A Look At Why Linux Graphics Drivers Have Issues

[Gusar]

Hmm I'lll try and test it on 3.2 and possibly 3.3. There might actually be some devide with some 8xx being supported. Though I'm fairly sure it was droped from Xorg, so accelleraion (2D) might be limited.

The only thing that was dropped is DRI1 drivers from mesa, which are for 3D. But that doesn't affect 8xx, because it's supported by the DRI2 i915 driver. And even if it wasn't, you can compile DRI1 drivers from mesa-7.11 source and they'll work with mesa-8.x too, because the libgl interface is stable.

Nothing was dropped from X. 2D accel is provided by UXA or SNA. And like I said, SNA explicitly supports 8xx. But it's not default yet, so make extra sure your xf86-video-intel is compiled with it. And use the latest version of course, which is 2.19

Edit: When I talk about 8xx above, I mean Gen2 hardware. I mention this because there's also i810, which is Gen1.

[AJenbo]

Hmm I'lll try and test it on 3.2 and possibly 3.3. There might actually be some devide with some 8xx being supported. Though I'm fairly sure it was droped from Xorg, so accelleraion (2D) might be limited.

[Gusar]

Posibly also that 8xx is now unsupported.

It's still supported, actually. There are some fixes going into kernel 3.4 and SNA explicitly supports 8xx hardware. I know that for a while 8xx was only usable with shadowfb, but it's possible this has changed now. Though I don't have the hardware to actually test.

[AJenbo]

Posibly also that 8xx is now unsupported.

[liam]

Intel is the most bugged, but I already knew it

They are, of course, also the most used graphics by a big margin.
Maybe there is a pattern here...

The only problem I can recall having is that I've never been able to get video acceleration to work. Neither with Ironlake or SNB.

[Schugy]

Some 3D works in Kubuntu 12.04 but isn't accelerated. x1250 + xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.14.99~git20111219.aacbd629-0ubuntu2

[pmorph]

I would just say, it's mostly used.

One thing I noticed: If you don't want to use MS Windows, stay away from Nvidia hardware...

I would just say, it's mostly used.

[lakerssuperman]

I have traditionally used the closed drivers on both my NVIDIA and AMD hardware. Recently, I have started using the open source drivers on my laptops, as I don't have Windows on those devices, nor do I play games on them at all. Overall, but certainly with the AMD hardware, I get better desktop performance, especially in Gnome Shell. The FGRLX driver has horrible 2d performance when using Tear Free Desktop (not so with the radeon driver) and my other laptop, with a Geforce 210m, also has a few issues that are resolved when the nouveau driver.

The driver situation isn't perfect. I would love some level of video decode assist to use on my AMD E-350 powered device. Hopefully we soon get fully functional VDPAU support for everything up to h264 video, even if it uses shaders and not the decode block.

[Vanir]

I am taking bug ..

with the confusion between an issue and a bug.

I have some (lots?) issue with some bug free software.

Regards,

Pendatic software engineer
ie
AKA as a PITA to managers

[pingufunkybeat]

Nvidia drivers have been great (though obviously not perfect) for years. Much better than the laggy, buggy and multiply-confusing AMD drivers.

Anyone who wants good 3D performance in Linux knows to use the nvidia binary driver. Anyone who wants GPU-assisted video playback knows to use the nvidia binary driver and the vdpau library.

Well, you're not really running Linux, are you? Crucial parts of the kernel are bypassed and replaced by a huge blob that's much bigger than the rest of the kernel combined. You're running a strange hybrid, with some Linux parts in it. The linux kernel provides 3d functionality and GPU drivers, and you are replacing them with a binary something.

Why is it Linux? Because of the filesystem layout? Or ext4?

You can run Nvidia drivers, firefox, libreoffice, gimp, cygwin and KDE on a Windows machine and you'd have something similar.

When I was starting with Linux, you had to run binary Netscape, binary WordPerfect or binary StarOffice... Now these things are open, and things are much better. Injecting binary stuff into the kernel before you're allowed to use your computer is a step backward. Intel is leading the way, AMD is getting their act together.

If you want to use Linux, there are manufacturers who will support Linux with code, documentation, and programmers. For people who want to run binary apps on a binary kernel, there is Cygwin, which does exactly what you need.