“The answer to the title of this article is a single sentence, but you’ll have to read the whole article to understand it. The Linux community has an amazing blind spot, and I’d like to rant about it a bit. I keep bumping into programmers who think some program or other is needed to change the world. They’re wrong. “Linux just needs this one program and then we’ll be ready!” they cry. I generally want to slap these people until they snap out of it (which is kind of hard to do through an internet connection). They are making a fundamentally wrong assumption. It’s not about programs. It’s about data.” Read the rest of the editorial at LinuxAndMain.
Why Linux Isn’t on the Desktop Yet
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Gee…another “Why Linux doesn’t cut it on the desktop” article. How exciting…Where all of them failed so far to give Joe Average any reason *why* he would want to trade his Windows system for Linux except for religious reasons. If StarOffice, bash, gcc, the Gimp and Mozilla are so much better – well, then I’ll use them on Windows. The “doesn’t crash” argument doesn’t count since Windows 2000.
Linux needs standard formats for certain files that will be pervasive through out all applications on Linux. you can have support for other formats, but one singe Document format, and one single spreadsheet format etc. is needed. then, we will have real competition on the Linux desktop.
IMHO XFree86 is the main reason we don’t see any of the desktop Linux distributions gaining popularity. GNOME, KDE(and others) are capable of looking very nice and being quite functional. It’s too bad windows 95/98 will still run faster on equivlent low-end machines because of Xfree bloat.
It should be noted that i’m in no way anti-linux, I even admin several linux and sun servers as part of my daily work. I even enjoy it:) Linux doesn’t need “one good app” to takeover the desktop market. It _does_ need an entirely new GUI framework of some sort.
Most of the people I deal with are curious if their old Pentium 120/133’s can be usefull again if they install something like Lycoris for office type work. They’re under the impression that Linux will actually run faster on old hardware than win9x(as is the case with server tasks). Unfortunatly I have to tell them Windows 95(or whatever other garbage they’re currently using) is actually smoother on their old hardware than Linux will be.
XFree needs to be put on the shelf. The Linux community is in need of new, leaner technology. Anyone with me?
I’m no XFree expert, I just know it’s very slow. I’m sure there’s many technical points supporting it’s use for specialized applications. End users just don’t need the slow bloatyness and useless(for them) features.
-TC
The doesn’t crash argument certainly counts here… I spent all day yesterday in XP. IE crashed 5 times!!! 5 freakin’ times.
Adam
Frankly, considering how incredible XFree86 runs on most modern video cards, I’d be really hesitant to ditch it in favor of something else just so low end machines will be more responsive.
Adam
I totaly agree with you…I think that new AethOS is the way to go here. I mean Mozy, open office and other Open source software can be ported over and you get all the nice GNU tools and a Linux kernle on a nice display system. if we are lucky, in 3 years or so, the video drives will be vast enough in their selection that it will have a place on the desktop….I am also very interested in OpenBeOS.
Adam: it’s does run pretty nice on the right hardware.
I’ve had my “linux from scratch” desktop machine at home running for quite a while with an nvidia TNT2 card, quite nice(with lots of tweaking), as functional as any windows desktop box.
Unfortunatly in an educational institution like this that doesn’t have a large IT budget, there’s not many “modern video cards” around. Even the newer machines seem to have nothing more than non-radeon ATI cards (which still run slower in X).
I would gladly move workstations over to a desktop linux distro with something like Open Office. Users would not accept the performance hit though.
Windows 9x also seems to make better use of machines that have small amounts of ram, this is also a major issue for me.
I can’t believe i’m advocating the use of win9x at all. pretty sad stuff
-TC
“XFree needs to be put on the shelf. The Linux community is in need of new, leaner technology. Anyone with me?
”
I fully agree. The X Windows concept is a relic and its time has long since past. It needs to be completely scrapped in favor of an intergrated GUI like Windows and Mac have.
“Frankly, considering how incredible XFree86 runs on most modern video cards, I’d be really hesitant to ditch it in favor of something else just so low end machines will be more responsive. ”
Even on modern video cars, XFree is a dog compared to Windows. The entire concept of X Windows is outdated and needs to be replaced. That is the problem with it. We have a system that sort of works, so programmers are reluctant to start over. Instead they would rather just keep applying more and more duct tape to a system that is showing more and more cracks from its age.
“Even on modern video cars, XFree is a dog compared to Windows. ”
I’d be interested in knowing what kind of modern video card you’re talking about.
I’ve used XFree86 4.* on a G400, GeForce2/3, Radeon7200/7500, Voodoo3/4/5 and Savage card. The only one that could even be remotely considered a dog was the Savage.
