayland to Mir when he/Canonical decided that they wanted to get into the mobile phone market. This is only a guess because I'm not familiar with the detailed functionality or development environment for the two alternatives, but I have this idea that Canonical get much more direct control over Mir than Wayland, and this has/will allow them to tailor it specifically to Canonical's plans to get into the mobile space with a competitor to Android/iOS/Windows...

It will be interesting to see how Mir develops as an alternative to Wayland. If it picks up mobile phone clients and Canonical gets deals that way, my guess it will have some legs. Otherwise, irrespective of whether it's technically superior, I think it might just fade away.

Re:I think it was strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. It's just plain old megalomania.

Mark seems to increasingly see himself as the center of the universe and Mir is just the most obvious example so far. It shows hows that Canonical apparently have yes-men culture, or at least that there isn't anyone he listens to who can take him out of his delusions.

Mark, and indeed Canonical in large, just like the people behind Gnome3, are convinced that they have so much influence in the form of users that it allows them to call the shots. "Support us, or lose compatibility with the users". However, much to their chagrin they, and their respective fanboys are discovering that this is not the case and this of course is the fault of the rest of the world.

You can't really ask for a better example of narcissism and syncopation.

Confused

[msobkow]

So when Ubuntu 13.10 ships, it will force you to use XMir?

If so, thanks for the warning. The last thing I want to do is deal with an unstable graphics driver. It's taken years for X11 with NVidia drivers to get stable, and I don't want to touch XMir with someone else's 10-foot pole for until it's been in use for at least 2-3 years.

Re:Confused

[luther349]

well that's is kinda the point of the non lts release. testing.

Re:Confused

[msobkow]

For me the point of installing 13.04 was getting upgrades to certain packages I wanted, not testing.

Oh well, hopefully by the time I'm forced to upgrade from 13.04 the steaming pile will have stabilized.

Re:Confused

[luther349]

it dos not bother me all that much. what will happen is people will shift away from ubuntu hell most have aruldy to non stock variants just to avoid unity. as all the support moves over to wayland ubuntu will be forced to use wayland as nobody makes apps or support mir. there just trying the same tactics they pulled with unity despite hot badly that has failed.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Your shift-key is broken ?

Re:Confused

[berglh]

there just trying the same tactics they pulled with unity despite hot badly that has failed.

Despite my own personal dissatisfaction with Unity, there are "lots" of people who actually like it. I found the launcher to be annoying and the transitions far less sleek than Gnome Shell. I work in a University where Ubuntu is the most popular distro of choice among the researchers & academics and most of them appear to like Unity. Unity does have some pretty cool features I'd like included in other Linux UIs, like the Application menu search feature - really cool. There are a few Mint users scattered around, even less Debian and the usual spattering of Fedora, CentOS and Scientific Linux.

I personally do not like Unity, but calling it a failure is pretty short sighted and obviously based on your own experience and the complaints of other /.ers. I have been running Ubuntu as my desktop OS for years now and ditching Unity for Gnome Shell and LDM for the GDM has brought me the best productivity - the simplicity of Gnome Shell really won me over, but that doesn't mean I think Unity is a failure. I guess I might as well be using Fedora, but I am familiar with Ubuntu's Debian heritage and it's where I feel most comfortable in the Desktop environment. I am a slave to frequent updates and cutting edge releases, so a little pain every now and again is fine for the advantages that the latest features offer me, as I'm quite happy to persist and nut problems out when they appear.

I have no opinion on Mir at first glance it seems silly to me to branch away from Wayland, but I'm sure they have their justifications. Considering the Steam presence on Linux it will make for some interesting times, it will certainly be an interesting battle among ideals.

Kind of hard to be upset when you aren't actually paying anything for the OS, I'm sure the Intel GPU support will be perfectly fine with Mir regardless of the active support from Intel.

