Linux Mint 21 "Vanessa" Beta Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Mint 21 "Venessa" Beta Released

Out today is the beta of the upcoming Linux Mint 21 "Vanessa" desktop-oriented Linux distribution that is built off Ubuntu 22.04 LTS...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Mint-21-Beta

[scottishduck]

Gnome 3.36 code, how modern

[user1]

I think Cinnamon is a very good DE, that is unfortunately ruined by a god awful window manager. Probably the worst one for gaming. I remember trying it a year ago and fullscreen unredirection just didn't work in games. I followed the bug reports on Muffin Github regarding this issue and when it was supposedly fixed, people start reporting screen tearing issues, even when vsync is enabled in game. Muffin is an utter trainwreck. Idk, maybe things have got better with the Mutter 3.36 rebase, but I don't have high hopes. And I think the fact that they chose version 3.36 is simply because that's the version that shipped with Ubuntu 20.04, so it was chosen out of convenience. On one hand, they probably can't just use upstream Mutter for Cinnamon, because they have a lot of heavy modifications, but on the other hand, rebasing Muffin on upstream Mutter every few years like this is also kinda wasteful in terms of their development time. I mean the 3.36 rebase took at least a few months and it doesn't even have Wayland support.

That's why I currently use Linux Mint Mate with Compiz (which is one of the only X window managers that has a properly working fullscreen unredirection).

[antonyshen]

A plain and boring release, which is a good thing for a stable desktop.

[bachchain]

Still no Wayland, I guess

[Linuxxx]

The Cinnamon 5.4 desktop has rebased its "Muffin" compositor code atop the Mutter 3.36 upstream code.

This simply can't be good...

Even the Wayland session of Mutter 42 as shipped by Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is quite a horrible experience in combination with mpv:

Multiple dropped frames in the beginning of every video until it stabilizes on an AMD Radeon R9 380.
Note that I had zero issues with dropped frames on a previous install of Xubuntu 20.04 LTS, therefore I'm pretty sure that Mutter is to blame here.

[tildearrow]

Typo in the title...

[treba]

I think Cinnamon is a very good DE, that is unfortunately ruined by a god awful window manager. Probably the worst one for gaming. I remember trying it a year ago and fullscreen unredirection just didn't work in games. I followed the bug reports on Muffin Github regarding this issue and when it was supposedly fixed, people start reporting screen tearing issues, even when vsync is enabled in game. Muffin is an utter trainwreck. Idk, maybe things have got better with the Mutter 3.36 rebase, but I don't have high hopes. And I think the fact that they chose version 3.36 is simply because that's the version that shipped with Ubuntu 20.04, so it was chosen out of convenience. On one hand, they probably can't just use upstream Mutter for Cinnamon, because they have a lot of heavy modifications, but on the other hand, rebasing Muffin on upstream Mutter every few years like this is also kinda wasteful in terms of their development time. I mean the 3.36 rebase took at least a few months and it doesn't even have Wayland support.

That's why I currently use Linux Mint Mate with Compiz (which is one of the only X window managers that has a properly working fullscreen unredirection).

Err - isn't unredirection on X11 a binary thing? Either you have a compositor involved and it prevents tearing - or you don't and the client is responsible. If compiz in your case somehow prevents tearing, it probably doesn't unredirect. I don't see how it otherwise would be involved with vsync timings. Or you added a DDX driver with tearfree option into the mix - in which case the compositor just sits in the driver, with overhead.

The optimal combination of both, i.e. neither compositor overhead nor tearing, requires the app to use modern APIs. I.e. Wayland (with direct scanout to the hardware plane).

[hamishmb]

Gnome 3.36 code, how modern

It's not that bad, at least according to Wikipedia's version history for GNOME. Much better than 3.2 anyway, which is what it was before.

[user1]

Err - isn't unredirection on X11 a binary thing? Either you have a compositor involved and it prevents tearing - or you don't and the client is responsible. If compiz in your case somehow prevents tearing, it probably doesn't unredirect. I don't see how it otherwise would be involved with vsync timings. Or you added a DDX driver with tearfree option into the mix - in which case the compositor just sits in the driver, with overhead.

The optimal combination of both, i.e. neither compositor overhead nor tearing, requires the app to use modern APIs. I.e. Wayland (with direct scanout to the hardware plane).

I think you didn't completely understand what I was trying to explain. With Compiz fullscreen unredirection works properly because it doesn't apply vsync on fullscreen windows (as it's supposed to work), while that bug in Muffin I was talking about, caused all fullscreen windows to be vsynce'd by it, so as a result, games were stuttery / experienced performance issues.