KDE SC 4.7 May Utilize OpenGL 3.x For Compositing

[brent]

The question is, what's in store in OpenGL 3 that can be (ab)used for speeding up/improving a compositing window manager? As I see it, not much. It sounds a lot like "we use OpenGL 3 because 3 is a bigger number than 2".

[monraaf]

You're talking about Nvidia drivers, no need to beat around the bush.

No not really. I think KWin has or had problems with about every driver out there. Even with the o so praised NVidia blob. The common factor seems always to be KWin.

And these things are OK as long as there are reasonable fallbacks.

Sure. But the KDE user doesn't want fallbacks he wants his bling-bling. And if he doesn't get it he's going to start harassing driver developers, I've seen it before. I think the main problem is that the KDE folks think the world revolves around KDE, unfortunately for them it doesn't. This quote from the referred blog article illustrates this perfectly.

So this is an urge to the driver developers: please get your drivers ready for 4.6 ? we will stress them.

Seriously how many driver devs do they think are aware of the KDE release schedule, and how many are going to prioritize their work for KDE. These guys need a reality check.

[DanL]

The question is, what's in store in OpenGL 3 that can be (ab)used for speeding up/improving a compositing window manager? As I see it, not much. It sounds a lot like "we use OpenGL 3 because 3 is a bigger number than 2".

I'm no OpenGL expert, but I'm guessing that using Framebuffer objects will make life better

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framebuffer_Object

[MaestroMaus]

KDE just wants to push ahead. The simple fact is that we are currently at OpenGL 4.1, OK? OpenGL 3.0 was released July 11 2008. That's a little more than 2 years ago.

If KDE wasn't going to switch to OpenGL 3.0 (don't forget the 2.1 fallback?) then people would be "Ah who cares nobody needs OpenGL 3.x anyway".

Ugh! 2008? That long ago?

That hurts man...

*loses a little bit of faith in Linux there

[energyman]

There's a space for improvement. Compiz is much faster in some things right now. Btw. great article, good to see it's not a few liner only.

compiz is also a lot slower in some things right now. Like flash fullscreen.

[xeros]

No not really. I think KWin has or had problems with about every driver out there. Even with the o so praised NVidia blob. The common factor seems always to be KWin.

As I use NVidia blob at work and open source Radeon driver (r300c) at home I can say that Radeon drivers work perfectly with KDE 4.x (and from the time I've switched from FGLRX completely (few months before they've droped R300-R500 support) open source radeon driver always worked great) which can not be talked about NVidia binary blob.

[V!NCENT]

So KDE is antisocial towards developpers? Seriously, with all bashing aside, how technologically advanced is KDE? Now have a look at the other offerings. You might not like the artwork (like black shadows and blue light for indication window focus) but KDE seems the only team in the free software OS collaboration effort (combined with Linux) that actualy likes to push forward and stesses other departments and teams to do the same.

Stepping up, comitting, that kind of stuff. Maybe it's a not suited work ethic for pizza eating heavyweights, but eh...

[pingufunkybeat]

No not really. I think KWin has or had problems with about every driver out there. Even with the o so praised NVidia blob. The common factor seems always to be KWin.

Like the other poster here, this is the opposite of my experience. Nvidia drivers had lots of problems with KWin (I used Nvidia back then), while other drivers were praised for good performance.

Sure. But the KDE user doesn't want fallbacks he wants his bling-bling. And if he doesn't get it he's going to start harassing driver developers, I've seen it before. I think the main problem is that the KDE folks think the world revolves around KDE, unfortunately for them it doesn't. This quote from the referred blog article illustrates this perfectly.

Funny this, I see it exactly the other way around.

KDE folks have always been doing their stuff and providing a great desktop. The GNOME folks have been doing politics and removing options from the users because they know better. Now they will force you to use a binary blobl. It's not enough that you can't configure the friggin thing, it won't even work with free drivers.

Talk about the world revolving around someone. 8-year old technology that was pushed as some sort of "default" because of politics and sour grapes.

[kraftman]

Hahahah first of all it's not even osx screenshot, it's windows with lame osx "skin". Windows7 buy default look better. Gnome 3 is not even out yet and u picked oldest and ugliest screenshot? And kde still looks shitty. About docky stuff u should read phoronix article about glx-dock, lol that dock looks like shit from stone age compared to osx dock.

I bet many will disagree with you. For me, OS X looks like a toy for disney kids. I prefer Win7 look (till you won't use some workaround related to sersious security bug, which will disable your icons) far more then OS X look, but I like KDE look the most. Gnome doesn't even count as a usefull DE for me, but Gnome 3 looks quite good.

[brent]

Qt is sometimes slow on NVidia (and Intel) hardware because Qt's XRender backend is pretty broken. That's not strictly a KDE issue, but seeing how Nokia doesn't want to fix it, maybe KDE developers should step up.