OpenGL Library Mesa 11.0 Brings Open Source OpenGL 4 88
jj110888 writes: Mesa, the open source implementation of OpenGL, has just announced version 11.0. This adds support for the amdgpu driver, fixes for non-Windows platforms, new OpenGL ES extensions supported, and more. Most notable is the support for all extensions in OpenGL 4.1 by the radeonsi and nvc0 drivers, and support for extensions added in OpenGL 4.2 by the i965 driver. This brings the OpenGL version supported by core Mesa from 3.3 to 4.2, five and a half years after OpenGL 4 was released. Mesamatrix gives the status of which OpenGL extensions are supported by which open source driver. Vulkan, on the otherhand, will have an open source driver once the spec is released.
Open Wide and say Ah. (Score:1)
So I take it that OpenGL is not actually Open Source. So what's the Open part mean in this case?
Re:Open Wide and say Ah. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Yeah for FLOSS (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you are getting at. The alternative is using closed source, which honestly is not a real alternative.
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Not a real alternative how? Tons of us are using that with zero complaints...
Can I jump ship yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate that Linux has such bad graphical card support. Games are the only thing that are keeping me on the Windows platform. I think it really is the only thing that is keeping the world from a "Linux on the desktop" utopia.
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I think [gaming] really is the only thing that is keeping the world from a "Linux on the desktop" utopia.
And Excel, and Photoshop, and plenty of other Windows-specific software (of which games are a small subset, but one which you happen to be in).
Re:Can I jump ship yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thankfully you can simply use those in a VM, with SMB between the host and guest (or USB passthrough, raw formatted image file, ISO etc.) for file transfer, assuming you don't use VirtualBox which has a guest agent where you can just copy paste between them.
Harder is anything that needs 3D acceleration, in which case your best bet is VT-D or AMD-V with PCI Passthrough on a secondary video card, also playable with games and about 10% performance loss.
Then again, it's just less hassle to dual boot.
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with SMB between the host and guest
FYI VMWare lets you set up a shared directory between host and client, and I believe Virtualbox does too. No need for trickery.
Re: Can I jump ship yet? (Score:1)
Smb is a share
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The problem is that for the average user, there are plenty of reasons (like you just mentioned) to use Windows.
There is only one reason why anyone really uses Linux - free as in beer.
Tell me one thing that only runs on Linux and not Windows? Yeah. That's why people are on Windows.
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Put Linux on all laptops out of the factory and they will use Linux.
That has been tried and it failed miserably [theinquirer.net]
Re: Can I jump ship yet? (Score:2)
Until they try to install some Windows-only software such as Photoshop or World of Warcraft or try to use any of the many devices that either don't have Linux support or the support isn't as good as the Windows version such as graphics cards.
I used to use Linux as a primary desktop but it's not practical nowadays. There's too much time spent fucking about with holy wars and not enough time fixing shit.
Re:Can I jump ship yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is only one reason why anyone really uses Linux - free as in beer.
Speak for yourself, please. I've been using Linux since the mid 1990s. I genuinely prefer it. I like the neatness of a proper package manager. I like the *nix way of doing things. I like not having a Registry, and not worrying about my OS phoning home. I like the rock-solid stability that Windows has only recently started to acquire. I like not having to reboot for any reason at all other than a new kernel (and even then there is a way around it). I like not having to run virus/malware scanners. I like being able to make a copy of my /home directory to backup (or transfer) all of my settings, bookmarks, documents, etc -- ever try that on a Windows system? I like having multiple different interoperable GUIs from which I can choose, and the ability to customize each. I like that the few times I had a question about a program, I was able to effortlessly directly contact the author/maintainer and not some front-line scripted tech support. I like open standards and interoperability among diverse systems with no vendor lock-in. I like iptables and lots of other functionality that's built-in to standard Linux distros but requires third-party (and sometimes commercial) software for Windows. I like that the system doesn't assume I'm a moron who might get confused by meaningful error messages and advanced options. I like having the option to use a source-based distro with all the flexibility that brings; though of course that's not for everyone, it's great for me (I may one day decide to use systemd, but no one is pressuring me to do so). I like the general transparency, that there are no hinderances trying to stop me from peeking under the hood if I should get curious about exactly how something works. I like all the options I have to harden the kernel and userland against security threats, some of which depend on the ability to compile from source.
The few Windows-only programs I want to run have worked for me in Wine. I know that not everyone can say that, but for me this works and it works well.
