Kernel 2.6.31 To Speed Up Linux Desktop 360
Dan Jones writes "As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory-tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards, enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!"
Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
Fedora developer read it for sure:
* Fri Aug 07 2009 Kristian HÃgsberg - 2.8.0-4
- Add dri2-page-flip.patch to enable full screen pageflipping.
Fixes XKCD #619.
xorg-x11-drv-intel-2.8.0-4.fc12 [fedoraproject.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it doesn't imply that at all. It's simply saying that Linux desktop users brag about irrelevent new "features", while basic things that everyone else takes for granted don't work properly.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
Whichever way you put it, the fact that this "basic thing that everyone else takes for granted" doesn't work is is Adobe's fault, not the Linux community's fault. It would have made a lot more sense if the complaint were about some actual bug in Linux distros, not a problem with a historically shoddy proprietary plugin.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone who uses Windows but has an open mind, I don't care who is at fault.
Re: (Score:2)
You could say that about any platform, though. OS X sucks because it lacks ports of most major PC games, for example. Maybe it's not Apple's fault, but as someone who plays games, I don't care who is at fault.
(Also, Windows sucks, because to get lots of stuff working you have to deal with half-ported abominations in cygwin.)
Re: (Score:2)
It is Apple's fault. Porting games to OSX is ghastly and laborious.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As an ex-Mac user, and a video game fan, the rule is that the Mac version of the number 1 game usually comes out about 3 months after everybody else has already gotten sick of playing it to death.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
> As someone who uses Windows but has an open mind, I don't care who is at fault.
Fair enough on one level but totally unfair on the one that matters here. If the criticism of the Linux community is they concentrate their effort on things that mortals care little for this one doesn't work since the performance of Flash Player is entirely out of their hands.
Flash sucks everywhere, just to varying degrees depending on platform. Go watch the fun in the netbook space as the Intel Atom is being unfairly blamed by clueless pundits for the inability of netbooks with the newer 1280x720 and 1388x768 displays to play full screen Flash video (on Windows XP btw.). We nerds on slashdot know better of course, the problem is Adobe being mindless idiots who can't figure out how to properly use a scaled video surface.
I'd like some green group to calculate how many YouTube videos have been played and how many GigaWatt Hours of electricity have been wasted on software colorspace conversion and scaling because Adobe can't figure out how to use well documented and commonly available features on every video card made in the last fifteen years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the fault is split. 2D acceleration in Linux for most video drivers is shabby at best.
On the other hand, Adobe doesn't really put that much engineering force into X11 optimizations. Adobe Flash on a non-accelerated Mac OS X (hackintosh using the included Vesa 3.0 driver) is still faster than on X11/Linux.
I can't really blame Adobe for this. There are quite a lot of ways in which you can accelerate SOME drawing operations, but they are not available on all desktops. Clutter comes to mind right now, but it's not really the best option for QT/KDE users. It's hard to create an accelerated, desktop environment independent piece of software.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
[citations needed]
EXA is the backend acceleration we use right now in X. It works.
Full EXA is provided for radeon, nouveau, and intel, the Big Three. A lot of esoteric chips are supported too. They might not be super-fast, but they're still fast enough to do nearly anything. (Getting that vaunted 1m glyphs/sec is tough though.)
Flash is a piece of shit. I most certainly can and will blame Adobe for not putting more than one person on the Linux Flash team, and I can point to the incomplete, buggy, largely hacked-up Gnash as an example of a software rasterizer that moves much faster than Flash despite also being lame.
Don't even get me started on Flash Video.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is no excuse. The Open Source community has brought us Samba for goodness sake.
Reverse-engineering and making an open implementation of a simple web plugin should be harder than reverse-engineering and implementing Windows domain, RPC named pipes, and file sharing protocols? :)
Not to mention the fact that Adobe has made SWF, FLV, and RMTP open specifications.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Informative)
Flash is by no means "simple". There are a bunch of different speficiations and sub-specifications to be implemented (ActionScript, FLV, RTMP, ...).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is why i have said time and time again there needs to be a stable ABI and a "Tux the penguin" certification process.
