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Plymouth Planned For Ubuntu 9.10 Integration

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  • DanL
    replied
    And who do we want to make Linux popular to?
    Don't assume that everyone wants to grow Linux badly enough to the point where more developer effort is spent on "eye-candy" than on real functionality. Linux is currently popular enough where even stubborn companies (e.g. Creative) have to take notice of it if they don't want their support sites bombarded with angry Linux users/customers.

    Pandering to n00bs is okay to some extent, if the n00bs are willing to learn, but growing the user base too fast can lead to problems, especially with an OS that has relied on experienced volunteers supporting the new users (for the most part). For example, look at the Ubuntu user forums. The ratio of the helpers to the helpless is ridiculous (I've contributed to the forums since the Feisty days).

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  • elanthis
    replied
    Originally posted by deanjo View Post
    Also while cards may not always work with alpha's and beta's of the consumer releases of a distro I can't remember a time where nvidia has not had support ready for the final release.
    Every single Ubuntu and Fedora release that includes a new X.org has had this problem save the last, and that's only because NVIDIA put out a beta driver for them. You can search both the Ubuntu and Fedora forums for older releases that had incompatible X.org updates, and you'll see many a thread about "the NVIDIA driver doesn't work!!!?!!~~!111!!~"

    I've been using both distros since their inceptions (and used Debian and Red Hat for years before they existed), and until recently I was a loyal NVIDIA customer. I've felt the pain many, many times.

    Those updates usually had quick fixes -- a beta driver at least would be published within a week or three that includes the updated DDX ABI or kernel glue code. Now, however, we're apparently approaching a point where the new interfaces are GPL-only. Things are going to get worse for binary driver users, not better.

    If you're an NVIDIA user, now is a great time to help the Nouveau folks out any way you can.

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  • Vadi
    replied
    Haven't seen a broken nvidia driver in ubuntu, sorry.

    Then again I'm on it only since 7.04.

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  • deanjo
    replied
    Originally posted by elanthis View Post
    Nonsense. Both Fedora and Ubuntu very regularly make releases that completely fail to support the NVIDIA driver for weeks (months, a few times), and it is absolutely NOT the fault of the distro. If X changes its driver ABI or the kernel makes an API change, neither of those distros hold back updates waiting for NVIDIA. They release, and NVIDIA users sit with their thumbs up their rear ends waiting for NVIDIA to update their driver. Same with ATI's fglrx. Most other distros do the same.

    Neither Fedora nor Ubuntu (nor most other popular distros) target users who need their high-end Quadro/FireGL/whatever cards to work, and Linux as a whole does not target gamers. Again, doesn't matter if you agree or not with the decisions, those are the facts.

    The only way that is EVER going to change is if NVIDIA, ATI, and Intel start releasing top-notch Open Source drivers or if the Linux graphics stack comes to an absolute stand-still.
    Well first of all people that use the high end cards for professional use, do not generally use cutting edge distro releases. They tend to go with long term support releases which are tested heavily for use with the blobs. Also while cards may not always work with alpha's and beta's of the consumer releases of a distro I can't remember a time where nvidia has not had support ready for the final release.

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  • elanthis
    replied
    Originally posted by Vadi View Post
    I seriously doubt any worthy distro would drop support for whatever technologies nvidia needs.

    Some people actually do use high-end hardware under linux. surprise, surprise.
    Nonsense. Both Fedora and Ubuntu very regularly make releases that completely fail to support the NVIDIA driver for weeks (months, a few times), and it is absolutely NOT the fault of the distro. If X changes its driver ABI or the kernel makes an API change, neither of those distros hold back updates waiting for NVIDIA. They release, and NVIDIA users sit with their thumbs up their rear ends waiting for NVIDIA to update their driver. Same with ATI's fglrx. Most other distros do the same.

    Neither Fedora nor Ubuntu (nor most other popular distros) target users who need their high-end Quadro/FireGL/whatever cards to work, and Linux as a whole does not target gamers. Again, doesn't matter if you agree or not with the decisions, those are the facts.

