AMD Catalyst Will Not Support Wayland Anytime Soon

[pingufunkybeat]

To be fair, Wayland has a lot more mindshare among important players (Mesa, X.org, RedHat, Intel, etc.) than Fresc or Y Windows ever did. Even something as broken as pulseaudio and unity was turned into a quasi-standard with proper backing, so it's not unlikely that the same could happen to Wayland in due time, which seems to be far better thought-through than those.

Still, it's a hobby research project at the moment, and even if it does come to replace X on some of the desktop-oriented distros, it won't be any time soon. It's just one of those things phoronix people get all excited about, like monorails on slashdot.

[energyman]

I remember Berlin/Fresco, YWindow and a couple more 'great next things'.

You know why they really failed?

They could not run X programms.

Wayland may be a nice thing, but apart from a nice looking architecture what does it have for the user? Why being excited about something that is a) a long way away b) doesn't even have a stable api yet?

Wake me up if wayland becomes a viable replacement for X. At the moment I can take a 10 year old Xapp and just run it. Do that with wayland and it might have a future.

Until it is ready, all those phoronix postings about drivers supporting it or not are just a waste of ressources.

[russofris]

who the fuck cares? really? It will take years until wayland is ready for the masses - and I still don't understand what is so great about it.

So if it is years away and doesn't even have an api yet, why should nvidia or amd waste precious (and expensive) ressources on it, as long as their is X11 stuff to be done?

Forgive me if you were being rhetorical.

Everyone that will runs desktop linux, and everyone that manufactures graphics devices 'will care' in approximately two years if Wayland becomes the prominent display server technology. Wayland is supposed to simplify the graphics stack by moving a number of functions to GEM/DRM and manage compositing. With X, compositors are added on top (kwin, compiz, mutter, etc).

My opinion is that Wayland has the potential to be a lot more elegant and performant in the typical "A computer with a display device attached" sceario. It does not seem to address the "window over a network, game over the cloud, automagic remote desktop" as well as X11 currently does.

Nvidia/AMD would allocate resources if they felt that Wayland will gain prominence, and want to be first-to-market.

F

[LinuxID10T]

who the fuck cares? really? It will take years until wayland is ready for the masses - and I still don't understand what is so great about it.

So if it is years away and doesn't even have an api yet, why should nvidia or amd waste precious (and expensive) ressources on it, as long as their is X11 stuff to be done?

I can't say "THIS!" enough times.

[energyman]

who the fuck cares? really? It will take years until wayland is ready for the masses - and I still don't understand what is so great about it.

So if it is years away and doesn't even have an api yet, why should nvidia or amd waste precious (and expensive) ressources on it, as long as their is X11 stuff to be done?

[GreatEmerald]

There's really no reason for the exchange of words that is taking place. We're all happy that FGLRX works for some people. We're all happy that DRI/MESA works for others. The place we want to be is where everyone is happy with DRI/MESA regardless of whatever state FGLRX happens to be in.

If you are going to run Linux, try the FOSS drivers. If you find that they are not to your liking, for any reason, describe your issue in a bug report and fall back on FGLRX. Retry the FOSS drivers whenever your distro's release cycle ends, or when you receive confirmation that your issue has been resolved.

This needs to be framed in gold and pinned somewhere in this forum!

[curaga]

You did see how I said primitive, right? MSAA just really isn't very good compared to the newer AA methods available.

? We have MLAA, a better one than in AMD's blob in fact.

Nvidia's ones, FXAA and TXAA, could be added to Mesa if someone was interested.

[LinuxID10T]

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...D-MSAA-Changes

Next one?

You did see how I said primitive, right? MSAA just really isn't very good compared to the newer AA methods available.

[russofris]

My only gripe is people continuously repeating "blobs should die".

Blobs 'should' die, though as a result of competing OSS drivers' improvements in stability and features. Not as a result of hooligans carrying pitchforks and torches shouting "Snug Snug!".

Mmmmm... Snug Snug.

F

[pingufunkybeat]

All you guys keep forgetting the lack of decent anti aliasing with the open source drivers. I mean, it has been around forever now and the only thing we have is primitive compared to the closed source drivers. Although, it wouldn't matter much anyway since it would make games completely unplayable slow (not that they aren't already.)

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?72934-Marek-Lands-Radeon-Gallium3D-MSAA-Changes

Next one?