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Mesa 10.5 Updates Open-Source Graphics Drivers

Posted by timothy on from the pushing-pixels dept.

An anonymous reader writes Mesa 10.5 has been released to update the open-source Linux graphics driver stack. This quarterly update to Mesa has initial support for Intel's next-generation Skylake graphics, Qualcomm Adreno A4xx support, EGL support on the BeOS-inspired Haiku, the new NIR intermediate representation, and other changes. While new GL4 extensions were implemented, the Intel/Radeon/Nouveau drivers only have enough support right now to expose OpenGL 3.3, but GL4.2 is expected out of the open-source drivers by the end of the year.

24 comments

  1. Don't bother. by ledow · · Score: 1

    The summary is almost as long as the article, which is only slightly longer than the original release notes.

    1. Re:Don't bother. by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Well it's Phoronix... if a mouse farts in the open source GPU department, it's an article there. Even when it's pretty much non-news they got like ten articles of "one step closer to major news" before the major news actually happens. It's almost a blog in the shape of a site.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Don't bother. by Kjella · · Score: 1

      And apparently it's not even out yet so this is just the pre-release article about what will be coming in a minor point release. Yawn.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Don't bother. by devcat · · Score: 1

      Its out according to the Mesa-dev mailinglist and are available at the regular FTP. They probably just haven't gotten arround to publish a news item on their site.

  2. BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Friends, let us share our memories of BeOS. The summary is the first time I've seen it referred to it years, and I just can't contain the ecstasy I'm feeling right now. BeOS was the first operating system that got my physically aroused. I'm not even kidding. When I first used it, it was like I had moved from 1996 to 2050. Space and time shattered around me as I was transported decades into the future. The computer I used was faster and more responsive than any I had ever used before. The desktop was no longer my enemy; it became an extension of my body. I became one with BeOS, and BeOS became one with me. Video and music editing was no longer a pain. It all happened seamlessly, while BeOS copulated with my mind. Linux has never been anywhere near BeOS. Windows is only slightly ahead of Linux. Mac OS X is the closest, but even it never had the panache that BeOS had. BeOS was one of a kind. It was The Best.

    1. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Windows is only slightly ahead of Linux. Mac OS X is the closest, but even it never had the panache that BeOS had. BeOS was one of a kind. It was The Best.

      You know, when I leave home to work, I think how fortunate I am to be forced to use Windows there; I don't have to endure Linux like I do at home. Yep. Lucky me.

      I'll have to believe you that BeOS is great, because when I wanted to test it, it had some idiot limitations which made it a big turn off. Not copulating at all.

      And that is what happens to most big things which would rather die than go GPL and at least be useful to many in a kind of afterlife.

      Where is BeOS now? The Amiga?

      Sorry, but Linux is better in a very important dimension: I have access to it.

      I'm using Firefox on an old computer right now -- mainly because the Nouveau guys are simply great and made it work.

      This machine works perfectly with Firefox, but Chromium won't run (it lacks the special vector instruction SSE2).

      Nor Flash, probably for the same reason. HTML5 works, webm better yet, but it can play 1280x720 video nicely with vlc or mplayer. Not bad for a 10+ year old PC.

      BeOS could be great, but Gasse was right in that powerful interests prevented it from being a success; I believe he could have joined efforts with Linux back then to move things on; more or less like Steam is doing. Alas, I wish them all the success they can handle.

    2. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      I'm using Firefox on an old computer right now -- mainly because the Nouveau guys are simply great and made it work.

      What specs?

    3. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      AMD Sempron 2300+ (nearly 1.6 GHz), PAE-capable (though not in use), i686 but no SSE2

      processor : 0
      vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
      cpu family : 6
      model : 8
      model name : AMD Sempron(TM) 2300+
      stepping : 1
      cpu MHz : 1583.294
      cache size : 256 KB
      physical id : 0
      siblings : 1
      core id : 0
      cpu cores : 1
      apicid : 0
      initial apicid : 0
      fdiv_bug : no
      f00f_bug : no
      coma_bug : no
      fpu : yes
      fpu_exception : yes
      cpuid level : 1
      wp : yes
      flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mp mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow vmmcall
      bugs : fxsave_leak
      bogomips : 3166.58
      clflush size : 32
      cache_alignment : 32
      address sizes : 34 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
      power management: ts

      This processor has a Passmark result of 318, ranked 1806 -- compare to a Pentium 4 2.8GHz (328, 1791).

      1.5 GB RAM (I guess originally was 512MB, I seem to recall having increased it by 1 GB)
      Geforce4 MX440

      This is where I thank the Nouveau guys. It runs ok with the glamor option -- plays 1280x720 at 24-bit color depth (xv mplayer driver).
      Choosing the fbdev driver, color depth becomes 16-bit, xv acceleration becomes unavailable, but html5player works better than at the above setting.
      I'm trying to solve this conundrum. In the meantime, there's an extension "Video WithOut Flash" which allows selecting the webm format which plays ok at medium video sizes. Or download HD and play the content with mplayer in its full glory. Didn't test with 1920x1080 yet, though I doubt it will work.