Certification process fair enough, but a stable ABI is not needed for that, any piece of hardware that has a recognized in kernel tree driver driver should simply be plugged in and see if it works, if it does without any real issues, certification can be done
Trusting random companies with ring 0 privileged code your machine is a big leap of faith when you can't see the code, almost all of the bsod's you see these days on windows aren't microsoft's fault at all, but the fault of shitty drivers by third party
Re: (Score:2)
Flash is a dumb idea anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
It was a dumb episode. The only folks who use Flash fullscreen are people watching online porn. :)
Well, and YouTube, so they can see their little friends ramble on about nonsensical stuff in a global environment. I still haven't figured that crap out yet. Why, oh why, do you want to post a video of you talking about your life for the rest of the world to watch. Let me give you a hint. The rest of the world called. We don't give a shit.
Sometimes there's some
Re: (Score:2)
I watch a fair bit of stuff on youtube - funny clips from various shows, weird Japanese stuff from nico nico douga, Carl Sagan, James Burke, Linux demos, TED...
None of it in full screen, though, and not just because full screen doesn't work well.
Re: (Score:2)
It was a dumb episode. The only folks who use Flash fullscreen are people watching online porn. :)
Or Hulu, or CBS, or NBC... yeah, there are a lot of uses for fullscreen Flash that don't involve porn.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only folks who use Flash fullscreen are people watching online porn. :)
Well, and YouTube,
and Hulu.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On any decent machine (2Ghz+ with 1Gb+ RAM), I haven't had any problem with full screen flash. I did a while back, when it was buggier. Most of my machines have been 64 bit (Slamd64). For a while I ran the 32 bit Firefox just to have the Flash player work, but that's been resolved for a while with no complaints.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a guy who took gentoo and rebuilt it in my home directory about fifty times with a set of scripts I developed, getting smaller and more specific every time until I could write it to a CF card and drop it in my embedded router that runs at 33MHz, and still run/startup faster than your average home router.
I have a friend who uses Kubuntu (which really is a terrible KDE distro) who is definitely more adept in linux than your average switcher, but he doesn't spend his time memorizing internals or rebuilding kernels either.
To me, I can see that comic and go "neat, that's a lot of CPUs" along with pegging Adobe for being a problem: "yeah, adobe sucks at cross platform." My friend goes "neat, that's a lot of CPUs" and "yeah linux is terrible in that area."
Both pairs of statements are true. (And don't call me on the technicality that "linux is terrible in that area." Quit being hyperliteral; that's my entire point!)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
linux gurus who can rebuild their kernel six times a day
How did they manage that before support for 4096 cores?
Re: (Score:2)
> linux gurus who can rebuild their kernel six times a day
How did they manage that before support for 4096 cores?
They used a Beowulf cluster.
Re: (Score:2)
My colleague used to have a T-Shirt: "My kernel compiles in 2:06 min. How fast is yours?" (Build machine was a mere 80 cores cluster).
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you believe Kubuntu is a terrible KDE distro?
What would you call a "good" KDE distro?
I've used both Mandriva and Kubuntu...
Re: (Score:2)
PCLinuxOS is a pretty good KDE-based distro.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
The comic didn't imply the kernel. Purists that wash their hands while saying "Linux is just a kernel, not my fault if it cannot (run x, recognize y or perform z)" are the target of this comic which tries to explain why linux (as a whole OS-and-software alternative) is not ready for the desktop.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux isn't broken because Flash sucks, the "Ready For the Desktop" moniker is broken if people consider it to imply Flash support. Flash is a closed technology (the spec is only open if you're not writing a player), which puts any problems with Flash playback anywhere squarely into Adobe's hands. If being "ready for the desktop" implies "Adobe plays nice with you" and there is nothing you can do if they don't, something is really wrong. What is the Linux community supposed to do, hold Adobe at gunpoint until they fix Flash?
I'm not saying Linux is otherwise ready for the desktop (and complaints about issues with Linux desktops themselves are perfectly okay), but Flash brokenness is a silly example.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The same way mp3 became a standard and "linux" users must install codecs "at their own risk".
The same way linux-verboten WinModems became a standard that faded only when they couldn't keep up with ADSL.
The same way Realtek and Broadcom WiFi cards have become a standard in most notebooks (and some desktops) and they still perform very poorly under "linux".