Adam
The irony of the article is that what he discuss and what he thinks the users want is exactly the same thing. When someone says “Gee, I whish I could buy Office for my Linux box”, in many mean that they would like to have a program that could use the same data files as Office. Which could lead one to conclude that the people Rob want to slap until they snap out of it, actually wants the same thing he does.
But that is not the whole truth either. Occasionay people do need the actual program they are reffering to. He talks about tools for modifying the data. In some cases these tools are what make the user want the application for his/her own platform. A crude example: An editor that could perfectly read and write Office documents wouldn’t be that much of a useful tool, if it didn’t have any search/replace, spell checking or print support? And even if the clones have the basic features and lots of other, some people would still want to use MS Office, because that is what they are used too. And if you take these peoples views into regard, the whole argument of it only beeing a lack of data standards collapses completely.
“I’ve used XFree86″ 4.* on a G400, GeForce2/3, Radeon7200/7500, Voodoo3/4/5 and Savage card. The only one that could even be remotely considered a dog was the Savage. ”
Comparatvely, it is a dog. For example, run a full motion MPEG video in Windows Media player and then run it under X Windows. The frames per second in X Windows sucks compared to WMP.
Sure for most tasks you don’t notice that X Windows is a dog. But most people aren’t running 720×400 34fps MPEG video either.
I have run a full motion mpeg video (NTSC) back under Windows XP and X Windows. In both cases I get a full 30 fps (29.97 actually), both windowed and fullscreen.
The last time I saw any difference in framerates for mpeg playback between X Windows and MS Windows was when I was using a single processor Celeron system (around 330 Mhz, iirc) on an SiS graphics chipset in XFree86 3.3.*. This was a couple of years ago.
Adam
> Until Linux can read, edit,
> and write *.DOC files, it can’t
> interact with the millions of
> word processing documents sent
> around the world each day.
Well, macintosh can and has been doing that for years, so why is not the desktop of choice for a significant number of users? I am amused each time a new prophet invents the one formula that would transform linux into a popular desktop OS. In my opinion, the search for one explanation is misguided. A lot of factors are involved here, and you just can’t narrow it down to one factor. But I have a feeling linux use will increase beyond what it is now. Eventually.
I have know idea what everyone is talking about. Tonight, I’m taking my aging Dell, wiping XP, which is just as buggy as all other MSFT code, and installing Suse 7.3 (we don’t have 8.0 up here in the Boston hinterlands yet.-I’ll do an upgrade when CompUSA, MicroCenter, or Best Buy has it on their shelves.)
Linux is going to be on this desk, er, laptop, anyway.
“I have run a full motion mpeg video (NTSC) back under Windows XP and X Windows. In both cases I get a full 30 fps (29.97 actually), both windowed and fullscreen.”
30 frames per second is not full motion video. Full motion video is usually a higher frame rate since the human eye can notice jumpiness at only 30 frames per second.
Also, what resolution was the video recorded at? I’m talking high quality here. Not typical mpeg. I’m talking about video that is over 1Gb a minute in uncompressed format.
“Well, macintosh can and has been doing that for years, so why is not the desktop of choice for a significant number of users?”
A few reasons.
1. Games, or lack thereof.
2. Price. Macs tend to be seriously expensive for equivalent performance.
3. Games, or lack thereof.
4. Limited upgrade options.
5. Games, or lack thereof.
Full motion NTSC video (which is what’s broadcast in the US) is 29.97 frames per second. The standards for the rest of the world (eg. PAL) are roughly the same.
Besides, when is the last time that any average user needed to playback video faster than 30 fps?
BTW, uncompressed video is obviously going to play back smoother than compressed video due to the fact that the codec is going to use very few resources to play it back, so a better test is playing back highly compressed video.
Adam
“Besides, when is the last time that any average user needed to playback video faster than 30 fps?”
I’m not necessarily talking about the average user here. I’m talking about someone doing production video editing or something. In this case, the inferior performance of XFree really does show up because you are dealing with very high frame rates and very high resolution.
“BTW, uncompressed video is obviously going to play back smoother than compressed video due to the fact that the codec is going to use very few resources to play it back, so a better test is playing back highly compressed video.”
Not necessarily. Hard disk performance plays an important role here. On a single HD system, the compressed video will actually play back with better quality than the uncompressed one. The reason is that on today’s CPUs running at well over 1Ghz, the codec can uncompress the video faster than the hard disk can send video.
Remember, we are talking about over 1Gb per minute here. The uncompressed video will actually be pretty jumpy on a single HD system because the hard disk can’t keep up.
Of course, on a RAID system, your statement is correct if disk striping is employed.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu
mplayer is faster.
I’m not necessarily talking about the average user here. I’m talking about someone doing production video editing or something. In this case, the inferior performance of XFree really does show up because you are dealing with very high frame rates and very high resolution.
