X.Org Server 1.20 RC5 Released, Adds EGLStreams To Let NVIDIA Work With XWayland

[starshipeleven]

Anyway, seriously, here is RedHat to blame, not nVidia. They (or he, namely Adam Jackson) could do something good for the FOSS community and chose not to.

RedHat needs to sell their OS (support contracts actually, but anyway) and they cannot realistically tell their customers that they can't use NVIDIA cards in their perfrmance systems (especially where they need CUDA which is still a thing).

So I would blame more NVIDIA than anyone else, as they knew that RedHat and other commercial linux vendors would have no choice but to support their new NIH APIs if they still wanted to sell.

[starshipeleven]

Seems you forgot that Mesa is not some kind of god's gift, It is just another shitty OpenGL implementation. Yes, some companies choose to get some OpenGL on linux easy way and use Mesa, but this is not mandatory.

Lol what? That's just the whole point of Linux. If I didn't care about closed source drivers I would be on Windows (and for gaming, where the games are usually closed-source, I still do).

Some, like AMD just after obtaining ATI prefer to publish GPU specs and leave driver development to FOSS community entirely.

This isn't the current situation, nor the situation for like the last decade. AMD has a blob driver too and it has full-time developers, first on that and then on the opensource driver.

Unlike them Nvidia always cared about performance, having marketshare about 1% linux can't expect to be first class customer, but nvidia have created almost as good as windows driver by making most of their code shareable between windows and linux.

Running the same code with different shims does not make the code any more "shareable" than it already was before.

I'd also like to question the statement "almost as good windows driver". Performance-wise ok, stability and quirks are not anywhere near. Dual graphics on laptops? meeeeh.

So, it actually wayland developers' fault that they choose to use proprietary solution instead of open.

RedHat cannot just tell its customers that they can't use their RHEL OS properly with NVIDIA GPUs because they won't support the closed API, so no it is not their fault, it's NVIDIA using their position to force others to comply.

Note how everyone that does not sell an OS and requires to run on NVIDIA regardless isn't giving a shit (KDE and most other DEs)

[starshipeleven]

And then some guys with NIH syndrome (as you say, personally I don't use this term), decided to replace X11. Not just create another option, their goal is full replacement.

Quit this bullshit narrative. These "some guys with NIH" are basically everyone else, spearheaded by Intel and Samsung.

Nvidia have to cope, they have added kms, but wayland authors say this isn't enough, nvidia must rewrite their driver to become more like Mesa or rewrite it within the Mesa.

Isn't this what they always did? I mean to work at all the NVIDIA driver always replaced parts of Mesa with linkers to its userspace 3D library. What's different this time? It's just glue code, their main driver is still the same code that runs on Windows.

The point here is that being an out-of-tree module that they develop themselves they don't get any say or leverage in what goes on in Mesa, which is the default 3D implementation on Linux.

If they participated more they would have been listened to, but why doing that when you can just force others to add support to your APIs or not sell their OS to customers that want to use NVIDIA GPUs (either for performance or CUDA)?

[starshipeleven]

But for years the nvidia driver stomped basically every other driver on Linux for years on many aspect and didn't lose all of its advantages.

That's irrelevant imho, if it isn't opensource then it fails the main reason I'm on linux for.
I don't want Linux to be Windows Lite (i.e. same blobs as in windows but repackaged), I want it to have its own ecosystem so it can live independently of Windows.

[dungeon]

That's irrelevant imho, if it isn't opensource then it fails the main reason I'm on linux for.
I don't want Linux to be Windows Lite (i.e. same blobs as in windows but repackaged), I want it to have its own ecosystem so it can live independently of Windows.

Linux could be GNU so free software, could be open source, could be Android, could be even Windows why not... it is jut a kernel

Anbody is free to uses linux kernel and to be linux, but that does not make all users who uses these also source code lovers

[oiaohm]

This isn't the current situation, nor the situation for like the last decade. AMD has a blob driver too and it has full-time developers, first on that and then on the opensource driver.