The same way NVidia and ATI have become the video adapter standards and none has yet got full support (not even mentioning double screens) under Linux.
I'm
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, with SVG and the video tag, that is about to change! Big time!
I'm a professional, and man, watch those demos in at least Firefox 3.5 (or something comparable): http://people.mozilla.com/~prouget/demos/ [mozilla.com]
The ability to integrate Flash-like FX, Video and Audio SEAMLESSLY with (X)HTML and CSS (and every other supported XML language, like MathML), is just beyond words... It's what I'm waiting for, for at least a decade! And the performance of both environments gets closer and closer to being equal.
With that, soon nobody needs or even wants Flash anymore.
I'll just use those features, and frankly, I can stand "losing" even 50% of the users for it. Those are the dumbest part of the population anyway. You only have problems with those. They can go to AOL or whatever. I have enough clients. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FLV is a flash video format. Mplayer already plays FLVs just fine. This has little to do with flash video sites, which use SWF to create their own players for FLV content (and often the FLV location is obfuscated and keyed, so you need to interpret the SWF to get to it). It is impossible to get YouTube to work with only an FLV player. Crude hacks like using Adobe's plugin to download the video to /tmp and then playing it with mplayer aren't really viable for end-users.
The SWF format was completely closed un
Re: (Score:2)
Gnash will never be finished because it relies on reverse engineering Flash files and the like. Gnash developers cannot see or use Adobe's specification, as doing so would be violating Adobe's terms.
Make no mistake, Adobe is trying to block any competing Flash players as much as the law will allow them to.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not anymore. (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash [wikipedia.org])
In May 2008, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project (Adobe link), which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. Previously, developers couldn't use the specification for making SWF-compatible players, but only for making SWF-exporting authoring software. The specification remains incomplete, however, as it does not include any details regarding RTMP or Sorenson Spark,[27] both of which are widely used to distribute video through
Re: (Score:2)
After such ringing endorsements, the response in the free Flash community makes for an almost comical contrast. "Our reaction is pretty much, 'Ho-hum,'" said Rob Savoye, lead developer for the Gnash project, which is creating a free Flash player. "It's a really good thing when corporations figure out that being more open to the community is important but, at the same time, it's not a huge deal."
...
One reason for the lack of excitement over the project in the free software world is that it omits "huge amounts" of information needed for a complete implementation of Flash. In particular, Savoye points out that the announcement contains no mention of the Real Time Messaging Protocol(RTMP) that is required for the Flash media server. Nor does it mention the Sorenson Spark Codec that is used for video encoding in Flash 6 and 7, and remains the choice of some users still for Flash video because other formats convert easily to it. Both may be encumbered by patents but, without them, the information that Adobe has released is of limited use.
Just as important, what Adobe released is not new to the free Flash community. "Pretty much all of that stuff was known," Otte says. Savoye agrees, remarking, "We figured that all out years ago, or we wouldn't have gotten as far along as we have." Moreover, although Gnash and Swfdec are clean room implementations -- that is, developed without the aid of any information from Adobe -- Savoye suggests that, "Most of this documentation, if we really wanted it, has already leaked out on the Internet years ago."
Via
http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/21 [openmedianow.org]
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
ScytheBlade1 is right:
The comic didn't imply the kernel. Purists that wash their hands while saying "Linux is just a kernel, not my fault if it cannot (run x, recognize y or perform z)" are the target of this comic which tries to explain why linux (as a whole OS-and-software alternative) is not ready for the desktop.
Indeed, the xkcd in question [xkcd.com] (a link to the page, not the image) doesn't hang on technical accuracy. It's absolutely a commentary on issues with the "Linux Desktop", with developers putting a relatively rare server concern such as support for thousands of CPUs ahead of something that pretty much every PC user expects to have (the ability to watch Hulu smoothly).
To nit-pick, however, the comic does seem to imply the kernel. In the alt-text you find:
"I hear many of you finally have smooth Flash support, but me and my Intel card are still waiting on a kernel patch somewhere in the pipeline before we can watch Jon Stewart smoothly."
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
That's one of the more annoying XKCDs as far as I'm concerned. It seems to imply that the full-screen Flash video woes are somehow the kernel's fault. I used to like XKCD, but it seems to be getting dumber and dumber each day.
