Cleaning Up The Linux Graphics Driver Stack

[libv]

Strange that, I'm pretty sure openChrome fixed a couple of fairly nasty bugs which hit the HP Mini 2133. I could be wrong, but my little netbook is working much nicer for the fixes. However, I was clearly mistaken, as there is no active development going on there.

Peter Stuge from coreboot figured that one out, and he and i worked through the details. Quick and dirty fix went into openchrome.

Also, isn't OLPC using a VIA graphics chip? Not that it counts, no one cares about OLPC anymore...

It is, but not much code from that is flowing back. And it's been a while since there was any buzz there. Turns out, olpc is mostly using fb.

This sounds a little strange given that Bruker specifically list RHEL as the only supported Linux distro for their Topspin Software. No mention of SUSE, nor Ubuntu. Varians MestRecNova software also only seems to mention RHEL as a supported Linux distro. Now I will freely conceded these are both A) specialized apps, and B) expensive, but they are also the only two apps worth mentioning in their field, so strange they bother supporting a distro that doesn't do desktops.

It seems to me that Red Hat aren't very interested in pushing Linux desktops for home users, which isn't very surprising as their is no money there. Let us note which distro needed to do major layoffs...

Ok, that's only one application, but it's the only field I really have the experience to point at that clearly and say "See, RH, no one else".

Still, try looking at the redhat website at their desktop offering. Notice the almost complete lack of verbosity and features there. This while there are a lot of developers "playing around" on the linux desktop, at redhat, making for very good marketing.

[RobbieAB]

Peter Stuge from coreboot figured that one out, and he and i worked through the details. Quick and dirty fix went into openchrome.

That one? Which one are you referring to? Because from my experience there were at least 3, and probably 5.

It is, but not much code from that is flowing back. And it's been a while since there was any buzz there. Turns out, olpc is mostly using fb.

It's still VIA hardware in recent machines, but as you say, no one cares about it, and it would spoil your claim that no one cares about VIA hardware if they did. The fact it uses FB mostly still doesn't stop it being VIA hardware people care about.

Still, try looking at the redhat website at their desktop offering. Notice the almost complete lack of verbosity and features there. This while there are a lot of developers "playing around" on the linux desktop, at redhat, making for very good marketing.

Why are Red Hat going to waste time advertising a product that is, essentially, not theirs. Almost no one "buys" a desktop OS anymore, the Linux crowd all use whatever their chosen flavor of poison is, and the Windows and Mac crowd don't separate the OS cost from the computer itself.

The applications I listed are both derived from old Unix workstation apps, which are going to mostly be sold on nice workstations shipping with 6 figure instruments. So Red Hat are not selling their desktop offering to the end-user, they are selling it to Bruker and Varian, and strangely enough, pretty websites are not going to make that much difference.

Fedora, on the other hand, is NOT RHEL, though they may share developers.

Again, I repeat my comment, WHICH distro had to lay of it's developers? Something tells me Red Hat are getting it right, and I can't help but suspect that ignoring the consumer desktop in RHEL is one of the things making a big difference.

[libv]

That one? Which one are you referring to? Because from my experience there were at least 3, and probably 5.

The one which had the wireless die and stuff.

Fedora, on the other hand, is NOT RHEL, though they may share developers.

Again, I repeat my comment, WHICH distro had to lay of it's developers? Something tells me Red Hat are getting it right, and I can't help but suspect that ignoring the consumer desktop in RHEL is one of the things making a big difference.

Do you really need me to repeat mine about novell being a bank? SuSE is no longer making a loss now that some big spenders have been shed. Sadly a lot of clued people had to be thrown out first due to corporate governance idiocy.

[RobbieAB]

The one which had the wireless die and stuff.

So not the cursor bug, nor the mis-detection of the screen, nor the hardlock, nor the console corruption...

At this point, openChrome is stable, so even if some of these bugs were related, that is still several bugs fixed. So yeah, I agree, not much development there.

[libv]

So not the cursor bug, nor the mis-detection of the screen, nor the hardlock, nor the console corruption...

The cursor bug was solved through HwCursor = FALSE, like most things.

The mis-detection of the screen is a very basic modesetting issue, due to the fact that there have been at least three different LCD modules shipped with this device.

And i believe that the hardlock and the console corruption issues were related to the pci-express bus being partially disabled.

At this point, openChrome is stable, so even if some of these bugs were related, that is still several bugs fixed. So yeah, I agree, not much development there.

The only guy who does anything at openchrome is Bartosz (gang65). Everyone else is talking big but not doing anything.

Now, the level of activity at openchrome is so low that it can be considered just as dead as unichrome (which sees more development still when i get round to it).

[runeks]

This by far has been the most heated talk at [email protected] in recent years... Video coming soon as a 3GB HD video upload goes through...

So what's the progress on this video being made public?

Too hot for TV or what?

Anyone getting drop kicked through a window?

I am very curious. It sounds to me like a real issue, this lack of being able to update display drivers in Linux, without affecting the whole system. I'd like to learn more about it.

[libv]

So what's the progress on this video being made public?

Too hot for TV or what?

Anyone getting drop kicked through a window?

I am very curious. It sounds to me like a real issue, this lack of being able to update display drivers in Linux, without affecting the whole system. I'd like to learn more about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hF9BwsgmU

[runeks]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hF9BwsgmU

Yay! Thanks a lot!