Do you have any actual data to lend credence to this little theory of yours? Or are you merely one of those irascible fools who hates X for no real reason? It’s not as if X doesn’t provide proper ways of displaying massive quantities of data directly to the screen (eg. large, full motion video files) through things like the Xv and DGA extensions.
Please, tell us all about the technical reasons why X is allegedly so slow – and it better be more than some drivel about network transparency.
Meanwhile, I’ll sit here watching 12 400×300 MPEGS playing with no frame drops whatsoever. @_@
“Meanwhile, I’ll sit here watching 12 400×300 MPEGS playing with no frame drops whatsoever. @_@ ”
400×300 is a pathetically low resolution for serious video work.
And I am not buying it that you are watching 12 at the same time with no frame drops. Find some other clueless person to feed that line too.
“Please, tell us all about the technical reasons why X is allegedly so slow – and it better be more than some drivel about network transparency.”
It’s really quite simple. There are too damn many layers in X. And there is no direct video access.
X is very much like Windows 3.1 in that it is a layer running on top of a layer. But with X it is even worse. It is a layer running ontop of a layer running on top of a layer running on top of a layer.
And I am not an X hater. I like the fact that X allows me to choose from dozens of different window manangers and such. But the concept of X is still very outdated. There is no reason a new system can’t be developed that still allows that same degree of flexibility.
BTW, find me Quicktime software for X and Linux… Another reason that Linux is not really a serious contender in video editing circles.
You’re wrong, Simba. There is direct video access with XFree86 and a number of cards.
There’s a little project known as the Direct Rendering Infrastructure. It’s designed to let applications directly access the video hardware in a safe and secure manner.
There is also an openquicktime project under X which will play back every Quicktime Codec that Apple hasn’t licensed in a fascist manner. This, of course, excludes Sorenson. However, this is true for every non MS and non Apple operating system.
You should really read up on these things before spreading such blatant inaccuracies.
It’s funny how you guys are arguing wether GNU/Linux with XFree is as fast as Windows or not, because it doesn’t matter. Even if GNU/Linux was 10% faster in all graphics things than Windows, people still wouldn’t switch. They would just ask: “OK, so that Linux thing can do everything that Windows does for me now. So why can’t I just stay with Windows? What does Linux give me that Windows doesn’t?”
There you got it. Don’t play catch-up. Don’t write an Office-Clone and a Winamp clone. Write something that will be cloned on Windows, or better, write something that can’t be cloned on Windows. Then you will get new users.
I am a System Administrator working for a company that has primarily a Novell network. Of about 125 desktop computers in the company one typically finds Windows 95 and WordPerfect Suite8. Most users don’t have any problems not having native Word97+ compatibility. The ones that do also have StarOffice installed. The issue that holds the company to Windows is the creepy vendors to only want to sell software running on a Windows “server” with a client that runs on Windows. Examples ; Sage MAS200, Simplex Winstar, Ceridian Payroll. Sure, companies like Appgen have alternatives but they need to SELL THE MANAGERS. Especially with Win4lin, Crossover Office, Applixware, StarOffice, anyone who still claims they need better .doc and .xls support is stupid and spineless.
I am not sure the author is completely correct on good Word document editing being the one thing missing statement. My own experience is in the business market with the Macintosh. Perhaps looking at how the Macintosh was eliminated from the business market could shed light on what is keeping Linux out.
The Macintosh has had MS Word compatibility since 1985. Yet their market share declined significantly through the nineties. Obviously simply having Word file editing is not enough.
Prior to 1995 my company had a 30% installed base of Macintoshes. In the battle to eliminate them Word compatibility was not an issue. Rather it was a basket full of compatibility issues. The most significant ones however were Visual Basic and Exchange.
During the nineties Visual Basic became the most used programming language in the US (maybe the world). Proponents of dropping the Mac argued effectively that a large base of software was inaccessible to Mac users.
Also during that time period Exchange was introduced, and quickly became the biggest email system in corporations. Microsoft was unclear on, what, if any, support the Macintosh would have. Eugenia’s article down plays the importance of formatted documents in email. This might be true in home or independent users; however in corporations people want to send and receive formatted email. The Macintosh appeared to be a week player in this area.
Since then more barriers have gone up. Most of these are in the form of programs from Microsoft, not supported on Macintosh (Outlook, Access, Project, and all the programming tools). The result is that overcoming just one barrier does not solve the problem for a company wanting to introduce an alternate to MS Windows.