Re:Confused

[luther349]

all of unitys feature are in another window manager in some form. branching from wayland made less sense then when they branched from gnome witch btw has been dumped in faver of qt5. the reasion for this crap is ubuntu is so despret to get on the aruldy massively flooded and dominated mobile device market.they didn't wanna wait on wayland and rather then help the project they made there own. and ill never agree with these dammed touch friendly uis on non touch hardware. even the folks at kde keep the desktop and touch ui separated.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, your shift key is definitely broken.

Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Balinares]

I think Mir is a case study in how to correctly identify problems and then going about solving them all wrong.

See, the good thing about Wayland is, it does the right thing in having a limited scope. It aims to do one thing and do it well: provide an API for GUI clients to share buffers with a compositor.

And the problem with Wayland is, of course, that... it has a limited scope. Screen management? Input handling? Buffer allocation? "A modern desktop needs all that!" say the Ubuntu devs, and yeah, that's absolutely correct. "That's a client concern," say the Wayland devs, and guess what? From their point of view, that's correct too. (Although Wayland since started working on an input handling API.)

Now, the important thing to realize is, when the Wayland guys say that something is a client concern, as I understand, they don't necessarily mean the GUI applications, no. They mean the compositor.

Meaning that a whole lot of the stuff desktop shells rely on is, in fact, not provided by Wayland itself.

That's where Weston comes in: it's supposed to be an example (a "reference implementation", to use the designated words) of how to write a compositor. But... not necessarily in a way that meets the higher level needs of desktop shells. Unsurprisingly, both KDE and GNOME will be using their own compositors.

So basically, a whole lot of the desktop integration on top of Wayland will be, as it were, left as an exercise to the reader.

With all that in mind, I think the highest outcome end game is somewhat clear: frame-perfect rendering through the Wayland API of Mir-composited KDE/GNOME/Unity clients.

Or in other words, Mir should probably be a set of APIs to handle all the admittedly important desktop integration -- clipboard, multi-screen layout, input and gestures, systray/notification requests... -- with an optional and replaceable compositor thrown in.

All the points of contention that I know of, mainly that Canonical requires server-side buffer allocation (presumably for mobile ARM platforms) where Wayland does it client-side, could have been resolved with some diplomacy and a mutual willingness to reach a satisfactory compromise.

But instead, it looks like the report card is just going to say, "Doesn't play well with others." As usual. What a sad mess and wasted opportunity.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[loonycyborg]

Yeah. Canonical people found some 'shortcomings' in Wayland and decided to start their own project with even more shortcomings. Like choosing C++ for implementation language. Good luck finding contributors. Most FOSS contributors don't get C++ at all. The language isn't ready for such low level components yet. Maybe in future but not now.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[msobkow]

What a load of tripe. With very little syntactic sugar you can compile C code with a C++ compiler.

You lose all the benefits of C++ by doing so, but it's perfectly feasible. So, yes, C++ is quite ready for doing low-level programming.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[girlintraining]

Most FOSS contributors don't get C++ at all. The language isn't ready for such low level components yet

Er, wait what? C++ is a superset of C. It includes all the functionality of C, along with an implimentation of OOP. The low level stuff is there. The problem is most FOSS contributors are apparently dinosaurs who never learned how to program in object-oriented fashion. That's not the fault of the language, but rather a reflection on the state of programmer experience and education within the community.

Do not blame the language for the inexperience of the programmer.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[loonycyborg]

You're joking, right? There's no point to use it if you lose all benefits as you said. You still can use some features like namespaces but it's not worth it I think. The whole point of C++ is classes and templates but not many people know how to use those effectively. Better stick to C in important low level projects like display server for now.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Desler]

The whole point of C++ is to use it how you want hence why it's a multi-paradigm langauge. Bjarne specifically rejects the pidgeonholing you attempt to ascribe to C++.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[21mhz]

C++ is a superset of C. It includes all the functionality of C, along with an implimentation of OOP. The low level stuff is there. The problem is most FOSS contributors are apparently dinosaurs who never learned how to program in object-oriented fashion.

