Canonical Hiring For An Ubuntu Linux Desktop Gaming Product Manager

[mdedetrich]

Linux being monolithic doesn't have much to do with gaming/graphics, the graphics drivers (at least nvidia and AMD as far as I'm aware) are usermode, and the rest of the drivers don't matter. It's the same deal with Windows, GPU drivers are usermode where pretty much everything else (VGA, USB etc) is kernelmode.
What is a major issue is Xorg and how, if your GPU driver dies, so does Xorg, and so does everything running on top of it, which would be, well, your entire OS essentially. I don't know if Wayland fixes this but I haven't heard anything good. So if your GPU driver crashes (which happens in every OS), on Linux you're screwed, it's essentially a warm boot after that. On Windows the screen flickers for a second, that's it.

Well that actually isn't entirely true, the interface for the graphics card is obviously in usermode but the actual core features of graphics cards is done in the kernel (or in the case of NVidia runs alongside the kernel that talks directly to the relevant parts of the kernel).

MESA is the layer that goes between the low level graphics card implementation (which is in the kernel) and the usermode implementation of API's such as OpenGL.

So if there are actual improvements in the core driver, this is not user level.

If the NVidia blob or AMD/Intel actual drier ran in userland, it would be ridiculously slow. No modern kernel runs graphics in userland since Windows 9x days for that reason.

[SilverFox]

Not sure what universe you come from, but here Google Stadia crashed hard. And this time, it wasn't just Google's shitty marketing, it was actually an unviable and inefficient technology. I don't mean to repeat history with how people used to think sending a radio signal across the atlantic was impossible, but right now, viable datacenter-based game streaming looks technically impossible with our current understanding of physics. You simply can't make the particles go fast enough to support a seamless input, rendering, streaming pipeline. Cloud gaming is succeeding with local streaming from your own in-house computer/console, but that still requires you to own the hardware, you're just putting the display somewhere else in the house.

Simply, Not true. Just check out Nvidia and Microsoft.

[CochainComplex]

According to the Steam Survey results of December 2021, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS 64-bit is the single most used Linux distribution at 17.90%, with Ubuntu 21.10 64-bit at 6.31%, totaling 24.27%. The next highest is Manjaro at 11.96%, and then Arch at 11.42%.

Yes ...this is just a snapshot
.....have you seen that the share is progressively declining since 2016? Most likely even earlier but the chart doesnt show prior surveys.

In case you havent seen the link I gave: https://www.linuxgame.net/dynamic/st...ux_distros.png

[mdedetrich]

I will never understand why the LTS desktop edition of Ubuntu provides with an up-to-date copy of browsers but not Mesa/Kernel/Firmware.

Due to Linux being a monolithic kernel, its "risky" to use the latest kernel because the changeset between kernels are massive so its "safer" to use an older/well tested kernel. The kernel teams themselves also designated certain kernel releases as "stable"

[9Strike]

Correct me if I am wrong but I am pretty sure debian backports bugfixes, not features which doesn't help.

I have to correct you, I'm talking about Debian Stable Backports: https://backports.debian.org/

For example for the Linux kernel (https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linux) current stable has 5.10, but 5.14 is available in stable backports (bpo).

Of course this is not as quickly updated as Arch or Debian Unstable, but Valve could easily implement their own backports repository. The technology has long been there. The main reason I can think of are "outdated" system applications, which is good e.g. for office use but not for a typical gamer.

[Mez']

According to the Steam Survey results of December 2021, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS 64-bit is the single most used Linux distribution at 17.90%, with Ubuntu 21.10 64-bit at 6.31%, totaling 24.27%. The next highest is Manjaro at 11.96%, and then Arch at 11.42%.

Actually, there might be other versions of Ubuntu and variants in the ± 40% referenced under "Other". I wouldn't assume too quickly that the total is 24%.

[JPFSanders]

Due to Linux being a monolithic kernel, its "risky" to use the latest kernel because the changeset between kernels are massive so its "safer" to use an older/well tested kernel. The kernel teams themselves also designated certain kernel releases as "stable"

You're not wrong with this, QA is already stretched thin as it is, I totally get adding more untested stuff to the mix increases the support overhead and burden for Canonical, and the proper solution is not adding more hwe categories or another version of the Distro just for gaming.