I ran Linux for a long time now. That's not because I had no access to Windows. Some of my newer hardware came with Windows licenses. I'm not using Linux because I can't legitimately obtain Windows. I'm using Linux because I genuinely prefer it. While I may be a minority of all computer users, I am by no means the only one. So like I said, please speak for yourself.
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Like I said , 'the average user'. I assure you, you iptable-loving, kernel hardening, error-message-reading nerd, you are not the average user.
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Like I said , 'the average user'. I assure you, you iptable-loving, kernel hardening, error-message-reading nerd, you are not the average user.
Geek, actually. Next time, learn to say what you mean. "Anyone" != "the average user". You made a few statements. What you said, in that statement to which I replied, was "anyone". It just can't be so difficult to understand that.
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"Anyone" != "the average user".
"Anyone" is a generalization, used in this case to apply to 97-98% of computer users. So fairly accurate.
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There is only one reason why anyone really uses Linux - free as in beer.
That's absolute rubbish. If it were the case then no one would use Linux on a laptop because they almost come with Windows preinstalled. The fact that people do run Linux when they have already paid for a copy of Windows absolutely proves your statement false.
I know that facts and reasoning won't change your mind, but I might convince someone else reading this.
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You do know you are talking of a minority who does that. I do it too - install linux immediately while having Windows licenses. But 99% do not.
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Wow your reply makes no sense in the context of the thread. Either that or you've moved the goal posts so far you're now on a cricket pitch.
Re:Can I jump ship yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
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> There might be very good reasons why Photoshop doesn't have a Linux version
Photoshop is known to crash horribly on case-sensitive filesystems on OS X. All filesystems on Linux are case-sensitive by default.
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> There might be very good reasons why Photoshop doesn't have a Linux version
Photoshop is known to crash horribly on case-sensitive filesystems on OS X. All filesystems on Linux are case-sensitive by default.
That doesn't qualify as a "good" reason. That qualifies as "an easily foreseeable and preventable" reason.
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NTFS is case-sensitive, it's just that Windows chooses to ignore it.
This point is important to keep in mind when working with NTFS volumes under Linux, where all NTFS-legal filenames are allowed and usable rather than just the smaller subset that are Windows-legal.
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In all these cases I find it frustrating that gnu/Linux bears the blame. Microsoft office, Adobe products, video games, and major video cards software drivers are all 3rd party software products made by 3rd party companies that choose not to support Linux.
Why would they invest in supporting it? Most of their users aren't bothered about what the underlying operating system is, they just want to run those applications.
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The first rule of any investment is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Gnu/Linux by design does not operate as a single basket but
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But that is a short sighted approach, and therein lies the why you are looking for.
The desktop has been ruled by Windows for decades and it doesn't show any signs of changing, however many developers have also invested in the second-biggest player in the market: Apple. Using cross-platform/portable technologies is always a good idea, but there's still little reason to actually support Linux.
Game devs, hardware vendors, and most general software developers have all their eggs in the Microsoft basket.
No, a great many support OS X as well and often use cross-platform frameworks like Qt that run on GNU/Linux but there is still no reason to target and support GNU/Linux.
Microsoft has long released a product that runs slower, takes more of your system resources
Wrong, it has become faster and
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None of your arguments are valid
Don't be an idiot, of course they are. I disproved your claims and I even provided citation. I asked you to back up your claims (specifically the user interface problems) to better understand your perspective but it seems you haven't actually thought about any of this.
but I see little point in picking your argument apart line by line
Actually that is what I did to your argument in order to disprove it. I've addressed your concerns re: Windows 10, explained that developers don't have their "eggs all in one basket" and questioned why you think this user interface has an impa
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Actually that is what I did to your argument in order to disprove it.
I know. I was being ironic. Your "argument" style is to quote snippets and attack them. It's a preferred method for argumentative tops because it allows them to create a strawman. And more than that I'm not interested in arguing with someone, particularly someone that has clearly already made up their mind; I'm interested in rational objective discourse. Take that as a victory if you like. However, to be clear, you can't prove me wrong in a subjective discussion, and you've done nothing to show me you've
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I know. I was being ironic. Your "argument" style is to quote snippets and attack them.
No it was quoting your points and rebutting them with facts, sorry but you're wrong.
It's a preferred method for argumentative tops because it allows them to create a strawman.
Except there is no strawman (are you saying this because you don't know what "starwman" means?) they are facts that disprove your argument.
And more than that I'm not interested in arguing with someone, particularly someone that has clearly already made up their mind; I'm interested in rational objective discourse.
