Streams vs. GBM: The Fight Continues Over NVIDIA's Proposed Wayland Route

[pal666]

My opinion would be only lead by performance : what is the cost of using GBM on NVidia hardware?

zero. what makes you think there is some cost? nvidia misses some things from current version of gbm. surprise: current non-existent version of streams misses everything and has no performance at all. on the other hand there is a huge cost of using non-gbm: you have to write its support into every toolkit/compositor and maintain it afterwards. nobody will do that, even nvidia, they have some crazy fantasy they will patch weston and everyone else will follow.

[Slartifartblast]

I shudder at the thought of having to buy AMD just to use Wayland.

[pal666]

I shudder at the thought of having to buy AMD just to use Wayland.

well, you have to buy amd just to not support most linux-hostile company with your money. but wayland will work with nouveau without problems

[bug77]

Ah, this is so typical open-source development...
GBM is just an abstraction layer on top of EGL. So the technical difficulties are about as tough as those GPLed symbols that stopped Nvidia from providing Optimus support for Linux (i.e. trivial to do, but politically impossible). GBM may has its merits and could probably be made to expose everything Nvidia needs. But the issue is (I think) that GBM is tied to Mesa, therefore you need to fork code paths in the driver is you want to support something that doesn't run Mesa at all.

As far as I can see, Nvidia has been trying to bring this (EGL in non-Mesa environments) into attention since at least 2014: https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC201...gerEGLNonMesa/

[theriddick]

AMD Warthunder 4k = 30fps
NVIDIA Warthunder 4k = 80fps

Yeah I will likely just NOT use Wayland if my choice came down to the above results for my next videocard purchase. (I don't see AMD doubling-tripling their OpenGL performance any day soon, sadly)

[Krejzi]

Ah, this is so typical open-source development...
GBM is just an abstraction layer on top of EGL.

No. It's an abstraction layer on top of DRM/KMS, which then can be used as an EGL platform. Since nVidia tries to avoid DRM/KMS like a plague, I can see why they are pushing their approach.

[xeekei]

So basically if you have an nvidia card you'll be using Xorg or Mir.

So Wayland won't even support the most popular dGPU out there. That makes it kind of useless.

Why would it be useless? Being the most popular dGPU is like being the most popular kid in Chess club. Intel is king of graphics, ARM makers are challengers. Nvidia and AMD fight over scraps.

[lakerssuperman]

"The issue is Nvidia has habit to create their own proprietary standard rather adhering to the open one"

So what!!!! So we have a bunch of folk developing a new display protocol/server telling a company to conform to its open ways lol. Ridicules !! Who the hell do these clowns think they are telling 1 of only 3 GPU manufactures what is best practice. .No surprise such a small amount of peoples decisions can affect every single GNU/Linux user with Nvidia hardware in such a negative way.

"Until Nvidia change their attitude towards open source world including Linux kernel, they are doomed to lose long term battle considering AMD gained more clients from Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Apple and recently China market."

No,the only ones doomed, are the millions of GNU/Linux users with Nvidia hardware.

While I understand that NVIDIA has the market share and the Linux Desktop is small compared to their entire user/customer base, I think it would be wrong to introduce the currently only "NVIDIA Way" to OSS software.

I also know that NVIDIA is still really the only option for gaming on Linux and I myself run an NVIDIA GPU so that I can play games on my desktop and though I like using OSS stuff in the stack where possible, I'm not opposed to running the proprietary driver from NVIDIA.

I think the ultimate issue and why people are annoyed about this is that NVIDIA like everyone else with some stake in the Linux desktop had the opportunity to have a hand in shaping how Wayland was going to work. Now that we are on the cusp of Wayland becoming truly usable and able to replace Xorg with the release of Gnome 3.20 and distros like Fedora 24 and Arch that ship this desktop.

To have NVIDIA come in after all the technical stuff was discussed and designed etc and try to dictate how they want things done seems a little unfair to the people working on the Wayland stuff.

If I was a developer of Wayland, I'd be a little less than happy if I'd done all this stuff and one of the big fish in the pond is now trying to get involved in the process and throw its weight around, especially with AMD showing some real progress with their new drivers and upcoming architectures.

I hope it is sorted out quickly and we come to a solution where there aren't two different code paths for NVIDIA and everyone else. I feel like this will ultimately be a minor bump in the road to Wayland World.

[pal666]

So the technical difficulties are about as tough as those GPLed symbols that stopped Nvidia from providing Optimus support for Linux (i.e. trivial to do, but politically impossible).

drug abuse has adverse health effects. btw, amd isn't stopped from providing optimus support for linux, only "fuck you" nvidia is.

As far as I can see, Nvidia has been trying to bring this (EGL in non-Mesa environments) into attention since at least 2014:

yes, they ignore reality for two years already. they have been told their proprietary shit isn't going to work since 2014

[pal666]

AMD Warthunder 4k = 30fps
NVIDIA Warthunder 4k = 80fps

you could write your shitty game unrestrictedly slow