What I would do if I was Canonical is to make regular Ubuntu a full rolling release and tell users to rely on that for gaming. That way the recipe is kept simple; use LTS for serious enterprise-y supported stuff and Ubuntu Rolling for home stuff. If anything this would make non-LTS Ubuntu more stable/reliable as Canonical wouldn't need to stick to the bi-anual release and just release bits when they're ready and have been tested as Arch does, this IMHO would make it easier to pursue more focused upgrades on certain parts of the stack and also help them greatly with the back-porting to LTS releases.

I do not know for sure if any of this is the best solution or whether it fits Canonical way of operating, the only thing I'm sure of is that Canonical needs to be more aggressive with updating certain parts of the stack if they want to stay relevant for gaming.

[mdedetrich]

I have to correct you, I'm talking about Debian Stable Backports: https://backports.debian.org/

For example for the Linux kernel (https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linux) current stable has 5.10, but 5.14 is available in stable backports (bpo).

Of course this is not as quickly updated as Arch or Debian Unstable, but Valve could easily implement their own backports repository. The technology has long been there. The main reason I can think of are "outdated" system applications, which is good e.g. for office use but not for a typical gamer.

That still doesn't make sense, specifically for Steam Deck apart from the latest kernel Valve only really relies on a few packages (i.e. wine). You are implying that it would have been more or less trivial for Valve to make adjustments to Debian which I am sure if it was the case they would have done that.

Instead Valve changed the base distro which is a lot less trivial so its something they would have only done if really necessary.

You're not wrong with this, QA is already stretched thin as it is, I totally get adding more untested stuff to the mix increases the support overhead and burden for Canonical, and the proper solution is not adding more hwe categories or another version of the Distro just for gaming.

What I would do if I was Canonical is to make regular Ubuntu a full rolling release and tell users to rely on that for gaming. That way the recipe is kept simple; use LTS for serious enterprise-y supported stuff and Ubuntu Rolling for home stuff. If anything this would make non-LTS Ubuntu more stable/reliable as Canonical wouldn't need to stick to the bi-anual release and just release bits when they're ready and have been tested as Arch does, this IMHO would make it easier to pursue more focused upgrades on certain parts of the stack and also help them greatly with the back-porting to LTS releases.

I do not know for sure if any of this is the best solution or whether it fits Canonical way of operating, the only thing I'm sure of is that Canonical needs to be more aggressive with updating certain parts of the stack if they want to stay relevant for gaming.

Yeah at this point you may as well use a distro that is rolling release and has been for a while (to solve all of the teething issues/process that comes with rolling release). The top distro for that currently is arch and thats why Valve picked it

[9Strike]

That still doesn't make sense, specifically for Steam Deck apart from the latest kernel Valve only really relies on a few packages (i.e. wine). You are implying that it would have been more or less trivial for Valve to make adjustments to Debian which I am sure if it was the case they would have done that.

Instead Valve changed the base distro which is a lot less trivial so its something they would have only done if really necessary.

Sorry but I actually think you have no idea what you are talking about. There is no reason for wine to be installed on SteamOS, because Proton/Wine runs in the Steam Linux Runtime Container anyway. Since version 5.13 Proton is designed to only run in the srt. And besides, Wine has official repos for Debian.

Again, the only thing the host system affects is hardware support, everything else is in the container. And hardware support is given by the kernel and mesa, which can easily provided by backports in Debian.

I'm starting to repeat myself, but the Desktop experience of Debian Stable is less optimal for gaming (think KDE version, which also affects the Wayland support etc), and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why they went with Arch.

They could also have chosen Debian Testing, but it has the freeze period which makes it less "rolling" than Arch.

[reba]

They could also have chosen Debian Testing, but it has the freeze period which makes it less "rolling" than Arch.

Then choose Debian sid, which is their rolling release, getting updates several times a day and being unaffected by release-schedules, freezes, etc.