KDE's Plasma To Be Reworked, Use More OpenGL

[smitty3268]

How is this possible when other applications manage to work with the same drivers? How can he say so with a straight face when he declares himself unable to build the graphics stack from upstream, meaning that he basically ignores what the current state of the drivers is?

Compiz is only using GL1 functionality, Kwin is trying to use GL2 and then falling back to GL1 if the driver doesn't support it. That's the difference right there, and the KWin developers are unwilling to simply stay GL1 only like the Compiz team is.

I do agree that having the main developer developing on an ancient graphics stack is a little weird, and he certainly didn't seem too interested in making any effort to get things running on other drivers. Sad, but hopefully some other KDE devs step up. And hopefully the GL2 support in the OSS drivers gets more solid as well.

[yotambien]

Hi, Larven. Welcome to the forum.

I think you understood my post in a funny way. Or perhaps you weren't answering me in particular but to all the rants against KDE 4 available on the internet (it would be healthy to question why there are so many of them, though).

But you quoted:

KDE is currently blamed for errors in external components: the graphic drivers

Of course he's blaming others. That guy is acknowledging that many users are having problems with KDE, but dismisses them as errors in the graphics drivers. Why? How is this possible when other applications manage to work with the same drivers? How can he say so with a straight face when he declares himself unable to build the graphics stack from upstream, meaning that he basically ignores what the current state of the drivers is? Something which, as I said in the previous post, is apparent from the erroneous blacklist of drivers.


PS. But yes, I think KDE 4 made quite a few people to look for alternatives. Anecdotically, Linus was one of them, if memory serves.

[Larven]

This time it wasn't an easy one like KDE vs Gnome, but KDE vs the OSS drivers people, a hard choice for KDE loyalists.

Excuse me if i am wrong, i dont think it is KDE vs anything, but since KDE4, it is ALL (except i think by majority of KDE users) vs KDE4 for everything. This bullshit must stop now! I as KDE user am very very happy with it, as i think most of KDE users... most of blaming i see in forums/blogs come from people that say doesn't use KDE, or who changed DE's (and this is ok, you can't expect to maintain everyone happy on a major upgrade, sure it will also happen with Gnome 3).

If KDE4/KWIN4 is THAT bad, then it surelly will loose all the users all alone, no need to blame... but guess what, it doesn't seen to happen, again why the blame? Result.... STOP THIS INSANE BLAMING, it is a totally FOSS proyect like any other, and we should thank the volunteer work.

Martin's blog post was not a blame, but a response to one (a great one), as you can read in his first line:

KDE is currently blamed for errors in external components: the graphic drivers

Critics/Suggestions ok, this blame, this XXX vs KDE (as XXX vs any FOSS project)... it is a child thing that helps noone.

PD: English is not my language, really sorry if you can't understand something

[yotambien]

The troll in me was very excited when I learned about the KDE developer putting the blame on the driver developers. I knew many people would be confused not knowing who to direct their hate at. This time it wasn't an easy one like KDE vs Gnome, but KDE vs the OSS drivers people, a hard choice for KDE loyalists.

Now, I won't pretend I have any knowledge about the technicalities behind this whole issue, but there are 2 down-to-earth reasons why I think KDE people are on the wrong side:

a) Other compositing solutions (Compiz) work. And very well, performing almost 2 degrees of magnitude better than Kwin as per my own tests. This isn't magic, I assume it's got something to do with good engineering decisions. Kwin's developer(s) should know better how to tackle their problems, they are the ones and the only ones responsible, for there is a competing product that, under the same circumstances, does work.

b) From that infamous blog post we know that the Kwin's developer doesn't use the most up-to-date graphics stack, and he doesn't seem very keen in changing this situation. Now, everybody should respect that choice (he's a volunteer), but it speaks lots about the lack of interest in making sure his product plays well with the OSS drivers. It has been suggested a greater degree of communication between Xorg and KDE; that's all good and well, but what sort of commitment can one expect if the application developers aren't even willing to test their work with the upstream graphics stack? What could that "communication" possibly result in if the graphics developers do not get any feedback about what needs fixing? This disconnection is clearly seen in KDE's drivers blacklist. We have heard reports of users with the OSS drivers having to change some KDE configuration file to have it working. How can this possibly happen? So, on the one hand, they decide to use certain features without making sure it will be OK to do so, and on the other they blacklist certain drivers without actually checking they don't work. What are these people on about?