Xfree86 is too slow, and the desktop enviroments(ie. KDE/Gnome) suck! I threw the two Linux Distros I had spent my time downloading on a 56k modem into the trash, because they were REALLY slow and clunky on my 566MHZ box. The kernel should be WAY easier to upgrade also, I ended up f-cking up my HD partitions everytime I tried to replace the old ass kernel I was on(2.4.7)! If you really want us windowz users to migrate:
1. STOP! makeing soo many progz that do the same thing
2. Get a GOOD smooth GUI
3. Make the upgrade proccess ‘Idiot-Proof’
4. Make it easier to install progz
5. Get a way to run Win-32 programs(mostly games) on Linux that is EASY and isn’t a PAIN(like Wine)
Note: I think your best shot at takeing the desktop from M$ is Lindows.com; They get what the average joe wants in a O/S.
And most people at my school don’t even know what an O/S is much less that there is ANYTHING other than windows.
“There’s a little project known as the Direct Rendering Infrastructure. It’s designed to let applications directly access the video hardware in a safe and secure manner.”
A little known project… Now give me something stable.
“You’re wrong, Simba. There is direct video access with XFree86 and a number of cards.”
The only way to achieve this would be to run the X server as root. And as I am sure you know, that is a serious security hazard. If you aren’t running X as root, it is using a wrapper. And if it is using a wrapper, it doesn’t have direct video access… So no, I am not wrong about this. What at first glance might seem to be direct video access really isn’t.
“There is also an openquicktime project under X which will play back every Quicktime Codec that Apple hasn’t licensed in a fascist manner. This, of course, excludes Sorenson. However, this is true for every non MS and non Apple operating system. ”
Like I said, give me something stable and that supports all the codecs. Don’t give me a poor excuse of a clone.
And if it is true for every non MS and non Apple operating system, so what? It doesn’t change the facts that this is why Linux is not a serious player in high end video editing (render farm back ends are a different story). But for video editing workstations, its not a serious player.
“You should really read up on these things before spreading such blatant inaccuracies. ”
I have read up on it. And my statements are not inaccurate. Yours are however. You are trying to pass something off as direct video access that as it turns out, is not direct at all but goes through a wrapper. Like I said, unless you are doing the incredibly stupid and running X as root, it is impossible to obtain direct video access in X.
As I see it, there are at least 5 more roadblocks to more widespread acceptance of Linux:
1. The average User of a PC does NOT want to have to crawl under the hood every time they
Jump in their car to go someplace. Just like they do NOT want to have to tune up their OS, whatever it might be.
2. Each vendor of Linux seems to have some aversion to placing files in one location. I had to
swtich from Corel Linux to RedHat. Guess what, I no longer know where everything is located.
3. There are still some hardware vendors that simply support Windoze only, why should I be forced to
write a hardware driver for my USB DSL Modem?
4. No vendor of Linux has any support for the casual user of Linux. I guess I’m expected to shell out the full price of a new package every time there is a major upgrade to the Kernel (I most certainly won’t do so for minor ones!). If you’re not a business User of Linux, you are S.O.L.
5. I do a lot of programming in C. How come there is no source code debugger for Linux? I’ll
stick to SAS-C V6.58 on my Amiga A4000T, at least I can see what my programs are doing, thank you.
You obviously have no idea what the DRI is all about and how stable it actually is. But feel free to keep posting your FUD.
“The “doesn’t crash” argument doesn’t count since Windows 2000.” Like hell it doesn’t. W2000 crashes more than any other OS I’ve ever used– except for Win95.
” I spent all day yesterday in XP. IE crashed 5 times!!! 5 freakin’ times.
” Well, we’re talking OS stability here, not APPLICATION stability. OOPS! I forget MSFT says IE IS part of the OS. And can’t be removed….
“The Macintosh has had MS Word compatibility since 1985. Yet their market share declined significantly through the nineties…..the battle to eliminate them Word compatibility was not an issue. Rather it was a basket full of compatibility issues. The most significant ones however were Visual Basic and Exchange. ”
And look what happened– Outlook/exchange has cost companies billions in terms of lost work time due to the “weekly Outlook virus”. And it basically sucks from the E-mail USERS point of view (maybe admins like it?).
No, the the “doc” issue is PART of the reason more companies haven’t switched to LINUX. But I think the bigger reasons are 1) ignorance 2) fear of retaliation by Microsoft.
Simba,
You conveniently forgot to mention that with nearly every OS on the planet, you either have to be the administrator of the computer to get direct hardware access, or the application has to run through some sort of wrapper.
In addition, all you initially asked for was Quicktime software for X and Linux, which there is certainly quite a bit of. Now you’re changing your argument saying you want all the codecs supported. Which is it?
Maybe you should sit down next time and decide what exactly you do want before you open your big mouth.
