Google Won't Enable Chrome Video Acceleration Because of Linux GPU Bugs 295
An anonymous reader writes "Citing 'code we consider to be permanently "experimental" or "beta,"' Google Chrome engineers have no plans on enabling video acceleration in the Chrome/Chromium web browser. Code has been written but is permanently disabled by default because 'supporting GPU features on Linux is a nightmare' due to the reported sub-par quality of Linux GPU drivers and many different Linux distributions. Even coming up with a Linux GPU video acceleration white-list has been shot down over fear of the Linux video acceleration code causing stability issues and problems for Chrome developers. What have been your recent experiences with Linux GPU drivers?"
Permenant Beta (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like Google Maps??
Mine is working just fine. (Score:5, Informative)
Using intel i3 graphics with default driver that comes with RHEL6/CentOS6. I startup chromium with --ignore-gpu-blacklist. It has been more than a year now and so far so good.
Bullshit! (Score:5, Informative)
Simply enable it for NVIDIA users by default. It works the same across every distribution, and in fact, every OS. Google are just as cowardly as Adobe were.
For those who want faster flash and faster Chrome, try this:
* Go to chrome://flags
* Override software rendering list -> Enable
Welcome to a faster Flash and faster Chrome :)
Linux drivers are fine (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using Linux as my primary OS for 10 years. My desktop PC does dual boot into windows for a few games but spends 95% of the time in Linux. I've done a bit of gaming and other graphics intensive applications under Linux without any problems. As a part time gaming machine, there is a mid range NVIDIA card hiding inside and I've always used the proprietary NVIDIA drivers which are as good as those on windows. There was a time when installing those drivers was a bit of a pain, due to other developers trying to to force their extremist political views on users, but it is a very simple process now.
Some drivers might have problems but there is no reason they couldn't take the same approach as Firefox developers: provide a user controlled, easily accessible, option to enable hardware acceleration... Maybe that last point shows why I don't care what Google does with Chrome on Linux or any other platform... Firefox works for me on Linux, Windows and Android.
Re:Like the good ole days (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Steam/GoG/HB (Score:3, Informative)
> Every linux distro has a different driver with a different level of support for the specific revision of the specific card a user has.
You mean like anyone with a Windows box?
Linux distributions are just collections of upstream projects. That includes the kernel, the user land, and anything else.
Someone comparable to myself either has some version of the kernel or the Nvidia blob drivers. That's the official driver from the hardware vendor. I might have a different version than someone else, but that has nothing to do with whether I'm running Gentoo or Arch or Slackware.
EVERY ONE can have a different version of the official driver.
It's no different from Windows in this regard.
Every PC is going to be a random collection of software components that some 3rd party has no control over. Every user is free to do things that will scramble the mix.