They did. They also know that C++ is a bad language for that, so much so that programming object-oriented constructs in C is better.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Desler]

You lose all the benefits of C++ by doing so

No you don't. Many of the benefits of C++ are simply being a better C compiler with stricter type checking, fixed semantic rules, etc.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[loonycyborg]

Nonetheless C++ is not a compilation of disparate features, but a complete language serving its own purpose. You cannot decide to use only subset of features without seeing whole picture. This requires deep understanding of the language which many potential contributors to low level linux subsystems lack and don't care to even try to acquire.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Desler]

Good luck finding contributors. Most FOSS contributors don't get C++ at all.

Absolute bullshit. KDE, for example, is written in C++ has had no hard time finding thousands of contributors. There are also tons of FOSS apps written in C++ with Qt. You sound like someone who has been in a cave from the mid 90s until now.

The language isn't ready for such low level components yet.

In what specific way exactly?

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[xanclic]

Er, wait what? C++ is a superset of C. It includes all the functionality of C

Actually, it doesn't. Examples are designated initializers, compound literals, anonymous structs/unions and variable-length arrays.
You are, however, correct about the fact that the low-level stuff is most of the time just the same and C++ is just as fit to low-level tasks as C.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[jones_supa]

Why would anyone think that mimicking object-oriented constructs in C is better than C++ OOP programming?

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[loonycyborg]

Absolute bullshit. KDE, for example, is written in C++ has had no hard time finding thousands of contributors. There are also tons of FOSS apps written in C++ with Qt. You sound like someone who has been in a cave from the mid 90s until now.

Pretty much all drivers and other low level components use pure C. And I'm absolutely unhappy with the way KDE and Qt use C++. Mostly plain old boring C with classes. It offers very little advantage to low level components. No need to create tensions with dinosaurs like Linus. I'm happy with using C++ for applications only for now and leave system to C.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[santosh.k83]

> No need to create tensions with dinosaurs like Linus. I'm happy with using C++ for applications only for now and leave system to C.

AFAIK you wouldn't be able to use C++ in Linux kernel coding, even if you wanted to, since Linus has disallowed it.
See: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus spoke the unknowing. C++ compilers can and will optimize OOP code in ways a C compiler never can with fake OOP added to the language. There is just no way a compiler can perform the same set of optimizations on structs of functions pointers without breaking the language.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every new technique is infinitely better by virtue of it being newer. /s

It's not about dinosaurs. Its about OO not being the best solution for every fucking problem ever. There's a crowd of idiots out there (esp Java programmers) who believe that OO fits for everything and therefore should be used exclusively. They also believe that OO is exclusive to language (expression) rather than paradigm (a way of thinking).

The thing with C is that you CAN do OOP with it just fine (even if YOU don't know how because you don't actually understand the paradigm). I prefer C to C++ because if I start a project in C++ every dick that wants to add something to it wants to do so using the most "advanced" OO available even though a simpler design would be easier to maintain and understand (e.g. the promise of OOP). If I start my project in C, not only do I get to OOP but people tend to be more sensible about what tools they use to extend and maintain the code.

I'm not some dinosaur either. I learned OOP using Java and C++ in school so it's not like it didn't exist "way back when I was zapping bugs with vacuum tubes."

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Anonymous Coward]

c++ > c

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[twistedcubic]

Thus spoke the unknowing. C++ compilers can and will optimize OOP code in ways a C compiler never can with fake OOP added to the language.

Please, sir, provide us an example of this wondrous claim.

Re:Mir is fascinating... but not in a good way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Devirtualization is the example.

Devirtualization is the only optimization clang do itself without deferring it to llvm. This is because devirtualization requires type information which it unavailable in llvm.

Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's not a lot of bloat in the system and that could be removed in a recompile, absolutely nothing to do with X11.

And why, precisely, is a "client/server relationship" bad, wrong or misguided? What issue, exactly, does it raise?

Other than being X11's way of solving access to hardware and being an old idea?

