[7941] in testers
Re: Compiz
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike Khusid)
Sat Mar 14 11:03:28 2009
Message-ID: <49BBC6DF.7000203@mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:01:51 -0400
From: Mike Khusid <mkhusid@MIT.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: William Cattey <wdc@mit.edu>
CC: testers@mit.edu, Geoffrey Thomas <geofft@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <721BC565-0F4F-459A-ADFC-EE5926661837@mit.edu>
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Bill,
Thanks for the detailed response. I also find himself struggling with
ATI video drivers since my own laptop has one.
In versions prior to Gutsy, I used fgrlx driver and Xgl. It's actually
a very solid combination with extremely good 3D support. However, it
occasionally requires user understanding of the configuration, esp
dealing with two displays (:0 and :1), that would probably be too difficult.
In Hardy, fglrx introduced AIGLX support, and I switched to this
combination without Xgl. It would not be usable on general Athena since
OpenGL applications have very hard time being displayed properly.
Lastly, I just switched to open source drivers in jaunty. Fgrlx
recently announced that my video card will not be supported in the
future releases. Both radeon and radeon_hd work on my hardware
(Mobility X1400 aka R500 family), and both provide adequate 3d hardware
support. Radeon is notably faster than radeon_hd.
All that said and done, I have agree that the development of the driver
support is in flux and probably far from being a priority for the
Debathena team. Nevertheless, if would be interesting to have a Wiki
page dedicated to Athena users willing to enable 3D with proper
support. The advanced desktop surely does catch people eyes and boosts
user productivity. In a way, it's not dangerous to configure one's
account for Compiz and 3D. If compiz fails to start, it automatically
reverts to metacity.
Mike
William Cattey wrote:
> I'm also going to chime in on this issue. Because of recent findings
> with regard to 3d operation with the radeon driver used on the Dell
> Optiplex 745 systems.
>
> On the Dell 755's we kludge cluster systems to use the radeon_hd driver.
> I'm not sure what we run on the HPs, but both it and the radeon_hd do
> 3d with a software emulation of OpenGL.
>
> The Dell 745s are using the radeon driver (which is a subtly different
> code base from the radeon_hd driver.) It has some 3d support
> implemented, but it's done in such a way that several third part apps
> (gaussian, maya, and ac3d) do not work. Apparently the driver
> over-reached, and opted for fast sometimes-correct operation instead
> of slow always-correct operation.
>
> Going forward, we expect the radeon driver to subsume the radeon_hd
> driver and to be MUCH more functional when Jaunty comes out, and gets
> integrated into Debathena.
>
> All this is a very detailed way of saying, 3d doesn't work everywhere.
> And we know.
>
> -Bill Cattey
>
> On Mar 13, 2009, at 6:15 PM, Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
>> On Fri, 13 Mar 2009, Michael Khusid wrote:
>>
>>> Just noticed that the drivers for the public workstation video cards
>>> support 3D acceleration. Took me less than 5 minutes to get compiz
>>> running and the desktop cube spinning. Hello wobbly windows :)
>>>
>>> I don't know if it should be the default behavior, but it surely
>>> looks cooler than plain ole' Athena 9.
>>
>> We've made Compiz not the default on the beta, because there's a bug
>> involving Compiz, zwgc, and the screensaver that causes your windows
>> to be visible if you receive a zephyr.
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/336932
>>
>> Compiz works just fine if you disable zwgc (or are okay with the
>> privacy issue), and don't have other applets like IM clients that can
>> create windows when you're running the screen saver. Hopefully by the
>> summer release we will have figured this out, and it will be the
>> default again.
>>
>> --
>> Geoffrey Thomas
>> geofft@mit.edu
>