When Markansoft says the above, it's clear that he prizes technical accuracy in the comic enough to forgo appreciation of the general point of humour. However, is the comic's implication really wrong? I don't know much about how Flash works with hardware, or if it requires any specific support for a chipset. The author seems pretty sure he needs a patch for his hardware set up before he can get the same quality of Flash performance already enjoyed by other Linux users. That certainly doesn't remove Adobe and their cross-platform unfriendliness from the situation, but Linux distros are made from work arounds, and the comic's target is the priorities of developers, not Adobe's open source policies.
Re:Obligatory XKCD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The author is waiting on a Linux kernel patch to fix the Flash issues he has with his Intel card.
OK, so do tell. How exactly is a kernel patch going to fix a problem with a proprietary browser plugin?
On my machine, I can watch FLVs, full screen, with a variety of players (Xine, Mplayer, MythTV). It's only Flash player that's broken.
So, considering that the problem is demonstratably with the Flash plugin, how will a kernel patch fix it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're sure about that?
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=126369 [fedoraproject.org]
* Fri Aug 07 2009 Kristian HÃgsberg - 2.8.0-4
- Add dri2-page-flip.patch to enable full screen pageflipping.
Fixes XKCD #619.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You think that in the same situation Microsoft wouldn't have somone calling Adobe to get the full screen flash video working properly? They understand that it is always the operating system's fault when something goes wrong, no matter what the truth is.
Microsoft may be
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Linux users are all albinos?
Re: (Score:2)
Slow fullscreen is still Flash's fault. It may be [i]tolerable[/i] with certain card drivers and if your screen resolution is low enough, but the bulk of the problem is still Adobe's. I have an Nvidia that works great for everything else, but fullscreen Flash is unwatchable at 1920x1080.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, somehow my brain was in BBCode mode. My apologies for that.
Catering to wide audience (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA:
The result is an improved desktop experience; benchmarks on memory tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. That means X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure.
Furthermore, memory flushing benchmarks in a file server shows the number of major faults going from 50 to 3 during 10 per cent cache hot reads.
And on next paragraph...
Linux foundner Linus Torvalds, first developed the operating system for his desktop and it rose to promince as a commodity Unix server.
Been using .31, and I'm a fan. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Been using .31, and I'm a fan. (Score:5, Insightful)
The kernel team is doing a pretty awesome job of speeding things up. Kudos.
Seconded. It also says good things about the state of the kernel and development team that they can focus on optimization and the user experience. It wasn't that long ago the focus was on getting wireless to work. We've come such a long way. Very impressive. Well done.
Re:Been using .31, and I'm a fan. (Score:5, Funny)
The Break-In process of the new Linux kernel takes time. There is a significant change in Video Performance as the kernel break in. There is still a perception that Linux kernels have a short break in time or worse yet, don't require break in. Some hackers used a second computer to break in the Linux kernel, and transfer the image to their primary computer. This method will not appreciably reduce the break in time required for the kernel. Linux kernel Break-In must be done in the position where you plan to use it.
The System Performance Stages of the kernel are as follows:
* First Stage of Break-In = The system will feel very open, clear and with good detail resolution and dynamics. The greens and lower reds will have elevated intensity levels. The lower output of the blue and green information is due to reduced bandwidth performance at this Stage. In some systems, especially with aluminum or titanium heatsinks, the greens and blues may appear edgy or even fatiguing. The visual stage will appear OK with some lack of Focus. It will take from 5 to 15 hours of break-in for the kernel to reach the Second Stage of Break-In.
* Second Stage of Break-In = The blues and greens will appear less elevated and up front as the monitor intensity level increases. This is followed by the reds starting fill in. The lack of Focus may become more noticeable and the visual stage will start to widen and have more depth. It will take an additional 15 to 35 hours to reach the Third Stage of Break-In.
* Third Stage of Break-In = The system response time will completely flatten out. The presentation will become very clean and less up front. The lack of Focus is disappearing and the imaging will improve as will the low level detail resolution. The Green comes in and it is very tight and you will see lower Red frequencies than your other kernel provided. In effect the visual signature of the kernel will seem to disappear and the X-window presentation will be very real and non-fatiguing. It will take an additional 30 to 50 hours to reach the Final Stage of Kernel Performance.