X11 was no more "made for dumb terminals" than Windows was made for cheap hardware.

OpenGL and glx run many windows DirectX games under Wine FASTER than Windows running DirectX.

Many games ported to use Linux and OpenGL natively show up FASTER than their Windows relation, either OpenGL (being faster on Windows than DirectX) or DirectX on Windows.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[jones_supa]

Many games ported to use Linux and OpenGL natively show up FASTER than their Windows relation, either OpenGL (being faster on Windows than DirectX) or DirectX on Windows.

My experience is the opposite. In most cases Windows runs rings around Linux in terms of desktop effect and game performance. For example, take the low-end Radeon 6320 Brazos APU (paired with AMD E-450 cpu). This setup can run Source based games fluidly under Windows, but under Linux they drop to 10-15 fps, which is about half the frame rate. Also, even simple desktop effects are jerky, while on Windows they are silky smooth. Linux experiment was made using the closed source 'fglrx' driver, the open source 'radeon' driver is even slower.

So this is one of the main reasons why I run Linux only rarely this days. A decade ago it gave a significant performance increase over Windows, but the roles have changed. I get more juice out of my computer with Windows, so of course I prefer that. The Metro aspect of Windows 8 is garbage, though.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem awfully confused.

Are you talking about drivers, the kernel itself or Source based games? If you are using the Source based games as some sort of baseline, you should know that those _definitely_ have some issues with the AMD stuff. Whether the Source engine does something the drivers can't handle because they are buggy, or if it's something nasty lurking in the engine, I don't know, it just doesn't work (on a 5670, YMMV depending on model). But I do know it's a common trait for all the Source based games, and not a general thing.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[santosh.k83]

> OpenGL and glx run many windows DirectX games under Wine FASTER than Windows running DirectX.
>
> Many games ported to use Linux and OpenGL natively show up FASTER than their Windows relation, either OpenGL
> (being faster on Windows than DirectX) or DirectX on Windows.

I can testify to this as well, having run Need for Speed Hot Pursuit as well as Roadrash under WINE.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[jones_supa]

I don't know either. Whatever the issue is, it should be fixed and then Linux will be even better platform. But that does not explain the slow desktop effects. They are choppy under Linux on Atom platforms too, and once again, smooth under Windows.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[jedidiah]

Want to fix it? Use a better brand of video card.

There's no great mystery about any of this stuff. If you are still suffering then you are suffering because you choose to sabotage yourself.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[jones_supa]

Wow wow dude wait a second, are you trying to suggest a practical solution? ;)

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Blaskowicz]

Sadly nvidia's slowest graphics cards have a 29W TDP, and the chip he's talking of is a combined CPU+GPU at 18W TDP. Meaning no, there's no nvidia graphics in a netbook or tiny PC. And blaming the victim is lame, you can't change the graphics on a laptop with a GPU in the CPU.
If you're arguing that no one should by affordable laptops, why not. I like using desktops (and CRT monitors).

We'll see if 22nm Atom is better (with something like Ubuntu 14.04 - not necessarily the main edition - if you want driver support out of the box). Still there could be framerate issues, as an inferior driver costs you CPU cycles.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

nvidia > amd(ati)

amd(ati) nvidia

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit!

You use a graphics card with no documentation and no support for hardware acceleration, and you're surprised it doesn't work well.

I have an Atom 270, and the graphics support sucks, but I don't complain about it, it's just the reality of using shitty vendors, in this case PowerVR, who refuse to let Intel divulge documentation for their shitty GPU to anyone without an NDA*.

Russ Cox is making good progress on a reverse engineered driver, with basic 2D accelerations, but by this point the chipset is obsolete and has been replaced with one with an Intel GPU and working accelerated drivers, so the problem is hardly worth focusing on.