[V!NCENT]

Really? And what driver bugs have you reported to back your claims?

Can I report your ignorance, please? You damn well know there are features enabled in the FLOSS drivers that are not done yet. You are the only one talking about bugs here. Bugs are everywhere, even in the blobs...

If something works with the NVIDIA blob, it doesn't mean it's been implemented right or is bug-free, it just happens to work with the blob, no more, no less.

The universe is flat and it's sunny outside.

I'd really like to see any free project that uses OpenGL 100% correctly. I recall one bug where we had to *violate* the OpenGL specification for open drivers to work with the apps that used one specific *non-standard* feature exposed by, guess what, both blobs! And it was not the first time we must have done this. Applications are only made to work with blobs, not to comply with the OpenGL specification.

These are simply bugs. It's not anyones fault and doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Seriously, if you find a bug in open drivers, report it.

Sure I will; whenever that's needed (which is when you don't have anything else to do then get it in a working state first).

This blame fest won't help anybody. A lot of driver devs are unpaid, so they have the same responsibility to report or fix bugs as anybody else on this board or in the community. They work on what they want to work on.

Yeah yeah yeah they are send by God himself. The point here is that it is not an excuse for simply enabling half working features.

I won't demand anything from you. I use the open source drivers you guys provide. I do not complain about them. I am just saying that when KDE performs checks, which return "Oh this is working"-answers, and KDE then performs operations the driver said it could, and then crashes, is NOT KDE's fault! KDE is not just Linux only, which means it has to be sanely cross platform and your FLOSS driver is the only driver that simply doesn't work. Now that's OK. But it is NOT OK to blaim KDE and to defend yourself as if like you were Jesus. Just sayin'....

[marek]

Also, could you point me to the list of features ATI and Nvidia said not to use with their GL2 drivers? (Just for my own curiosity...)

http://people.freedesktop.org/~mareko/ATI_OpenGL_Programming_and_Optimization_Guide.pdf

It describes hardware features, mentions features advertised but not working and features that cause software fallbacks, and a lot of advice on how to stay on the fast path. This all is for fglrx. I consider GL2 the biggest failure in the history of GL.

Similar white papers for NVIDIA should still be on the net somewhere.

Excuse me but if the graphics drivers expose unstable, incomplete and buggy features, then if these crash it's motor KDE's faculteit. KDE only has a correct implementation whereas the graphics drivers do not work correctly...

Really? And what driver bugs have you reported to back your claims?
If something works with the NVIDIA blob, it doesn't mean it's been implemented right or is bug-free, it just happens to work with the blob, no more, no less. I'd really like to see any free project that uses OpenGL 100% correctly. I recall one bug where we had to *violate* the OpenGL specification for open drivers to work with the apps that used one specific *non-standard* feature exposed by, guess what, both blobs! And it was not the first time we must have done this. Applications are only made to work with blobs, not to comply with the OpenGL specification.

Seriously, if you find a bug in open drivers, report it. This blame fest won't help anybody. A lot of driver devs are unpaid, so they have the same responsibility to report or fix bugs as anybody else on this board or in the community. They work on what they want to work on.

[V!NCENT]

Stupid android ti9...

Excuse me but if the graphics drivers expose unstable, incomplete and buggy features, then if these crash it's motor KDE's faculteit. KDE only has a correct implementation whereas the graphics drivers do not work correctly...

[V!NCENT]

Stupid android ti9...

Excuse me but if the graphics drivers expose unstable, incomplete and buggy features, then if these crash it's motor KDE's faculteit. KDE only has a correct implementation whereas the graphics drivers do not work correctly...

[V!NCENT]

Developers make bugs, no surprise, stuff like that happens, it's inevitable, but fixable. Their biggest mistake was they decided to be childish and put the blame on somebody else.

Excuse me, bureau of the graphics driver exposes incomplete andere buggy features, then whose 'fault' is it when theater crashes? Oops. ..

[kraftman]

I deleted ~/.kde4 before and used a vanilla KDE as Archlinux uses nearly always vanilla software.

You could try current Arch with newer dbus shipped. It was causing problems on many configurations, but I was lucky.