* Fourth and Final Stage of Kernel Performance = The Visual Stage will be wider than your monitor with excellent depth, height and precise localization of individual icons on the desktop. The hue of the icons will be very accurate over the entire desktop. Symbolic links have excellent referencing ability. The metallic sound of your hard drive is very lifelike. Rhythm, Pace and Dynamics are effortless. Many users find they are now viewing the X-window system at lower Light Levels due to the effortless presentation. You will start to see subtle visual cues like the programmer turning his head while he is programming. You will find you are viewing the Window Manager and forgetting about evaluating your system.
Re: (Score:2)
I can honestly say that the system does feel a lot snappier, more responsive, and just overall a much more pleasant user experience. Everything's just a lot smoother. The kernel team is doing a pretty awesome job of speeding things up. Kudos.
That's good to hear; I've been waiting for such news concerning the kernel to help inspire me to fire up my desktop again and finish the last install I started (I left it at a stock kernel and mouse buttons not configured for my MX1000). It's been all too easy to use my laptop for everything, but new kernel features that noticeably improve the user experience have always been exciting. I remember the difference preemptive multitasking made to the desktop experience when it was introduced. It made a huge dif
Benchmarks (Score:5, Interesting)
We just need an alternative to X (Score:2, Interesting)
Just like folks at Apple realized with their OS X, we in the Linux world, need an alternative to X. I heard that Google Chrome OS will get rid of it entirely. I would like to hear from anyone who disagrees.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
X works really good for what it's designed for and I'd hate to have to live without it. That said, what I also would like is a custom version for gaming which turns down or off features not needed for gaming. Wouldn't it be nice if users could build a custom X as easy as custom kernels?
Re: (Score:2)
>a custom version for gaming which turns down or off features not needed for gaming ...gaming needs as many or more "features" as anything non-gaming...
if you want better game performance, look for driver improvements and mesa improvements (including gallium3d).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
X works really good for what it's designed for and I'd hate to have to live without it. That said, what I also would like is a custom version for gaming which turns down or off features not needed for gaming. Wouldn't it be nice if users could build a custom X as easy as custom kernels?
I agree that X works well for it's designed purpose, and that said I agree that we have further need as we move beyond what it was designed to do (and into the issues we run into with a modern desktop, such as gaming).
I find I struggle a bit with X on each new install (I like to switch around and use different Linux distros as the mood to tinker comes and goes). After working in an OSX-based development shop with Logitech MX1000s at each desk, I became spoiled on the 12 buttons (10 if you don't count the wh
Re:We just need an alternative to X (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Most complains about X nowadays a really complains about poor support from video card manufacturers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:We just need an alternative to X (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. Do you have any reason why you want to get rid of X?
X's code base is ugly at places, and writing pure-X11 applications isn't the most fun thing in the world, but I can't think of (m)any shortcomings that lead to any trouble in real world usage that can't be fixed. Also, X has to offer a lot of things that any new thing wouldn't have. You might not use many of the features you get for free with X, but some of us do. X's architecture can be seen as a shortcoming, but it's also an advantage in many situation. Remote X for example is a great thing.
The biggest problem is all the applications that are currently written for X. You can't rewrite everything, and it is not even worth it. Really. X is working fine, and it's getting better. The same goes for the drivers, and everything that's already in.
And if Google Chrome OS's windowing system doesn't support the X protocol, I can assure you I won't be using it.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree. Do you have any reason why you want to get rid of X?
As you say, X is getting better. It would take an incredibly strong argument to make the point that X should be rewritten from scratch, since, as you point out, it has so many applications. There are shortcomings that I associate with X, but they tend get lost in the overall effort to configure a new system install to work just how I want with my specific hardware. These fall into the general Linux-system shortcomings bucket where extra work is required for final touches, and as the various programs at faul
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like folks at Apple realized with their OS X, we in the Linux world, need an alternative to X. I heard that Google Chrome OS will get rid of it entirely. I would like to hear from anyone who disagrees.