More generally though, graphics performance on X11 sucks compared to GDI in terms of benchmark results, which is not surprising, as GDI does all graphics updates within the process context, whereas X11 requires at least two context switches for both user input events and graphics update events. Aside from the required context switches from input, direct rendering GL doesn't incur any context switches on either platform, and the overhead of those context switches is low relative to all that GPU and CPU work. In practice (real applications that aren't fucked) with a working GPU you will get slightly higher performance from GL applications on Linux/X11 than on NT/WGL because the better performance of Linux's VM system will outweigh the cost of those context switches.

* And the terms of that NDA, which I have read but not signed, specifically prohibit disclosing details of the hardware by way of source code release, so even if a developer joined Intel's SDN, signed the paperwork, they still couldn't release an accelerated driver.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[jones_supa]

I have an Atom 270, and the graphics support sucks, but I don't complain about it, it's just the reality of using shitty vendors, in this case PowerVR, who refuse to let Intel divulge documentation for their shitty GPU to anyone without an NDA*.

So the Atom N270 uses Intel GMA950 graphics core integrated to the GM945 northbridge. PowerVR is newer stuff.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[aestrivex]

These results make sense because fglrx is terrible. If you used the proprietary nvidia-glx drivers along with nvidia hardware, it tells a very different story from my experience. Although I agree the comparison is not crystal clear -- some games in some setups work better under wine or natively on linux than on windows, but other games and other setups do not.

Re:Bloat? Client/server relationship?

[Anonymous Coward]

They replace some expensive and complicated DX operations with no-ops.

Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8 not being able to use the drivers binary of older OSs?

Many cases the drivers will flatly refuse to install.

But apparently this is fine if it's Windows closed binary, its then the mfgr's fault.

But for Linux, the same thing is Linux's fault.

Right...

You can recompile the 2.4+ drivers to run on the latest Linux 2.6 kernel with very few changes, as few or fewer than to get a Windows XP driver compiled for Win7, for example. However, in the windows case, only the device manufacturer is allowed. In Linux, you can do it yourself.

But apparently, it's only a problem in Linux.

Right...

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[maird]

I suspect the major reason for the Windows behavior is that the driver gets polled for the version it was intended for at install or load time and Windows says no to further operation if it is less than some value. As a result, modifying the driver to do no more than say it is for a higher version is enough for it to suddenly work with what is really unmodified code. Perhaps with minor changes but we're not talking about the way it can be in linux where the whole interface to the class of hardware is changed enough that the driver has to have some re-write (not a massive amount usually). But then, which one is the friendlier OS behavior? Saying no to a perhaps working driver in order to promote development claiming to support your shiny new OS version or saying to driver vendors that the OS has changed and modified drivers are needed to support these named changes? Which you are welcome to grep the kernel for all instances of and fix yourself if you please. It might be promoted as a problem on linux but I think I agree, the linux behavior is much friendlier to developers and users.

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[VGPowerlord]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Windows driver interface hasn't changed since Windows 2000 was released.

There are two exceptions to this: Sound Drivers and Display Drivers.

The former changed when Windows "enhanced" sound drivers in Windows Vista. And by "enhanced" I mean such useful things as killing hardware acceleration in order to have separate volume sliders for each app and adding effects like making things sound like they were in a Bathroom or Auditorium.

The latter changed when Windows added desktop compositing, also in Windows Vista... and has continued changing as Microsoft realizes that some of the original assumptions they had were faulty... such as having a copy of each window's draw area in both system and video memory for GDI windows*.

* Which, as far as I know, is all non-fullscreen windows.

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[Anonymous Coward]

So the drivers didn't change, except for that time when it did change, and left people with a non-functional nvidia driver for over a year... got it.

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[spiralx]

Hardware acceleration of audio is pointless today given how little system resources it takes to mix multi-channel audio in realtime... but apart from that, both WDDM and UAA introduced in Vista moved large parts of the graphics and sound drivers out of the kernel, which is a huge stability gain.

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[VGPowerlord]

Drivers for two specific types of hardware changed. Everything else (input devices, printers, SATA, north/south-bridge, etc...) didn't.

