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

[spykes]

If even Google with their resources can't spend the time to improve video acceleration, then who will ?
How are they doing on ChromeOS ?!

[birdie]

If you really feel that way, do us a favor and find the nearest exit, and you and johnc can hold hands on the way out. Quit trolling and derailing threads.

So you do admit that Linux is perfect and all the issues in it are made up? Nice to know.

You see, proprietary OSes feature this thing called stable APIs. Once APIs are created, they are supported and things work for ages. Also, the said APIs work across all applications with very little programming and no workarounds. With Linux we have competing APIs, different versions of APIs, APIs being deprecated, APIs working here but not working there. Stable APIs are basically a swear word in Linux. And unfortunately for you it's not me who circumvents them all the time - it's the Linux developers. But of course, I'm trolling and derailing threads. Right!

Speaking of this particular news. Adobe tried to enable hardware video decoding acceleration in Adobe Flash around five years ago and the damn thing is still not working perfectly across all GPUs and GPU vendors. Of course, it's NVIDIA's fault, or someone else's fault. Linux is perfect.

[ms178]

Guys, get more pragmatic. There is nothing to get religious about. This topic is - as others pointed out as well - about the developers who care more about their own workload than on the user experience. I think an error in judgment is neither specific to open source software nor the software industry in general. The reactions on the bug fix are quite telling, people are upset about this decision. So instead of fighting here about who is trolling whom, let us get the attention of someone higher up at Google to make sure that the voice of the people is being heard to make them reconsider this decision.

[chithanh]

There are pieces of shit everywhere and you enjoy being the leader of the shit movement.

All you do in this thread is shitposting. Not a single contribution of value in your entire post history. Instead of listing actual problems which are found in bugtrackers etc. related to the Chrome decision, you spew unrelated irrational nonsense.

Speaking of this particular news. Adobe tried to enable hardware video decoding acceleration in Adobe Flash around five years ago and the damn thing is still not working perfectly across all GPUs and GPU vendors. Of course, it's NVIDIA's fault, or someone else's fault. Linux is perfect.

Another example of your uninformed shitposting. If you had actually bothered to follow the Adobe Flash VDPAU issue, then you would have known that the color swap was a bug in Flash. But Adobe would not fix it so it had to be worked around in libvdpau. But no, actually posting correct information goes against your pre-conceived notion that something must be wrong on "Linux" (for whatever definition you use for "Linux") side.

[chithanh]

Once again, nobody in the Linux community cares about the end-user experience.

The Chrome developers certainly do.
If videos work unaccelerated 100% of the time, but more CPU is used than necessary then the experience is degraded somewhat but not enough to seriously bother most people. And those who are bothered enough can research how to enable it.
If videos work accelerated 95% of the time, but 5% of the time some catastrophic failure such as GPU lockup, wrong colors or distorted picture appears, then the user experience is arguably worse.

[DanL]

So you do admit that Linux is perfect and all the issues in it are made up?

How did you get that out of what I said? (That's a rhetorical question. We know the answer is wishful reading comprehension.)

You see, proprietary OSes feature this thing called stable APIs. blah blah blah

If they're so great, then go use an OS that uses them and leave us alone.

But of course, I'm trolling and derailing threads.

Yeah, that's the first thing you've gotten right in this thread.

[Jabberwocky]

Once again, nobody in the Linux community cares about the end-user experience.

In this thread alone one can observe that part of the community cares enough to complain (and or troll), albeit only a few of us that care enough to dedicate expertise or finances to solve big problems. I doubt crowdfunding is a viable option for this particular issue. As for the typical end-user problems, a good attitude is a far greater requirement than knowledge or skill in the Linux community.

GNU/Linux is not perfect, although at many stages and in a few criteria it has been easier for the end-user to use when compared to massive changes in Windows UX and driver support over the years. If a person with good IT knowledge choose hardware and configured GNU/Linux (in my experience) it was a better solution especially for the technologically impaired end-user. It required significantly less maintenance than the Windows counterparts where things magically stopped working overnight. Compared to Windows the only massive problem I have had in the past 20 years was Flash-support and OpenSSL bugs. Neither of which is a problem today. MacOS on the other hand has a good record with the end-user especially with those who are not technologically impaired, however it is not perfect either: Overpriced, under-performs, restrictive, anti-consumer policies which are masqueraded as advantages, etc. If I disregarded the cons, had not been working as a software developer, nor cared about supporting vendor lock-in then I would have probably stayed with MBP/MacOS. The years I used MacOS was great. In corporate business you gained loads of rep. just by opening your MBP. You could stuff up presentations and people would still be impressed , with the polished UX and great third-party software support in the end it still was not worth it for me. If you value innovation, liberty and privacy then GNU/Linux is the best hands down.

Back on topic, I agree with the default behavior. If something isn't stable or tested properly then users or distributions should just opt-in. I also agree with the chicken or the egg situation that was mentioned by andreano

[duby229]

It supports VA-API with a VDPAU backend with the old wrapper from Splitted Desktop. I'm not aware of any VA-API -> NVDEC method. Do you have a link?

Yeah you're right. oh well, there goes that. Seems like their website just recommends to use ffmpeg or libav. That kinda sucks.

[duby229]

Yep. But Windows can go into Startup Repair and "fix itself". Although OSTree/Atomic Updates will help here, Linux drops you at a shell.

Yes, people can fix that if you know what you're doing, but someone who's a complete novice at computing won't know what to do, and telling them to open up a Terminal will loose them.

Except that startup repair itself rarely works, and indeed can ruin startup. The fact is that even Windows startup breaks and when that happens you are going to need a Linux shell to fix it. Dropping to a shell is exactly the righ thing to do. If you don't know what to do with one, the right desicion is to take it at that point to a repair man.

[wizard69]

I do a install of Kubuntu 18.04 and have a full supported system, fully updated and without any hacks, in less than 30 minutes. I don't remember that happening on Windows.

The experience is a bit different on bleeding edge hardware. However once support gelled on my laptop it literally ran far better than Windows 10. Windows 10 is flakey as hell.

I also can do a list of things that, as a Linux user, pisses me off to no end when I have to use Windows, so I don't.

I would like to see Linux get to the level of MacOS as far as being trouble free and versatile. Usability wise though Linux is light years ahead of Windows.
[quote]
And as my ass don't print money, I keep my distance from Apple products.
[Quote]
Maybe a bigger ass would help😴😴🤣. On a serious note I’m still an Apple user but have seriously cut back on hardware. The value isn’t there in the Mac hardware line up anymore.

If your experience on Linux is bad, don't assume everybody else to be the same.

Exactly! I find Linux to be a good alternative to Mac hardware. Sadly there is no real alternative to iPhone at the moment. Google and Android just leaves mefeeling violated.