Nouveau guys seem to disagree:
http://icps.u-strasbg.fr/~marchesin/nvdri/fosdem1.pdf [u-strasbg.fr]
Re: (Score:2)
xinput 2 is here. xkb2 is coming. evdev is here. exa and uxa are here. kms is here for some drivers already. the basics of gallium3d are here, the rest, including drivers, is coming. xcb is here, it just needs to be used more. input and output hotplug and autoconfiguration are here. With all this there is no need to replace X. The basic design is ok and the details have come a long way since xfree86.
Re: (Score:2)
X is not a problem. X is actually one of the best parts of the Linux graphics stack, and it allows very nice things like running graphical applications remotely. Moreover, DRI allows applications to bypass the X server entirely. The actual problems are the drivers, and a lack of standardized APIs for things like video acceleration that work regardless of the card manufacturer. However, this area is slowly improving, for example take a good look at Gallium3D. When this matures, the amount of effort required
Re:We just need an alternative to X (Score:5, Insightful)
Troll. But I'll bite.
X11 is a whipping boy for anyone who's ever had a complaint about a Unix GUI. No matter whether it's a badly-designed application, an unstable driver, or poor kernel scheduling, or a deranged toolkit drag-and-drop model, people always fault X11. And no matter what the root cause of the problem, the solution is always to throw out the X protocol and design something else. People like you fail to account for the possibility that there's actually very little wrong with X, and that it can certainly be the basis for a modern, functional GUI.
There was a very interesting comment [slashdot.org] on Slashdot a few years ago by Mike Paquette (who wrote Apple's Quartz) explaining why Apple didn't use X11 for OS X. The funny thing, in retrospect, is that every single feature mentioned in Paquette's post has now been implemented for X11, and that's with volunteer work. If Apple had invested resources into making this happen for X instead of reinventing the wheel, everyone would have been better off. Yet despite these additional features, we still retain full network transparency along with full compatibility stretching back to the 80s.
Don't confuse "newer" and "better". X11's architecture is quite good, and is among one of the better designs for a windowing system ever created. It's clean, extensible, fast, and network-transparent. It defines mechanism, not policy, and does its job extremely well. That it's been extended to support all kinds of modern features is a testament to the strength of its original design.
If it weren't for the soul-crushing stupidity, it'd be hilarious that people claim X is slow. X ran quickly on computers with 1/000 the performance of even a modest desktop system today, but it's slow on these modern computers? That makes no sense. People claim that X's network transparency puts it at a performance disadvantage, but neglect that Unix Sockets, used for local communication, are among the faster IPC mechanisms in existence. Criticism of X as a platform is baseless.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't confuse "newer" and "better"
Insightful.
X ran quickly on computers with 1/000 the performance of even a modest desktop system today, but it's slow on these modern computers?
You, sir, know what you're talking about. If only more were like you.
Re: (Score:2)
X ran quickly on computers with 1/000 the performance of even a modest desktop system today, but it's slow on these modern computers?
I don't mind X, but what applications did people run on those computers?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> I would like to hear from anyone who disagrees.
No, you are just a fool speaking of things he knows nothing of. You should go into politics.
I'll give 10-1 odds what you are actually wanting to replace is GNOME, KDE, Qt or Gtk and you haven't a fracking clue what part X actually plays in your desktop experience. You ain't the first newbie blathering on about replacing X and you won't be the last. Some have actually attempted to do it... I didn't follow closely but they never made it past talking and d
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally wrong, you must be new here.
OSS existed both in free and non-free forms. The non-free implementation was missing some featured and supported few cards. OSS was very limited where mixing of multiple audio sources was concerned.
So if you wanted sound effects while you listening to music OSS probably was not enough for you. These is where the sound daemons came into play. They acted as a single OSS client and did all the mixing operations for other software to connect with.
ALSA - provided an archite
*Another* FireWire stack? (Score:2)
I honestly don't know, why is it needed? Isn't this the third one in about 5 years now?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is not a new FireWire stack, rather the "second" stack that has been experimental for a few years is no longer marked experimental. However, the maintainer still says to use the old stack for many applications.
ATI mode setting, well, sort of... (Score:4, Informative)
From the kernelnewbies article:
With the HD5850 and HD5870 weeks away (don't buy a new card till they're out, you'll hate yourself!), this means you have to be three GENERATIONS behind the curve for this yet unreleased kernel feature to be of use.
