Google Won't Enable Chrome Video Acceleration Because of Linux GPU Bugs

An anonymous reader writes "Citing 'code we consider to be permanently "experimental" or "beta,"' Google Chrome engineers have no plans on enabling video acceleration in the Chrome/Chromium web browser. Code has been written but is permanently disabled by default because 'supporting GPU features on Linux is a nightmare' due to the reported sub-par quality of Linux GPU drivers and many different Linux distributions. Even coming up with a Linux GPU video acceleration white-list has been shot down over fear of the Linux video acceleration code causing stability issues and problems for Chrome developers. What have been your recent experiences with Linux GPU drivers?"

Comments

Permenant Beta

[sunderland56]

You mean like Google Maps??

Re:Permenant Beta

[ficuscr]

or Google Nose? https://www.google.com/landing...

Re:Permenant Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

What's not to like? Now I get new Google Maps that take several seconds to load in Chrome. That's progress compared with the instant loading that plagued the tile-map version...

Re:Permenant Beta

[joaommp]

to me this all sounds like a lame excuse for the lack of quality of their own software. I mean it's true that there are bugs in the kernel and everywhere on X and alike, but all other apps play nice. only chrome is playing the "poor little guy" part. all other software rants and complains when they find a bug, but they still manage to work it out and to help everything get better. Linux is not the only platform having frustrating bugs that can cripple any piece of software. but it's the easy prey for anyone preparing to become a competitor.
this is the typical tactic of making people "dependent" on their software, then complaining that some of the platforms it runs on doesn't have as much quality to be excused for a poor performance so they can make it work worse and then they have another excuse to impose a bit more of their own platform like the one running on chromebooks or something else about to be launched.

Re:Permenant Beta

[visualight]

Of course they could. They don't *want* to.

What they do want, is for Linux to be a little more BigCorp friendly so walled gardens are a little easier to build and maintain.

This, by itself, isn't much of campaign, but every little nudge counts.

Re:Permenant Beta

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Yes, you got most of the issue correct.

I would add, however, that you missed a big one: hardware video acceleration in general quickly gets one into the world of DRM, patents, and other BigCorp-induced headaches that have been causing Linux trouble since day one. This has always been the major impediment to hardware acceleration in the open source drivers at least. Even the Linux binary drivers have had acceleration features stripped from the for DRM reasons.

As a Linux user for close to twenty years, I'd argue that the quality of the GPU drivers has improved remarkably over the past few years. For general desktop compositing and engineering 3D work I find the open-source radeon drivers work fine now; far better than they ever have in the past. Not gaming-quality yet, but improving all the time. This Google Chrome decision sounds more like the typical BigCorp excuse to avoid Linux support than a valid diatribe against the current drivers to me.

Mine is working just fine.

[abednegoyulo]

Using intel i3 graphics with default driver that comes with RHEL6/CentOS6. I startup chromium with --ignore-gpu-blacklist. It has been more than a year now and so far so good.

Re:Like the good ole days

[jedidiah]

No. Video does not "suck ass". Google is just a bunch of whining crybabies.

Many of us have been happy as clams taking advantage of these features for years now on Linux. At least for Nvidia kit, it's pretty old news at this point.

The Intel and AMD variants may not be up to snuff yet but progress is being made. Google could certainly "white list" Nvidia without trouble.

As for the rest, they could allow it to be enabled for those that are really determined to take the risk. That might even help improve the quality of those other offerings.

They can't be stressing things any harder than Valve.

Re:What's the solution?

[Freshly Exhumed]

AFAIK the Mozilla folks have not had the same complaints about Linux graphics drivers, have they?

The solution is to avoid using the Google Chrome browser, unless you like being spied on all the time by Google. Load up Firefox with a completely fascist set of add ons and do your best to browse safely.

Bullshit!

[martyn1807]

Simply enable it for NVIDIA users by default. It works the same across every distribution, and in fact, every OS. Google are just as cowardly as Adobe were.

For those who want faster flash and faster Chrome, try this:

* Go to chrome://flags

* Override software rendering list -> Enable

Welcome to a faster Flash and faster Chrome :)

If only...

[fph il quozientatore]

Oh, if only a large company like, say, Google would adopt the drivers and support their development...

Linux drivers are fine

[melting_clock]

I've been using Linux as my primary OS for 10 years. My desktop PC does dual boot into windows for a few games but spends 95% of the time in Linux. I've done a bit of gaming and other graphics intensive applications under Linux without any problems. As a part time gaming machine, there is a mid range NVIDIA card hiding inside and I've always used the proprietary NVIDIA drivers which are as good as those on windows. There was a time when installing those drivers was a bit of a pain, due to other developers trying to to force their extremist political views on users, but it is a very simple process now.

Some drivers might have problems but there is no reason they couldn't take the same approach as Firefox developers: provide a user controlled, easily accessible, option to enable hardware acceleration... Maybe that last point shows why I don't care what Google does with Chrome on Linux or any other platform... Firefox works for me on Linux, Windows and Android.

Re:Like the good ole days

[operagost]

3dfx and Matrox. Millennium + Voodoo, bitches!

It's more like google can't write code..

[jerryjnormandin]

It's obvious that the google gui programmers just use windows or mac gui APIs and don't know how to code. Linux GPU code has been extremely stable. Maybe they can learn how to program from the folks at Steam ? LMAO The new Steam Appliance runs Linux. I use a GTX 560 in a MacPro 2,1 running linux on bare metal with NO ISSUES.

Re:What have been my recent experiences?

[clarkn0va]

linux drivers suck for all 3

Don't tell Valve! You'll ruin there latest business model!

Seriously, I've used GPUs from all three manufacturers and found every Intel and nvidia hardware/driver combination I've tried to work well in Linux, and every AMD combination to be the opposite. I wish it were not so, but it is, in my experience.

Re:Like the good ole days

[Talderas]

In other news. Twitch Plays Pokemon beat the game in 18 days. Meanwhile Linux GPU driver support is still shit.

Re:If Google dId care about Linux.....

[amiga3D]

I don't get this nVidia doesn't work on linux stuff. It's the only video card I've ever gotten to work, well not counting Intel which had until recently abysmal 3D performance. Two ATI cards returned because they just killed the machine but 9 years running Nvidia on linux. I think the problem with Nvidia on Unity is more because of Unity which is still pretty buggy.