Microsoft Adds An EGL Implementation To Mesa For Windows

[RahulSundaram]

So nice of you to frame that as a question...

Is that your way of not answering the question?

[oiaohm]

I think this is more of the extend stage.

This is not a Microsoft extend stage out of EEE. You have to remember WGL was MS own extend off EGL design in the past. This is more a step backwards that may lead to future extend somewhere else.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/12727?commit_id=3415bf0268884bf3c16d495a4e1afd30d67bc71d

Yes the issues with WGL vs EGL list in the merge request in fact directly link to how Microsoft attempted to extend EGL design to be windows only thing.

So this step back could be to part of a process to allow Weston wayland compositor to run straight on windows. Also having functional EGL support will make porting opengl es android applications and Linux applications simpler to windows.

There are a lot of open source applications that have vulkan and egl graphical outputs that don't have a windows version.

I some what see this as extend failed with WGL now Microsoft taking step backwards.

Interesting point that a lot of people would not be aware of.

https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/how-to-develop-opengl-es-2-0-library-egl-on-windows-visual-studio/37559/3

Nvidia opengl does have the EGL functions on Windows.

https://www.khronos.org/registry/OpenGL/extensions/EXT/WGL_EXT_create_context_es2_profile.txt

Yes Nvidia extend to WGL to provide EGL functionality.

So this is warped right. Microsoft extended EGL design to make WGL that is more windows like then Nvidia extends WGL allow EGL applications to still be built for windows and now Microsoft is doing EGL support on Windows.

Of course we have items like google angle that have been doing EGL on windows for non Nvidia cards. I am not sure if Intel or AMD implements EGL support on windows.

On EGL is more Microsoft has lost this extend round due to Google and Nvidia extending to put EGL back all the time. So this EGL support is more they cannot beat them might as well join them. Sometimes in the EEE process its Microsoft who ends up stomped on. But the important thing to remember is even if Microsoft loses a extend round does not stop them from trying another extend in future.

[Sonadow]

This is almost perfect.

Windows already enjoys undisputed driver support from all hardware vendors in the desktop, laptop and accessories markets, practically all software that really matter in the professional and corporate world consider Windows as their top-tier platform for sales, and WSL2 exists to provide a Linux userland running at native speed on top of Windows. It also doesn't have the ridiculous paper cuts associated with desktop Linux such as randomly crashing to a TTY, proprietary applications that only work with one or two distributions because it required libraries that are either too old or too new for other distributions, FOSS drivers for things like USB wifi adapters/printers/scanners/exotic multimedia setups/exotic display setups that can barely perform at the same level and functionality as proprietary drivers, etc.

With any luck future versions of Windows can finally extinguish desktop Linux for good.

[oiaohm]

USB wifi adapters/printers/scanners/exotic multimedia setups/exotic display setups that can barely perform at the same level and functionality as proprietary drivers, etc.

This list you went a little too far. Printers are a wacky one. I use a lot of HP printers. There is something really stupid. You will have models of HP printers that will have more exposed functionality under Linux than Windows. Yes warped as it sounds the proprietary HP drivers for windows disables functionality on low end model printers. Due to the Linux driver being open source HP does not do that. So printer can be a wacky one where its better to connect to Linux box and exposed to to the network than connect to directly to the windows box so that you can use the most printer functionality.

FOSS drivers sometimes are bad but so are proprietary drivers. HP one are really classical what the thinking that windows proprietary printer drivers are made by the same team that makes the hp open source printer drivers yet the closed source drivers have reduced functionality..

[oiaohm]

This is almost perfect.Windows already enjoys undisputed driver support from all hardware vendors in the desktop, laptop and accessories markets, .

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-install-older-printer-windows-10

If the old printer still not working, then it may just be the time to move on and get a replacement. You can check out this guide to find the best All-in-One options, or this guide, if you're on a budget.

The reality here is Windows is not undisputed driver support from all hardware vendors. HP printer drivers are really go counter. You will have drivers for older HP printers that will work with Linux that you end up following like the above directions with windows 10 and get to the end without a working printer.

The reality here printers and scanners are going to driver-less printers and scanners where they all use the same standard. So in future the difference between windows, Linux, Mac OS in printers and scanner is going to be the volume of legacy printer and scanner support that Linux currently is winning this. Yes as time progressive moves forwards and vendors don't update their windows closed source printer and scanner drivers more of them fail to work. Yes driverless printers and scanners are equal support all around.

USB wifi adapters this one is interesting. People fail to ask why do windows users have USB wifi adapters so often. Issues with M.2 wifi adapers and windows. Wifi adapters turn out to be a problem child not only for Linux. Interesting enough the wifi cards support by Linux are the ones most likely to give you most stable wifi connection with Windows. So windows might support more wifi cards but the quality of support is very different. There is a big difference between working and working properly. Having a file transfer screwed up because the wifi card you bought had a bad driver with windows can really badly hurt. Yes the Linux annoyance that the wifi card does not work at all really hurts as well. So both windows and linux sux badly here for different reasons.

This is one of those hard things. Linux you have to spend more time being careful buying wifi card that it works at all but if it does work its reliable. Where windows you can buy fairly much any wifi card and it will at least somewhat work but it may gives you days of disrupted workflow due to having driver/hardware caused stability issues.

Exotic multimedia setups this gets into the area of horrible. How far Exotic. https://www.hifiberry.com/ https://www.audio-linux.com/ Linux has some really exotic hardware out their for Multimedia and audio. Some of these are true hard real-time setups some thing windows kernel cannot do. Windows gets you into the off the shelf level Exotic multimedia setups quite well. Linux is what you find in the absolute custom Exotic multimedia setups.

exotic display setups that another one where you need to define exotic.

[linner]

For all their Microsoft evil, one thing I really like in Windows 10 is that most if not all the full DirectX/3D library is available as a software renderer just like mesa does for opengl. That means full DirectX 12 display done over rdesktop, VNC, or a emulated graphics card. Even though it's not top performance it's still really handy.

[jacob]

Embrace

Of course Microsoft adding stuff just for their own benefit...

Of course, just like every single open source contributor who ever existed.

[eugene2k]

Finally, I can play my favorite Linux games on Windows! Wait a minute...

[oleid]

Is the mesa/(w/e)gl stuff hardware accelerated?

[spykes]

Embrace

Of course Microsoft adding stuff just for their own benefit...

Every contributor does that and this is fine. What bothers me though is theirs contributions benefits the Windows ecosystem rather than the Linux one.