No, the issue with moving to newer versions of Windows with older hardware is that the manufacturers didn't make 64-bit drivers for those devices. Windows XP 64-bit was basically non-existent and had very little driver support. Vista 64-bit appeared in small numbers, while win7 64-bit made up the majority of win7 installs iirc.

Oh, did I mention 32-bit Windows drivers don't work on 64-bit Windows?

Re:Explain Windows XP/Vista/7/8

[Anonymous Coward]

actually the sound architecture change drastically dropped latency, and made windows a lot better for audiowork

Re:Black People

[Crimey McBiggles]

That was pretty off-topic, there AC. You even left us guessing about which part of hicksville you call home (Georgia perhaps?).

FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A Driver for Windows 8

[mathew42]

Dad recently purchased a Windows 8 laptop, but the FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A printer doesn't have a Windows 8 driver. Some posts suggest that it is a rebadged Brother HL-2040.

I was using Windows as an example of why closed sourced drivers are bad for hardware longevity. Should my parents throw out a perfectly useable printer simply becausse FujiXerox cannot be bothered to release a new driver?

Re:FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A Driver for Windows 8

[jones_supa]

No comment on closed/open source drivers but I was just thinking about that problem. If there is no working driver for Win8, maybe your dad could run a little virtual machine as a printer server using an older version of Windows? So you would pass through the printer USB device to the VM. It's a bit clunky solution, but might keep the printer going.

Re:FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A Driver for Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens in reality is that the printer ends up in the landfill and we needlessly spend carbon to buy a new one.

Re:FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A Driver for Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, you can do so. But if this VM runs windows you need an additional windows license according to Microsoft. Plus perhaps a VDA (virtual desktop access) license for approx. 100€ per year.
In win7 there was the XP mode, but only in the not-so-cheap versions. Dunno if there's something like it in win8 (doubt it). Although there are ways to install XP mode in win8 it's probably against the license.
So if you want to be illegal... (according to MS).

Or you could install a linux-based printserver :-)

Re:FujiXerox DocuPrint 203A Driver for Windows 8

[gl4ss]

drivers for 7 have worked fine for me for 8.

catch is that they have to be signed OR you need to boot the 8 into an unsigned drivers mode for installing the driver..

Can? No. SOME *may* work.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you CAN run drivers written for the 1.2+ kernel on 2.6.

CAN? No.

It's theoretically possible to run some particular one? I could agree, but you'd have to show this is the case and where. Because it's highly uncommon.

Meanwhile the drivers for the USB devices have been the same ever since they were introduced in Linux 2.0.

Actually it was more...

[Anonymous Coward]

The greybeards already had GL backends from their commercial unix vendors and thus had no itch to scratch.

X.org/XFree86 were slow lumbering beats who thought 'Who will ever need 3d acceleration'.

And the young upstarts decided 'we can do better', did it without proper engineering practices, regression testing, or any real concern for retaining the old feature set (without either clearly delineating the new one up front, or at least starting in a seperate branch, the XFree86->Xorg transition not withstanding) and basically ruined everything that once made X great, while leaving all the important new features in a constant state of flux for what... 10 years now?

As somebody who's used it, modern X is 'good enough', but it's also horribly broken. And the attitude regarding that brokenness is 'Fix it yourself', regardless of fact that many of those fixes span multiple modules and may or may not require YET ANOTHER BREAKAGE to accomplish.

Re:Black People

[SINternet]

Really?

Re:Black People

[Zero__Kelvin]

OH My God! Canonical is Black People!

Isn't this more pro-Wayland than anti-XMir?

[daboochmeister]

Intel heavily supports Wayland, including employing the primary developer. Isn't this move on their part simply saying, we're dogfooding Wayland, and Canonical needs to handle XMir itself? Snark aside, doesn't that seem like a reasonable move on their part?

Re:Isn't this more pro-Wayland than anti-XMir?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain Wayland will be ready about the time Hurd is.