Re:ATI mode setting, well, sort of... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you need a bleeding-edge card, you're gaming, and to be frank, Linux is not the best environment for gaming. If, on the other hand, you're interested in solid 2D work with decent acceleration, a solid older card is just the thing. I just picked up a dirt-cheap R400-based card myself. (I'd have stuck with my trusty Matrox G450, but the driver will probably never support modern multihead with xrandr 1.3.)
Re: (Score:2)
So? The basics are there, that makes adding newer stuff easier, especially since AFAIK the 5xxx series isn't radically different from 4xxx.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I see. Yes, your phrasing would have been better.
It's not all doom and gloom for the penguin (Score:5, Funny)
The advent of Windows 7 in October may drive Linux's desktop market share down even futher.
It's not all doom and gloom for the penguin, however...
Thank goodness. I was so worried and depressed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Even minor releases? (Score:5, Informative)
We won't: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2008/7/15/2497614 [kerneltrap.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Flip I sure hope debian, will jump on this, for the next release.
Kirk? Is that you?
Re: (Score:2)
Squeeze will not freeze until Q1 2010 at the very earliest. There is plenty of time for 2.6.31, and likely even 2.6.32
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The drivers *are* in userland (well there, is enough in the kernel to display basic images and text). KMS means the kernel can change video modes, which allows early boot splash screens with no "blink" transitions when X takes over and allows "bluescreens", that is, the kernel can print error messages to the screen even if X locks up.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the driver is still in userspace. The modesetting is a relatively small part of modern graphics hardware. The reason for the switch, also, isn't performance, but consistency: with KMS, there's no flicker on boot as the X server proper starts.
Besides: a userspace driver can screw up the machine almost as easily as a kernel-mode one. Remember that a userspace driver needs to run as root, and must be able to write directly to IO ports and the PCI configuration space. Both kinds of driver can easily cra
Re: (Score:2)
They do belong in user mode, but with one little catch: the user mode part must not meddle with the low-level hardware state, and that's what KMS is for. I'm not familliar with how exactly Vista and Win7 implement their video driver framework, but it seems that they do something pretty much like KMS: low-level, generic control over the graphics card (and only that) is still held by the kernel so when the high-level, user mode driver craps out, the OS can regain control of the video card and put it back in a
Re: (Score:2)
MS takes the drivers back to user mode after touting the kernel-mode as a performance plus. Based on my experience with 2008/Win 7 and ATI, I think the display drivers belong firmly in user mode.
Actually, if anything, the graphics driver models of windows and Linux are converging. The Vista/win7 graphics driver model is AFAIK not a pure user space model, but there is a small kernel component doing stuff like mode-setting and GPU memory management. Precisely like the "new" Linux graphics drivers with K
Re: (Score:2)
Fewer memory reads means less time waiting for memory reads, regardless of how much of it you have.
Re: (Score:2)
Today isn't Tuesday
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't be so sure, I'm not sure how ~1% of desktop computers compares to ~12% server market in real numbers. There are may be many more desktops/laptops in the world then servers. In real numbers, they might not be so different.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh my, another weirdo who thinks that programmers are like construction workers or the like and can be reassigned from one construction place to the other just like that.
First, there's no "they". The fact that someone is doing desktop-related work has absolutely, totally NO EFFECT on any server-related work in Linux kernel or userspace, because it's done by different people and mostly in different areas of the code (otherwise they just let you decide what code to use when configuring the kernel, like with s
Re: (Score:2)
Except that Linus Torvalds wanted a desktop OS.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does this matter, really? Linux is a server OS, why are they spending any time on useless trivia? Compare the number of working linux boxes used for servers versus desktops, and ask the same question again.
I get the same question each time I ask the question: it matters because I don't manage servers anymore, and the news about improvements to the "Linux Desktop" is much more relevant to me. Not only because I like to play around with Linux and any related innovations, but also because I believe that 1) Windows won't always be as easy to acquire without cost as it has been for as long as I can remember, 2) I (or a friend/family member) won't always have money to spend on a Mac, and 3) with those conditions on
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, we will stick your vague assertions and hints at the existence of anecdotal evidence completely unaccompanied by any actual information into our pipes.
Re: (Score:2)