I don’t know where you all get your ideas about X11. XFree86 4 is a fully rewritten implimentation of X11R6 with fully modern features. DRI works extreamly well in version 4 there are no stablility conserns. Also note that video playback framerate has nearly nothing to do with XFree86, and is more an issue with the application software. I’ve never had a problem with X being the bottleneck. Early versions of Xine had jerky playback which has improved to be fairly fluid.
XFree86 is typically called bloated in it’s memory usage. Okay take a took at the process list. Typically base line memory usage is around 30MB. This really isn’t too bad. Now, add Gnome and a few applications running. Memory usage has shot up to around 80-100MB. This could be considered pretty shabby, but this is comparible to WindowsXP’s memory usage. So, no X isn’t this huge memory hog everyone dreams it up to be.
XFree86 is always run as root (it has to be inorder to gain direct hardware access). You either run it as setuid root or run it though xdm or the equivlent. Also, running it as root isn’t as much of a consern on a workstation as workstations typically don’t run as many services as a server would. This is of course only true if you know what you are doing and don’t have every service under the sun running (Note redhat is extreamly bad about this).
And I am not buying it that you are watching 12 at the same time with no frame drops. Find some other clueless person to feed that line too.
I don’t care if you ‘buy it’ or not. It won’t change the fact that I can play 12 MPEG1 streams simultaneously with negligable CPU usage and no framedrops.
It’s really quite simple. There are too damn many layers in X. And there is no direct video access.
Wrong. There is direct video access through a number of extensions. Xvideo which does stuff like hardware scalaing, rotation and colour correction of motion video, DGA2 (Direct Graphics Access) and DRI. All are well supported, standard parts of XFree86 4.x.
X is very much like Windows 3.1 in that it is a layer running on top of a layer. But with X it is even worse. It is a layer running ontop of a layer running on top of a layer running on top of a layer.
Ah, so you don’t actually know, do you? You just think “oh my god – it isn’t part of the kernel therefore it’s slow!”. Pathetic. Hopeless. Wrong.
Another reason that Linux is not really a serious contender in video editing circles.
We aren’t talking about software availability, we’re talking about technical capability. Nice attempt at a diversion though.
A little known project… Now give me something stable.
He was being sarcastic.
Russell:
XFree86 is typically called bloated in it’s memory usage. Okay take a took at the process list. Typically base line memory usage is around 30MB. This really isn’t too bad. Now, add Gnome and a few applications running. Memory usage has shot up to around 80-100MB. This could be considered pretty shabby, but this is comparible to WindowsXP’s memory usage. So, no X isn’t this huge memory hog everyone dreams it up to be.
Don’t forget that your videocard memory is included in X’s memory total – so if you have a 128 meg GF4, X will appear in top to be using 128 megs more than it actually is. X also attempts to cache as many pixmaps as it can, but these are discardable.
I know very little about this so please excuse the ignorance – but if Linux w/X was so bad at video work, why has Dreamworks switched completely to Linux – they used to use SGI workstations, but have crossed over completely to Linux lately (their latest film was made entirely with Linux), even the workstations used by the animators.
Presumably if the video performance was that crappy, they would not tolerate it, and let’s face it, that kind of work is just about the highest end video work that can be done, n’est pas?
I have a 700MHz Duron and a GeForce2 MX graphics card and 128MB PC100 RAM. I have run Win98, Debian/GNU Linux w/Xfree86 4.x, FreeBSD w/Xfree86 4.x, and BeOS on this machine. I can definitely and accurately say that out of all of these, Linux and FreeBSD are the slowest(running X), and BeOS is the fastest.
“You obviously have no idea what the DRI is all about and how stable it actually is. But feel free to keep posting your FUD.”
You obviously have no idea what direct hardware access is. Like I said, it is impossible to achieve in in X Windows without running the server as root. And that is a serious security hole.
“XFree86 is always run as root (it has to be inorder to gain direct hardware access). You either run it as setuid root or run it though xdm or the equivlent.”
XFree is not run as root (unless you are stupid). Running XFree suid root is a very stupid thing to do. It’s much safer to run it through a wrapper. And if you are running it through a wrapper, the server itself is not running as root
“You conveniently forgot to mention that with nearly every OS on the planet, you either have to be the administrator of the computer to get direct hardware access, or the application has to run through some sort of wrapper.”
That’s not the issue. The issue is that due to some major security issues with X (that don’t exist in other GUIs), it’s not safe to run it as root. XFree has some serious security holes that have never been fixed. And that is the primary reason its not safe to run the server SUID root. If they’d close up the holes, that might be a viable option
“In addition, all you initially asked for was Quicktime software for X and Linux, which there is certainly quite a bit of. Now you’re changing your argument saying you want all the codecs supported. Which is it?”