I wonder what that means for Steam

[fozzmeister]

This needless display system might put the fledgling Linux gaming industry on the back foot. Games need good drivers quite often. Steam only runs on Ubuntu (officially) and this silly bullying may cause them much more harm then the benefits they may get (and what are they after all!)

Re:I wonder what that means for Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Valve will also reject Ubuntu. Best thing they could do. If they support "linux" then they support "linux" and not another windows clone called "Ubuntu".

Re:I wonder what that means for Steam

[luther349]

we will probably just see people move away from ubuntu its aruldy happening with the likes of mint etc yes Ubuntu based but the main things are not unity lol. i whont be surprised we see not mir remixes.

Re:I wonder what that means for Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

This needless display system might put the fledgling Linux gaming industry on the back foot. Games need good drivers quite often. Steam only runs on Ubuntu (officially) and this silly bullying may cause them much more harm then the benefits they may get (and what are they after all!)

You cannot just support "Linux" as it is only a kernel. Sure, Valve could support "all desktop Linux distros", but there's too big risk for all kinds of regressions. Ubuntu is a good mainline OS to concentrate on.

Re:I wonder what that means for Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Knock it off with the fucking "alruldy".

Re:Black People

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually given that first AC is right on the money. I have tried pretty much all of Canonical attempts at replacing X11 and found them not only wanting but a real disaster when actually doing work rather than making yet another theme for KDE, (think the Windows Clock program) like the typically Linsucs fanbois. Try running IDV, IRAF, NCL, VAPOR or just about any other useful program from your office somewhere in New York on the computers in Illinois, Wyoming, Colorado or New Mexico using Wayland. X11 works Wayland well lets just say good luck

Re:Black People

[ButchDeLoria]

This is the prime reason why I'm not moving to Wayland and I'm sticking with X11 for the time being: ssh -X.

Re:No shit!

[ButchDeLoria]

Wrong LFN, that one's the GNAA-approved release.

MIR and XMir are open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that the majority of forum members believe that XMir/Mir only benefits Canonical. If it works out superior to Wayland and other Distros want to take advantage of the "device convergence", then the are perfectly able to adopt Mir as their Display Server. I say let these guys (Mir and Wayland) battle it out. Soon one will be the winner and will gradually absorb the benefits the other offers...and don't take sides yet.

Re:MIR and XMir are open source

[Anonymous Coward]

The guys working on the desktop systems (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, E17/18) are all backing wayland.

Re:Black People

[slick7]

Who cares what the Intel rejects support. They're a bunch of rejects.

Market segment of those who share a use case

[tepples]

[Multi-window multitasking is] not really a market segment it is a use case.

Every use case, such as multi-window multitasking, has a corresponding market segment of people who regularly use it. Page 4 of an Ars Technica article about OS features useful to the market segment of creative professionals (discussion) mentions multi-window multitasking features, and page 5 decries Microsoft's focus on retooling its OS for "consumption" (passive viewing of works created by others) of one thing at a time.

Re:Market segment of those who share a use case

[jbolden]

Creative professional are part of the high power desktop category. And as I mentioned:

a) OSX is a big player
b) Linux is a bigger player (around 4%)
c) Windows has been steadily losing ground for years

So for ggp Linux is a viable (though not preferred offering)in that space.

Re:Market segment of those who share a use case

[metaforest]

Where are you getting your numbers?

I think a citation is in order.

"the in-development the X11 compatibility layer"

[Anonymous Coward]

this makes no sense

Re:Black People

[Anonymous Coward]

X forwarding over anything other than a LAN connection is terrible. I recently had to setup some servers in Shanghai and one of the apps required an GUI program. X forwarding was basically impossible, hell X forwarding even sucks on a LAN connection if your app is anything other than a basic app.

VNC or RDP on the other hand worked fine half way across the world, and if my connection got cut off the app keeps running without needing convoluted setups to reconnect to existing X forwarding sessions.

Of course whenever possible I just stick to the command line.