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?"
Still requires an "advanced" user skillset (Score:1, Insightful)
If you want GPU acceleration that actually works somewhat as expected in LINUX, you need a relatively recent (but not TOO recent) graphics accelerator card and a popular distro such as Ubuntu / Linux Mint so that you have access to precompiled proprietary drivers (and an automated installer) that have actually been tested with that distribution (and still may break things when you install them even after they have passed testing). Mileage will vary on other distros but you will likely need the most recent release of the OS in order to get acceleration working without tons of effort. You will still need to use a proprietary driver if you intend to do anything more advanced than rendering 2d effects, and the desktop environment may impact performance if gl effects are enabled.
If you manage to avoid breaking Xorg after you have installed the proprietary drivers, you will still find that performance is lagging behind equivalent setups in Windows, and rendering issues may appear in certain games that will not be resolved for at least one or more driver releases, typically not included with that particular distribution's release. This will force you to either upgrade to the alpha/beta/testing version of that distro or else try to compile your own proprietary drivers, either scenario including a significant amount of additional risk to your environment and potentially costing hours of effort to resolve.
God help you if you have a laptop with a hybrid intel/nVidia GPU system that is designed to use the intel GPU for common 2D tasks and the nVidia GPU for gaming or other high performance 3d rendering tasks in an effort to offer the best of both worlds (good battery life and high performance) which is an absolutely nightmare to get working correctly in LINUX.
God help you if you are dealing with EFI or UEFI.
These are some of the reasons why I bought a used Mac and stopped using LINUX as my primary OS.
Re:Like the good ole days (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Video does not "suck ass". Google is just a bunch of whining crybabies.
Many of us have been happy as clams taking advantage of these features for years now on Linux. At least for Nvidia kit, it's pretty old news at this point.
The Intel and AMD variants may not be up to snuff yet but progress is being made. Google could certainly "white list" Nvidia without trouble.
As for the rest, they could allow it to be enabled for those that are really determined to take the risk. That might even help improve the quality of those other offerings.
They can't be stressing things any harder than Valve.
Re:What's the solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
AFAIK the Mozilla folks have not had the same complaints about Linux graphics drivers, have they?
The solution is to avoid using the Google Chrome browser, unless you like being spied on all the time by Google. Load up Firefox with a completely fascist set of add ons and do your best to browse safely.
Re:Permenant Beta (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What have been my recent experiences? (Score:5, Insightful)
linux drivers suck for all 3
Don't tell Valve! You'll ruin there latest business model!
Seriously, I've used GPUs from all three manufacturers and found every Intel and nvidia hardware/driver combination I've tried to work well in Linux, and every AMD combination to be the opposite. I wish it were not so, but it is, in my experience.
I think your finger pointed the wrong way (Score:0, Insightful)
First, Linux GPU support for Nvidia (IF you use Nvidia's drivers and not the amateur open-source garbage most ditros now default to) for example, has been very good for many years (I've been using many Nvidia-based Linux systems in an engineering environment for over a decade). Nvidia's drivers have always been pretty good for my needs (I suspect they're built from the same codebase as their Windows drivers) and the solution would even be easier if the Linux fanatics would stop trying to add stuff to Linux for the purely political (rather than FUNCTIONAL) purpose of making it tough to use closed-source code (so much for giving users "freedom"...)
Second, it sounds like you did something dumb and un-professional, "got burned", and are now blaming somebode else. You see, it's HORRENDOUSLY unprofessional to spend "weeks convincing a customer he was better off moving his code base" to something when you yourself have not done your homework and YOU DO NOT KNOW IF WHAT YOU ARE CONVINCING YOUR CLIENT TO DO IS GOING TO WORK. Nobody should trust you for input on their business activities if you value his/her business so little thet you would put his/her money and time at risk like that. The fact that it was Linux, rather than Windows, or Mac, Or BSD, or anything else is moot. The fact that you did not see any need to veryify things would work BEFORE trying to convince a customer/client when it involved an Intel Atom (a realtively new CPU, as opposed to a generic Intel desktop chip) which would be expected to have more "issues" makes this even worse.
There are things about Linux and the "Linux community" that drive me nuts, but in this case the fault for your trouble is entirely yours
Re:Permenant Beta (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they could. They don't *want* to.
What they do want, is for Linux to be a little more BigCorp friendly so walled gardens are a little easier to build and maintain.
This, by itself, isn't much of campaign, but every little nudge counts.