I don’t cosider a poorly designed clone that only provides SOME compatibility to be Quicktime software. I consider it to be a poorly designed clone that only does half the job. I’m not willing to accept software that only does half the job just because of some principle of not liking commericial OS vendors.
“Wrong. There is direct video access through a number of extensions. Xvideo which does stuff like hardware scalaing, rotation and colour correction of motion video, DGA2 (Direct Graphics Access) and DRI. All are well supported, standard parts of XFree86 4.x.”
I repeat… Direct video access is not possible unless you run the server as root. And because of serious security holes in XFree, that is unsafe to do.
“Ah, so you don’t actually know, do you? You just think “oh my god – it isn’t part of the kernel therefore it’s slow!”. Pathetic. Hopeless. Wrong.”
Nope, that’s not what I think. I think it is a GUI layer running on top of a console mode layer. And that is what it is. Even Windows doesn’t have a GUI as part of the kernel. But the GUI layer is running directly on top of the kernel. With X, that isn’t the case. It’s running on top of serveral layers above the kernel.
“We aren’t talking about software availability, we’re talking about technical capability. Nice attempt at a diversion though.”
We are talking about both. And if the software isn’t available, it doesn’t matter how good the OS is. I can’t use it if the software I need won’t run on it.
“I know very little about this so please excuse the ignorance – but if Linux w/X was so bad at video work, why has Dreamworks switched completely to Linux – they used to use SGI workstations, but have crossed over completely to Linux lately (their latest film was made entirely with Linux), even the workstations used by the animators.”
I don’t think their last film was completely made on Linux. It was rendered on Linux though. But I think they just recently completed the transition to Linux workstations.
As far as how they are doing it, you could ask them, but I seriously doubt they would tell you. These are usually closely guarded trade secrets. (Just try to get information out of Disney about what software they use for animation)
“I don’t care if you ‘buy it’ or not. It won’t change the fact that I can play 12 MPEG1 streams simultaneously with negligable CPU usage and no framedrops.”
I am not buying it. And neither is anyone else that knows anything at all about MPEG.
Maybe that is why you are posting as “Anonymous” and won’t use a real handle?
“The Macintosh has had MS Word compatibility since 1985. Yet their market share declined significantly through the nineties…..the battle to eliminate them Word compatibility was not an issue. Rather it was a basket full of compatibility issues. The most significant ones however were Visual Basic and Exchange. ”
I don’t know if it was the compatibility that causes Apple’s deline. I still maintain it is their outragious prices. Macs are insanely overpriced. And I think the average consumer simply isn’t willing to pay those kind of prices when they can get a PC with a 17 inch monitor for around a $1,000. I can’t even touch a PowerMac for less than around $1,400, and that doesn’t include any monitor at all.
“Presumably if the video performance was that crappy, they would not tolerate it, and let’s face it, that kind of work is just about the highest end video work that can be done, n’est pas?”
Actually, cartoon animation is not all that taxing. The main reason is that most of the scence doesn’t change from frame to frame. For example, the characters themselves might move, but the background scene remains exactly the same. Because of this, the computer doesn’t have to redraw a lot of the frame.
With actual video though, this isn’t the case. Leaves on trees are moving, etc. So much more of the frame has to be redrawn each time.
I can run a VideoCD of a typical Disney animated feature film on my 300MHz K6-2 with no frame drops. I don’t think I could do that what an actual video.
Maybe you’d care to explain how I can use the DRI, as a normal user, running the X server as a normal user?
According to you, that’s not possible. How would you like to squirm your way out of this one?
Adam
“Maybe you’d care to explain how I can use the DRI, as a normal user, running the X server as a normal user?
According to you, that’s not possible. How would you like to squirm your way out of this one? ”
Simple. You aren’t running the X server as a normal user. Either:
#1: The binary is suid root
or
#2: You are running it through a wrapper.
X CAN’T run as a normal user. Try it once. it will bail and tell you it cannot open the display. Unix doesn’t allow a normal user to switch the mode of the video card.
Forgot one possibility:
#3: You are using XDM, KDM, or some other GUI login manager, in which case, the login manager is running as root.
I repeat… Direct video access is not possible unless you run the server as root. And because of serious security holes in XFree, that is unsafe to do.
The XFree server is run as root by every distro – this is how it accesses the graphics hardware. How else is it going to do it? Magic?
Before you expose your incredible ignorance again, let me point out that this doesn’t mean that all your apps run as root.
Far from it.
Next time you’re using Linux, if indeed you ever have, run ‘top’ or ‘ps’ and see who the owner of the XFree86 process is.
Furthermore the high performance rendering routes I outlined are accessible by every single X user. Xv and DGA are handled by normal X calls. DRI is handled through a device node.
