Google Still Doesn't Trust Linux GPU Drivers Enough To Enable Chrome Video Acceleration

[schmidtbag]

Here's what I don't understand:
Surely, some GPU acceleration is better than none, right? Since both AMD and Intel support VA-API and since both brands have low-end hardware that could really use GPU acceleration, to me, it would make sense for Google to, at the very least, support these users. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Nvidia is notorious for only doing things their way, so nobody [reasonable] would blame Google if Nvidia was the outlier.
I also find the stability excuse questionable. To my understanding VA-API isn't known to crash. It may have rendering issues at times, but it's never caused problems for me. So surely it shouldn't take that much effort for them to get stability working. Besides, VA-API is open source - they can always "force" it to work for their needs.
Also, why not VDPAU? To my recollection, AMD and Nvidia support that.

[dungeon]

Here's what I don't understand:
Surely, some GPU acceleration is better than none, right? Since both AMD and Intel support VA-API and since both brands have low-end hardware that could really use GPU acceleration, to me, it would make sense for Google to, at the very least, support these users. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Nvidia is notorious for only doing things their way, so nobody [reasonable] would blame Google if Nvidia was the outlier.
I also find the stability excuse questionable. To my understanding VA-API isn't known to crash. It may have rendering issues at times, but it's never caused problems for me. So surely it shouldn't take that much effort for them to get stability working. Besides, VA-API is open source - they can always "force" it to work for their needs.
Also, why not VDPAU? To my recollection, AMD and Nvidia support that.

It needs to be all or nothing, because Chrome supports 64bit Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora/openSUSE distros

On all of these it needs to work and not to be buggy, which is kind of mission impossible because of always various states of GPU drivers in these If all these distros have the same drivers per GPU vendor, enabling this wouldn't be so much an issue.

And for all these distros to be enabled is much much harder, than just one OS support like just Windows or just ChromeOS Everything is easier when you have one clean target.

And on about rendering issues at times, which is not a problem for you... i can't comment, ha, ha

[duby229]

Video HW acceleration works just fine on AMD/Intel? Using which API? Using which version of this API?

There's no need to be retarded when you can just accept that video HW acceleration in Linux is a fucking mess.

Why would any anybody want to except a flat out lie?

[macemoneta]

I've been setting the 'chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blacklist' flag for years. It never caused me a problem. Previously I used AMD GPUs with the open source driver, and now I use an Intel Chromebook. I haven't encountered a bug related to enabling the flag, yet. While I'm sure there are problematic configurations, I think that many people could enable the flag - which would provide Google with the the information on stability. Having it disabled is a data vacuum, and shouldn't be the basis for making a decision.

[duby229]

It needs to be all or nothing, because Chrome supports 64bit Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora/openSUSE distros

On all of these it needs to work and not to be buggy, which is kind of mission impossible because of always various states of GPU drivers in these If all these distros have the same drivers per GPU vendor, enabling this wouldn't be so much an issue.

And for all these distros to be enabled is much much harder, than just one OS support like just Windows or just ChromeOS Everything is easier when you have one clean target.

The -do- all support the same driver interfaces, they all support va-api, they all support vdpau too.... They all have for many years now.....

[skeevy420]

Installing/updating software on desktop linux (apt, dnf etc) was horrible until Flatpak/Snap came along or you used AppImage.

I can't install X program because it requires a version of Y that installing said version will break Z which turns out to be important for the system.

The last time I had an issue like that, like 6 or 7 years ago, was because I dicked with too many USE flags playing with Funtoo. Before that, I assume it was related to dist-upgrades since it almost always happened around dist-upgrade time, and was usually be related to PPAs, non-standard repositories, etc. PPAs and dist-upgrades are why I use Arch/Antergos -- no need to rely on 3rd party maintainers for repositories and I don't have to risk breaks every 6 months or run an LTS version that gets stale and outdated in the software department over time...until I risk a dist-upgrade a year or two later.

I realized I was giving myself problems trying to keep Debian or Ubuntu very up to date for Steam gaming + AMDGPU and that Arch Linux had all the software versions in their repositories that I was running 3rd party repos on other distros to use. After a ZFS mishap two or three years ago I installed Antergos and I've been running that since with no issues at all.

If you want an easy to use Linux distribution that just works, give Antergos a try. It's nice being able to read about X feature coming out soon on Phoronix and getting that in your updates within a week or two.