      AC97 audio
      40GB HD (but a 7200RPM one)
      1280x1024 monitor

      I'm using it with Xfce 4.12.

      Since there is enough RAM, KDE might do, too, but I'm testing the newly released Xfce.

      While Cinnamon was unusable (too slow), Mate feels faster than both KDE and Xfce. Unfortunately, I don't know it well enough to apply my standard tweaks: shade with mouse wheel on titlebar, do not raise window when clicked inside -- not to mention the anachronistic "Applications Places Desktop", which I'd rather have as icons, not as text.

      As for applications, Firefox works nicely, Libreoffice runs well (though I didn't try 1 million lines spreadsheets), video players work at a good resolution (720p), music is ok (get Radio Player, it is AWESOME), I can post as an AC over here and annoy some people... well, it doesn't get much better that this. :-)

    4. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Radio Player

      I meant Radio Tray, a radio player.

    5. Re: BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMD Sempron 2300+

      Semprini?

    6. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where is BeOS now? The Amiga?

      Don't know about BeOS but my Amiga is still going strong.
      Whenever I've worked at it for an extensive time and get back to Windows I always gets amazed at how much latency modern Windows machines have. The time between selecting something and the computer acting upon it is staggering compared to systems made back in the days when every cycle counted.

    7. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wasn't attacking the Amiga. Everybody and his dog talks nice things about it.

      What I said is that is regrettable such ventures couldn't thrive because of several factors, of which the main ones were non-technical -- like predatory businesses, for instance.

    8. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also another correction: one must set DefaultColorDepth to 16, it doesn't just "becomes" 16 when choosing fbdev. IIRC, X stops without any screens found.

      Did I mention it all only works with glamor? Use it.

    9. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      If your motherboard supports 200MHz FSB instead of 166 (which might be a big if) then the CPU should run at 1.9GHz, which should not be terribly hard at all. That sempron was a rather quite underclocked Athlon XP, probably so they call sell it a tiny bit cheaper.

      I had flash player 11.2 running on a Pentium III. Alright, I've researched the issue and these dumb nuts dropped SSE from one 11.2.x.x release to another!
      pitiful html5 performance matches what I've seen on another computer (VIA C7 at 1GHz, Windows 7). HTML5 video really has a hardware decoder in mind (cell phone hardware, recent GPU with recent and/or proprietary driver) or needs even more CPU brute force that flash did.

      smtube player may be useful, it's a front-end to browse for youtube videos and then launch them in a video player (or to download them). I did not try firefox extensions much yet.

    10. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

      Where is BeOS now?

      Check this out:
      http://haiku-os.org/

      Progress is very slow, but it's still going. Don't bother with the Alpha 4 download, try one of the nightly snapshots instead.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    11. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      well done mentioning an os mentioned in the blurb!

      anyhow, could you tell if it has working 3d hardware support? nvidia, amd? few year old cards? there was some hubbub about it few years ago but never catched if they had managed to do it or not.

      I ran BeOS dano leaked beta for few years on an irc/mp3 box. it was great and unlike ubuntu if the soundsystem crashed you didn't need a reboot. you didn't need a reboot for anything pretty much and did it's thing on a 300mhz or something box pretty well.

      not that it matters now for me too much since I'm stuck with windows anyways, but haiku might be nice for a netbook.. if the wifi works.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    12. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great suggestion about smtube, thanks. Your reasoning about html5 is very useful, too, I might lose too much time trying to make it work to no avail.

      I think I tried that overclocking thing once, but at that time this computer was no longer my "gaming" one, so I reverted back for lack of uses for the additional speed (back then Flash was older and worked pretty well on that CPU; amazing how they manage to "improve" their products... is this an ego thing like in "my software is so powerful, it demands better hardware"?). The last I tried which worked was 10.3...

      Regarding extensions there are some very interesting: I find Clear Fields to be simple but so useful (it creates a clickable clear button on the search field, which then can be pasted on with middle-click). Regarding Flash alternatives, some still won't work -- probably because they provide some extended usefulness while still decoding things with the Flash plugin (I even suspect mplayer might work that way for flv files! Doh...)

    13. Re:BeOS: tell me your memories. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Check this out: http://haiku-os.org/ [haiku-os.org]

      Good reminder. I was complaining about BeOS, but if these guys can keep on doing it, the least I can do is try it.

      > Progress is very slow, but it's still going.

      Some projects have their own pace, but they still deliver (like e.g. ReactOS).

      > Don't bother with the Alpha 4 download, try one of the nightly snapshots instead.

      License is BSD-like... Thanks for the tip. "Instead of cursing the darkness. light up a candle."

  3. Systemd required yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Systemd required yet?

    1. Re:Systemd required yet? by armanox · · Score: 2

      Can't be - this is cross platform.

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    2. Re:Systemd required yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok thanks.

    3. Re:Systemd required yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh?! Where can I file a bug report?

  4. too late for Mesa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I read that systemd now subsumes the graphics driver, which will be used to render text as graphics into system logs. Also, there's a hard dependency between Gnome and systemd's graphics drivers.

  5. Wake me up... by khelms · · Score: 2

    when they get around to fully supporting Nvidia Optimus systems.