    The only way that is EVER going to change is if NVIDIA, ATI, and Intel start releasing top-notch Open Source drivers or if the Linux graphics stack comes to an absolute stand-still.

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  • Vadi
    replied
    I seriously doubt any worthy distro would drop support for whatever technologies nvidia needs.

    Some people actually do use high-end hardware under linux. surprise, surprise.

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  • elanthis
    replied
    Originally posted by maleadt View Post
    Can they? I just read:
    Well, sucks to be stuck with the NVIDIA driver then, I guess. :/

    Hopefully either Nouveau is finally up to snuff by then or NVIDIA sees the light. Between Intel, AMD, and Via, pretty much every other common graphics hardware either already has or soon will have fully Open Source drivers.

    Nobody working on the graphics stack gives a damn about NVIDIA's driver. Quite a few of the folks involved actively want NVIDIA's driver (as well as ATI's binary driver) to drop dead. That's the facts, whether or not you agree with the sentiments.

    I personally don't blame them. If we worry about what NVIDIA's driver supports, then that means that we are permanently stuck with whatever developments NVIDIA feels like putting money in to and nothing more. That's not even remotely a good place to be. (Freely replace "NVIDIA" in this paragraph with "any big corporation".)

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  • Peter_Cordes
    replied
    Originally posted by phoronix View Post
    Phoronix: Plymouth Planned For Ubuntu 9.10 Integration

    Late last month we shared that Plymouth may replace USplash in Ubuntu and that this matter was to be discussed further at the Jaunty UDS.

    http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjkzNQ
    If you don't like your screen flickering when you boot, just remove "quiet" and "splash" from the kopt line in /boot/grub/menu.lst, and run update-grub to re-generate the menu entries. Then you'll boot in text mode without any graphical messing around (until X starts, if you have that happen by default).

    The only good idea I've seen here was using Plymouth as a way to display the boot messages more nicely. If there was a big progress bar overlaid on them, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

    BTW, if you don't know what all your boot messages are about, then maybe that's because modern GNU/Linux starts so much stuff at bootup that it's harder to get started reading up on what does what on your system. In the old days, before initramfs, before devfs, before network-manager, things were simpler. When I started using GNU/Linux (> 10 years ago), there weren't so many messages, and I was fascinated by how the system worked, so I read most of them. Pretty soon I understood what they all were. As new versions of distros introduced new messages, I only had a few new messages to find out about by looking in /etc/init.d or kernel docs to see what made them.... So the boot messages make a pretty good progress bar for me, since I know what happens when my system boots. I've often seen warnings or problems in my boot messages (and I sometimes remember to fix whatever it was in /etc by the time I get to a shell... other boot messages distract me.)

    Ok, if you just want to use GNU/Linux, you don't have to read/understand your boot messages. But if you want to be able to fix problems, it _really_ helps to know how your system works. I'm strongly opposed to the trend of hiding boot messages, and stuff like that. Showing the messages seems like a good way for potential new hackers to see that there is a whole layer of Unix waiting under that shiny desktop to catch their interest.

    So I'm in favour of text boot messages overlayed with a progress bar as the default setup for Ubuntu. (and other distros, if they currently default to something worse like Ubuntu's current usplash progress bar).
    Last edited by Peter_Cordes; 17 December 2008, 04:25 PM.

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  • maleadt
    replied
    Originally posted by elanthis View Post
    I'd assume that if Plymouth and Wayland and the like take off, NVIDIA will end up making the necessary adjustments to their driver to use the KMS interface as well as any other interfaces necessary.
    Can they? I just read:
    The last time I talked to the developers working on it, they told me that the hooks necessary to implement kernel modesetting were exported to GPL modules only, and therefore are not usable by the NVIDIA driver.

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  • val-gaav
    replied
    Originally posted by elanthis View Post
    I'd assume that if Plymouth and Wayland and the like take off, NVIDIA will end up making the necessary adjustments to their driver to use the KMS interface as well as any other interfaces necessary.
    AFAIK they would have to open source their driver to support KMS

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