Not quite right. https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute...tree/roc-1.7.x

All the kernel space parts for modern day AMD cards other than firmware is open source. This does not matter if you are using AMDGPU open source or AMDGPU Pro closed source Items they are exactly same and open source for the kernel space drivers. Of course there is gap between what is shipped with your distribution and want you can get from the AMD git development branches of the kernel.

AMDGPU Pro at this stage still has closed source versions userspace drivers of opengl, vulkan and OpenCL but these are always up for review. If the day comes that those are no longer have any performance advantage they will disappear.

Of course this is not going to leave driver development completely to the FOSS community. Reality is you need early access to hardware for driver development to have drivers on day of hardware release to public. Early access and direct access to hardware developers is only possible for those working for the company/group making the hardware.

AMD when they did a audit after taken over ATI found that there was some questionable items in the source of the ATI closed source drivers. Open source drivers for AMD is a process to re-implement the graphics drivers public and legally defend-able position of course this process is not fast when you cannot end up being lower performing.

Also a lot of opengl features supported by open source opengl driver for AMD cards are not support by AMDGPU-Pro closed source. So the idea of ship first on closed source then do open source form is not true for AMD graphics drivers you in fact see the reverse just as much where something is implemented on the open source driver then implemented in the closed source one.

AMD is on a path to fully open source graphics drivers. But this is not give it over the FOSS community and forget about it.

Intel for a long time would publish graphics specifications then leave it to everyone else to develop drivers. This did not work well for intel either because this resulted in hardware developers not being told to implement features that made the driver side way better. Yes the idea of throw specs over wall from hardware development does not make drivers that work right. Intel had the issue that for a long time their GPUs did not have a MMU unit because this would have been harder for hardware developers to make even that not having it caused pure security nightmares and driver development hell.

[RomuloP]

Thanks God someone (or some peoples) showed we are in 21 century and even NVIDIA being a shit company to everyone else, we don't need to answer being a shit community to everyone else as well, but sure there exist a lot of "geniuns" out there, that would como to you with the modern "law of the jungle", if you've bought a hardware that is not well supported you're dumb and deserve it not working.

[starshipeleven]

Not quite right. https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute...tree/roc-1.7.x

Yeah, with "first... and then" I meant more historically. They had their fully blob driver and it was their first class citizen for a while, then they let it slide and are now focusing more on opensource drivers while keeping a blob for workstation usecase and also computing until the open one catches up.

His statement of AMD just throwing specs out is plain wrong and has been plain wrong in the last decade at least.

[aufkrawall]

The driver can recover from hangs most of the time, which AMD/mesa is not able to do (e.g. infinite loop in a shader).

I had many more complete system crashes/freezes with my GTX 1070 than with my RX 560, esp. with Vulkan.

[Khrundel]

Lol what? That's just the whole point of Linux. If I didn't care about closed source drivers I would be on Windows (and for gaming, where the games are usually closed-source, I still do).

For you - maybe, but others may have another reasons. I bet most have another reasons, considering poor adoption of all distros from FSF's list (http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html)

This isn't the current situation, nor the situation for like the last decade. AMD has a blob driver too and it has full-time developers, first on that and then on the opensource driver.

Well, there can be two explanation. First is that AMD didn't care about their Linux driver and that is why they have published specs and that is why their fglrx driver wasn't good. Second is that AMD was trying hard for 10 years to make fglrx better, but they are just idiots who can't do anything. I think correct answer is No 1.

I'd also like to question the statement "almost as good windows driver". Performance-wise ok, stability and quirks are not anywhere near. Dual graphics on laptops? meeeeh.

Do you remember who is promoting GLVND?

RedHat cannot just tell its customers that they can't use their RHEL OS properly with NVIDIA GPUs because they won't support the closed API, so no it is not their fault, it's NVIDIA using their position to force others to comply.

By "proprietary solution" I've meant GBM. This is Mesa-only solution, designed specifically for Mesa.