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Why Firefox On Linux Is Not Accelerated

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  • Why Firefox On Linux Is Not Accelerated



    bz on WebGL on Linux:
    We tried enabling OpenGL on Linux, and discovered that most Linux drivers are so disastrously buggy (think ?crash the X server at the drop of a hat, and paint incorrectly the rest of the time? buggy) that we had to disable it for now. Heck, we?re even disabling WebGL for most Linux drivers, last I checked?

    If your drivers are decent (some of the closed-source ones can be, nouveau can be sometimes), you do get something akin to Direct2D on Linux through XRender, though. So while you don?t get compositing acceleration, you do get faster canvas drawing and the like. drawImage, for example, can be much faster on Linux than on Mac. But only if you manage to find a driver and X version that happens to not suck?

    We do plan to put more work into the Linux end of this, look for workarounds for the various bugs, etc. But we could really use some help from Xorg and distros and the like here?
    This is somewhat embarrassing for the Linux community. Anyone know anyone who can help?

  • #2
    it's things like that that make me sad

    its a problem linux needs to address

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    • #3
      Originally posted by 89c51 View Post
      it's things like that that make me sad

      its a problem linux needs to address
      Agreed. Now that should be a strong wakeup call to FOSS as well as the Linux proprietary drivers if Mozilla called them out on the quality of drivers. There needs to be a stable GPU interface in order for Firefox to take advantage of GPU acceleration within the browser.

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      • #4
        The 'stable GPU interface' is called OpenGL, and it does indeed exist.

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        • #5
          This basically mean: once we're provided with the solution.. we look into the problem.


          Google Chrome
          Opera


          both are taking the challenge to bring web hardware acceleration to Linux. The solution is simple: quit use firefox on windows/mac/linux. This is about be free (bring all the features you need on all the OS you want to use: Google Chrome or Opera)

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          • #6
            Originally posted by 89c51 View Post
            it's things like that that make me sad

            its a problem linux needs to address
            its a API and ABI issue. Its not essentially the drivers.

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            • #7
              You can reactivate it though right? was using it in the betas and was nothing like their description, using the nvidia blobs

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