Nope, that’s not what I think. I think it is a GUI layer running on top of a console mode layer. And that is what it is. Even Windows doesn’t have a GUI as part of the kernel. But the GUI layer is running directly on top of the kernel. With X, that isn’t the case. It’s running on top of serveral layers above the kernel.
Uh, what? You think that because Linux has a console layer, X is slow? Do you have any possible reason for thinking this? X accesses the graphics hardware directly. It doesn’t go “through” the console, it doesn’t run “on top” of the console. What kind of ignorance are you trying to peddle here? Please, we’d all like to know how the presence of a pure textmode in Linux means X is slow.
Lets get one thing very clear: X accesses the graphics hardware directly.
You’re also wrong about Windows. GDI and what in Linux is defined as the “window manager” runs in kernel space on NT4/2K/XP. Check the MSDN site if you don’t belive me.
I don’t think their last film was completely made on Linux
You ‘think’ wrong. http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/04/24/1643238.shtml?tid=23
As far as how they are doing it, you could ask them, but I seriously doubt they would tell you. These are usually closely guarded trade secrets. (Just try to get information out of Disney about what software they use for animation)
Dreamworks uses a number of commercial packages – Maya for example. They also have a massive custom codebase (upwards of 25 million lines of code).
You were also blathering about the lack of commercial video production software on Linux. Now, at the lowend this is true. The highend, however, is a different story entirely. There are a number of compositing packages (eg. Shake and Tremmor) and there are more comming to the platform in the near future.
And neither is anyone else that knows anything at all about MPEG.
Please, enlighten us all. Playing a single MPEG1 stream, 400×300, uses ~2% of the CPU here. Is that magic as well?
“The XFree server is run as root by every distro – this is how it accesses the graphics hardware. How else is it going to do it? Magic?”
You are wrong. Any security concious distro will be running the XFree server through a wrapper. It does not have direct root access.
“Next time you’re using Linux, if indeed you ever have, run ‘top’ or ‘ps’ and see who the owner of the XFree86 process is.”
I’ve been using Linux for about 10 years thank you.
And I’m not saying that the XFree86 server CAN’T run as root. I’m saying it is STUPID to run it as root. It’s far safer to run it through a wrapper.
“Lets get one thing very clear: X accesses the graphics hardware directly.”
I repeat… X does NOT access the graphics hardware directly unless you are running the server suid root. And that is a stupid thing to do.
“You were also blathering about the lack of commercial video production software on Linux. Now, at the lowend this is true. The highend, however, is a different story entirely. There are a number of compositing packages (eg. Shake and Tremmor) and there are more comming to the platform in the near future.”
I didn’t say there was a lack of commercial video production software for Linux. The only thing I complained about really was the Quicktime support. But I am aware that SGI and several other vendors make Linux video software.
“Dreamworks uses a number of commercial packages – Maya for example. They also have a massive custom codebase (upwards of 25 million lines of code).”
Yes. But a lot of what they are using I’m sure is a closely guarded trade secret. Unless you work for them, you will never know.
“#2: You are running it through a wrapper.”
This is exactly what I’m doing. But didn’t you earlier say that if you’re running it through a wrapper, you can’t gain direct access to the hardware? To quote you:
“And if it is using a wrapper, it doesn’t have direct video access… So no, I am not wrong about this.”
But I do have direct video access. As witnessed by the fact that I have the DRI running and can play Quake3Arena at a really incredible framerate.
Any more lies you’d like to spew?
Adam
“Next time you’re using Linux, if indeed you ever have, run ‘top’ or ‘ps’ and see who the owner of the XFree86 process is.”
How about this… Instead of screwing around with top or ps, why don’t you just check and see if the suid bit is set on your XFree binary. If it is, you have a major security hole wide open. If it isn’t, than it is running through a wrapper.
“This is exactly what I’m doing. But didn’t you earlier say that if you’re running it through a wrapper, you can’t gain direct access to the hardware? To quote you:”
That is exactly what I said. And it is correct. If it is going through a wrapper, it doesn’t have direct access to the video hardware. But the wrapper does have access to the video hardware. It’s an additional layer. Why do you think they are called wrappers? Because they isolate the binary that is “wrapped ” inside of them from having true direct access to privilaged resources.
Hey all. Like I said-wiped the drive last night and now have 30 GB of pure SUSE 7.3 Pro goodness on my aging DELL.
Got to say Jim-there are rebuttals to all but the last of your list.
1) Ever hear of Xp? XP, 98, ME, 2000, all forced alot of people “under to hood” to get hardware running. Often, these systems require updates, reinstalls, reboots-so I’m not sure that ‘the casual user’ is as reticent, or as unfamiliar with OS tweaking as you think.