Absolute garbage, for one you've replied after you've already said you are not interested and secondly your argument is purely emotional which is why it was so easy for me to disprove it with facts. It may be your opinion - for example - that Windows has become slower and more resource hu
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Re: Can I jump ship yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand the importance of having office applications but like how porn pushes technological advances, I think that gaming pushes the desktop.
Having a Linux desktop at work will not make the average user install Linux at home. The other way around, maybe...
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Meeh. I bet that Vulkan's Linux implementation will be delayed year after year, just like Wayland is. Open source just doesn't have the funding and manpower to deliver these kind of extremely complex things quickly.
Actually Vulkan is moving most of that complexity out of the driver and into the hands of the engine developers. Unlike a couple decades ago, the market is now dominated by a few big engines like Unity, Unreal Engine and CryEngine who have the skills and funding to write low-level optimizations for broad classes of games, while creating your own engine from DirectX/OpenGL is more and more daunting. I'm not really sure you can call it a win for open source as it means more of the stack will be proprietary, b
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Having a Linux desktop at work will not make the average user install Linux at home. The other way around, maybe.
Linux at work = internal and external support = time and money = bugfixes and enhancements = stability and progress. The average home user won't contribute much to the development process, they won't pay. They won't code. They don't write good bug reports, in fact they rather want solutions instead of questions. It's highly unlikely it becomes important enough for someone to look at. But if a hundred employees have a problem, usually someone with the skills needed will look at it to find a solution. Compani
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VMWare solves all this for me.
What problem exactly does it solve?
You still pay for windows, and you still run windows. You still have windows updates. You still have windows malware to contend with. You have all the advantages and disadvantages of windows.
What do you gain. Support for linux only apps?
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You still have windows updates. You still have windows malware to contend with.
If the software doesn't need net access, the VM doesn't have to be given it, which completely solves these two issues.
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If the software doesn't need net access
True, but that's a pretty big "if".
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If you switch to Linux full-time you'll find a lot more to hate.
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Have you looked at steam [steampowered.com]? You might be surprised at the number of proprietary games available for Linux.
Also, you should look be looking at this site [gamingonlinux.com] as well.
I don't know about bad recent graphical support. I can tell you that I've been happy with the FOSS OpenGL support by Intel and AMD for the past 11 years. The only consistent issue I ever had was with NVidia's proprietary drivers that chained me to a specific linux kernel and even then would still cause kernel panics. I threw out my last NVidia card 6
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I hate that Linux has such bad graphical card support. Games are the only thing that are keeping me on the Windows platform. I think it really is the only thing that is keeping the world from a "Linux on the desktop" utopia.
Please don't copy-and-paste from 10 year old slashdot comments.
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I hate that Linux has such bad graphical card support. Games are the only thing that are keeping me on the Windows platform. I think it really is the only thing that is keeping the world from a "Linux on the desktop" utopia.
Please don't copy-and-paste from 10 year old slashdot comments.
Well, what has changed really? Most AAA games didn't run on Linux 10 years ago and they still don't. For example I played CoH2 with friends tonight, it's garbage under WINE. GTA V is the same. Granted, many more games do work but if you're a gamer and/or you want to play the same games as your friends there will almost certainly be some games that don't work for you. If you don't have any other particular requirements, why wouldn't games be the only blocker? It was the one thing that kept me running a Windo
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Re:Software using OpenGL (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry for that obvious question but is there left any software still using OpenGL? :-) (mesa demos do not count)
The first things that come to mind would be any hardware accelerated 3D graphics not targeting a Microsoft-only platform. Any software or games that are compiled against D3D and run through Wine are implicitly using OpenGL. All iphone and android apps are using OpenGL. Scientific visualization applications are most likely using OpenGL along with any other industry that goes back to the early 90's or before. I don't see a whole lot wrong with OpenGL for my needs, and Vulkan doesn't seem to add a whole lot that I can't do already though it is apparently necessary for pushing the envelope wrt next generation game engines. -metric
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All iphone and android apps are using OpenGL.
Perhaps Android, but an increasing number of iPhone apps are using Metal (often indirectly by using a supporting engine modified for it).
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Since DirectX only runs on windows, what do you thing all other platforms are using (consoles, mobiles, ...)?
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-metric
Cool but... (Score:1)
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Vulkan is not a replacement for OpenGL, by its own admission.
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When you look at mobile particularly, where using something like Vulkan could substantially increase battery life - assuming you don't make it work twice as h
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