GNOME Mutter 46.1 Brings Explicit Sync, Better NVIDIA Hybrid GPU Acceleration

[skeevy420]

COSMIC will stay as niche as the System76 boutique computers it’s installed on.

I brought up COSMIC

[Jumbotron]

Most people say GNOME is bad because it's fundamentally different than other popular desktop interfaces. GNOME offers a way to fix that with plugins but plugins don't work from version to version and they change versions every six months. To me, that breakage every six months is what makes GNOME bad.

If GNOME split into GNOME-Next and GNOME-LTS it'd solve a lot of problems. GNOME-Next could be a lot more fluid and prone to breakage (like API changes) with the current six month cycle while the point of GNOME-LTS would literally be for bug and security fixes so people have a long term stable desktop for two to four years.

If they do it right, System76's Cosmic could become GNOME-LTS in spirit.

But Gnome is NOT fundamentally different from other popular DEs. You’d be amazed at the similarities to ChromeOS DE. There are the obvious nods to MacOS. If it were FUNDAMENTALLY different then all my family members who have either Chromebook’s or Mac’s or both would not have found it so easy to transition to Gnome on my Linux computers or ones I set up for them. Now coming from Windows 7 or 8 or 10, even 11. Sure Gnome is different. But that’s because Windows is now and has been fundamentally different from all the rest.

[skeevy420]

But Gnome is NOT fundamentally different from other popular DEs. You’d be amazed at the similarities to ChromeOS DE. There are the obvious nods to MacOS. If it were FUNDAMENTALLY different then all my family members who have either Chromebook’s or Mac’s or both would not have found it so easy to transition to Gnome on my Linux computers or ones I set up for them. Now coming from Windows 7 or 8 or 10, even 11. Sure Gnome is different. But that’s because Windows is now and has been fundamentally different from all the rest.

I know. Practically any time I've mentioned those nods some of the people who have drunk too much GNOME-AID chime in about how GNOME is different than them.

Anyways, with how I prefer to use a computer, GNOME is limited in functionality. All that functionality can be added to GNOME with plugins but those plugins break too often for me to want to stick with GNOME. I don't know how to fix that other than to use a distribution like Ubuntu that doesn't update GNOME, for GNOME to adopt a plugin API, or for GNOME to have a different release cycle.

The first option isn't the greatest option and feels like karma for being a ZFS user that says "Pick a distribution that better supports ZFS " and the other two are entirely on the GNOME devs to do something about.

[ffs_]

Sounds great. BRING IT.

[MorrisS.]

But there's no support for explicit sync in any released nvidia driver yet?

555 proprietary drivers and 24.1 mesa drivers should support expicit sync

[Rauros]

If your GPU is AMD, I would try the workaround here and see if that fixes your problem.

Thank you but I think I found the culprit: deleting xdg-desktop-portal-gnome from the system. I was removing it because its file chooser implentation has massive vram+ram leaks for years now. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/xdg-d...e/-/issues/118
Solution is keep using the gnome portal for everyting but using gtk portal for file chooser. Which seems possible to do with recent portal version. More info for people interested in this: https://man.archlinux.org/man/portals.conf.5

[dylanmtaylor]

555 proprietary drivers and 24.1 mesa drivers should support expicit sync

Don't forget XWayland 24.1 as well.

[browseria]

Thank you but I think I found the culprit: deleting xdg-desktop-portal-gnome from the system. I was removing it because its file chooser implentation has massive vram+ram leaks for years now. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/xdg-d...e/-/issues/118
Solution is keep using the gnome portal for everyting but using gtk portal for file chooser. Which seems possible to do with recent portal version. More info for people interested in this: https://man.archlinux.org/man/portals.conf.5

Thanks for posting this. I had a low memory system that would start acting squirrely after a few days of uptime, but I never tracked down what the issue was. Turns out, this was it!

[caligula]

If your GPU is AMD, I would try the workaround here and see if that fixes your problem.

Um that seems to turn of the DC drivers, right? It would only work with old GPUs from AMD. More recent ones like Navi don't have non-dc drivers at all in the kernel.

[max0x7ba]

you forgot to say "follow me for other tech insight"

The fundamental problem with GNOME is that its customers are its corporate sponsors, rather than users.
Since negative feedback from users doesn't affect GNOME profits, but implementing user requests results in extra costs, it only makes perfect economic sense for GNOME to dismiss user requests as cheaply as possible.

The dismissive totalitarian attitude and contempt for its users GNOME developers have demonstrated for over a decade now is a text-book example of how broken feedback loop and wrong incentives lead to an expensive undesirable product of poor quality.

USSR collapsed because of exactly this totalitarism, broken feedback loop and wrong incentives. But CCP, North Korea and GNOME still stand.

GNOME actively opposes and is incompatible with freedom, liberty, meritocracy and choice - everything open-source movement and GPL stand for. GNOME wrapping itself into GPL license is an epitome of hypocrisy.

The wind is changing though and there are deservedly much better candidates for default Linux destop now. I hope GNOME developers will be able to adapt to market economy and learn how to make desirable products when change happens overnight.

Maxim. A proud EFF member.