[lu_tze]

It needs to be all or nothing, because Chrome supports 64bit Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora/openSUSE distros

On all of these it needs to work and not to be buggy, which is kind of mission impossible because of always various states of GPU drivers in these If all these distros have the same drivers per GPU vendor, enabling this wouldn't be so much an issue.

And for all these distros to be enabled is much much harder, than just one OS support like just Windows or just ChromeOS Everything is easier when you have one clean target.

And on about rendering issues at times, which is not a problem for you... i can't comment, ha, ha

There are exactly three GPU drivers for desktop Linux available:

- mesa
- nvidia proprietary
- amdgpu-pro proprietary

Distributions obviously ship only the first one (mesa). Users can install the second and third one. No, each distribution doesn't develop their own drivers; they all use the same one, just like with the Linux kernel or glibc or other system components.

Both mesa and amdgpu-pro support VA-API. Nvidia doesn't, but if browsers did support VA-API, Nvidia would be motivated to support it too. The absolute bulk of machines (not only running Linux, but also Windows) use the Intel GPU, so even that would be a huge win.

(Sidenote: VDPAU is dead. Not even Nvidia does support it on their newer GPUs. No need to even mention it for new development. Just support VA-API and that's it).

[skeevy420]

Here's what I don't understand:
Surely, some GPU acceleration is better than none, right? Since both AMD and Intel support VA-API and since both brands have low-end hardware that could really use GPU acceleration, to me, it would make sense for Google to, at the very least, support these users. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Nvidia is notorious for only doing things their way, so nobody [reasonable] would blame Google if Nvidia was the outlier.
I also find the stability excuse questionable. To my understanding VA-API isn't known to crash. It may have rendering issues at times, but it's never caused problems for me. So surely it shouldn't take that much effort for them to get stability working. Besides, VA-API is open source - they can always "force" it to work for their needs.
Also, why not VDPAU? To my recollection, AMD and Nvidia support that.

Well, remember what happened when a certain KDE dev said "fuck Nvidia" in regards to GPU features with KWin and all the backlash that caused? How some defended Nvidia? That's probably why.

[duby229]

There are exactly three GPU drivers for desktop Linux available:

- mesa
- nvidia proprietary
- amdgpu-pro proprietary

Distributions obviously ship only the first one (mesa). Users can install the second and third one. No, each distribution doesn't develop their own drivers; they all use the same one, just like with the Linux kernel or glibc or other system components.

Both mesa and amdgpu-pro support VA-API. Nvidia doesn't, but if browsers did support VA-API, Nvidia would be motivated to support it too. The absolute bulk of machines (not only running Linux, but also Windows) use the Intel GPU, so even that would be a huge win.

(Sidenote: VDPAU is dead. Not even Nvidia does support it on their newer GPUs. No need to even mention it for new development. Just support VA-API and that's it).

That's all true except that even nVidia's proprietary driver supports va-api through a translation.

EDIT: Seems I am wrong about that. nVidia correctly doesn't have a translation, sorry about that.

[Sonadow]

You're mistaken. If you buy a GNU/Linux system from a vendor (Dell, System76 etc), then it will work beautifully, out-of-the-box. All hardware will function. No hacks necessary.

The above is the fair way to compare GNU/Linux to Windows and Mac. Windows and Mac users will typically buy a pre-made system and thus everything will just work.

What you're probably thinking of is GNU/Linux users that choose to build their own system or get GNU/Linux working on hardware X. Sure they will have some issues: they're effectively creating their own DIY product. This is a pro of GNU/Linux not a con. Technical users are empowered to get things working. They are often successful and enjoy the process.
.

Millions of Windows users all over the world build their own DIY PC from off-the-shelf component and successfully get a perfectly working system installed within two hours maximum. With perfect up-to-date drivers that enable full power management and unlocks the full capabilities of the hardware they paid money for.

Unlike Linux. Look at the shitfest when Ryzen was released. Windows users had 0 problems on launch day; Linux users had to put up with black screens and kernels panicking on boot.

It was only horrible/difficult if the user did the DIY thing and started trying to install stuff from outside of the distro-provided repos. This is equivalent to users getting GNU/Linux working on random hardware instead of buying proper known-working hardware. It's a techy/geeky thing.

Windows users do that everyday and the OS doesn't shit on them for doing so. Install a package from elsewhere in Linux and there's a risk that the distribution won't even boot anymore after a reboot.

Software applications like web browsers can auto-update on the fly in Windows; even today, Google and Mozilla can't even turn on the auto-updating features of their software in Linux by default because Linux's userland is so damn monolithic and glued together with stupid dependencies that result in the application suddenly failing to launch after an update.