2) Yep, every distro has its own file location preferences. So does every OS. I wonder is that really such a hastle? Most apps seem to find the right install locations, so what’s the biggie? One FS for the whole world?
3) Not even Windows support everything, so the argument here is invalid as well. I have loads of useless software driver CDs for my DSL line, my Iomega Predator, and my HP jornada because they were designed for 98. And don’t get me started on compatibility-the thing should just work, right?
Anyway, I was kernel tweaking, and I thought I saw the USB modem suppport in the kernel……
4) I guess you like $200-300 ‘upgrades’ from Microsoft then? Most distros are available via download, so are free, other than your time. IF you want support, red hat, mandrake, suse, and most other commercial distros offer support to purchasers. The $70 for the distro for 90 days support is alot better than $35 per service call to Redmond.
5) I don’t code C, or anything else, for that matter (learning, though), so I can’t speak to the debugger for C. seemed to be alot of compilers, debuggers, programming tools on the Suse applications list, so I’m sure someone has a C debugger.
And BTW-you are using AMiga, which has even less support than Linux. Get real!
You really need to read up on the Direct Rendering Infrastructure…
With the wrapper in place, I am still have to get direct access to the hardware through the DRI.
Please, before you embarrass yourself any further with your demonstrations of ignorance, do a little research.
Adam
“This is exactly what I’m doing. But didn’t you earlier say that if you’re running it through a wrapper, you can’t gain direct access to the hardware? To quote you:”
By the way… Are you SURE it is using a wrapper? I think some of the less security concious Linux distros just set the suid bit on the server and don’t run it through a wrapper. Linux distros were shipping with XFree 4 before the wrapper had even been written. This was at a time when FreeBSD had the XFree4 port marked as broken with the reason that “There are serious security holes in XFree86 4 and so far the XFree team seems to be ignoring them.”
“With the wrapper in place, I am still have to get direct access to the hardware through the DRI.”
No you don’t. That would defeat the entire purpose of the wrapper. You have “pseudodirect” video access. But you don’t truely have direct video access unless the DRI is bypassing the wrapper. And if it is, than you have just opened up the security hole that the wrapper was designed to fix.
You are wrong. Any security concious distro will be running the XFree server through a wrapper. It does not have direct root access.
No, I’m not wrong. I’ve got four different Linux distros (RedHat, SuSE, Debian and Turbolinux) running here and *all of them* show the X process as being owned by root.
Perhaps what you mean by “wrapper” is Xwrapper which is setuid root and invokes the X server but doesn’t play any part in its actual operation.
I’ve been using Linux for about 10 years thank you.
Then why is practically everything you’ve said in this thread wrong?
I repeat… X does NOT access the graphics hardware directly unless you are running the server suid root. And that is a stupid thing to do.
X is generally invoked by Xwrapper. This is nothing more than a small program (which is setuid) which performs a few security checks (eg. is this user premitted to use X?) before invoking the server itself. It plays no part in the actual operation of X.
I didn’t say there was a lack of commercial video production software for Linux. The only thing I complained about really was the Quicktime support. But I am aware that SGI and several other vendors make Linux video software.
Which totally destroys your X performance ‘theory’, doesn’t it? The lack of quicktime support has nothing to do with the technical capabilities of the system and everything to do with Apple and their patents / licenses.
In summary:
With XF86 4.x there are a number of supported ways of directly accessing the video hardware and of drawing video to the screen in an efficient, high performance manner.
“Which totally destroys your X performance ‘theory’, doesn’t it? The lack of quicktime support has nothing to do with the technical capabilities of the system and everything to do with Apple and their patents / licenses.”
My experience with X is that the video performance is seriously lacking compared to that of Windows and that a far better system could be designed than X.
And I’m not anti-Linux. I just think the X windows system time has come and gone and its time to start working on a replacement.
I’ve used Linux for 10 years. I’ve used SunOS (and Solaris) for even longer. And I have used various flavors of BSD for about 7. I much prefer working in these over Windows when I can. But there are problems with Linux on the desktop that programmers seem to prefer to pretend don’t exist rather than acknowledge that they do and just fix them. As long as that continues, Linux will never be a serious desktop contender for the average user.
“But you don’t truely have direct video access unless the DRI is bypassing the wrapper. And if it is, than you have just opened up the security hole that the wrapper was designed to fix. ”
As I’ve already said, maybe you should finally take a look at the DRI project to see just what kind of security mechanisms they have in place, alright?
Of course, that would require you to get educated about the subject at hand, something you seem extremely opposed to doing.
Adam
No one is arguing that there are problems with X. But what you perceive as a problem (bad performace) really don’t exist with the newer versions of XFree86 on any reasonably modern hardware.
The problems that have existed for a number of years are actually getting fixed, without having to throw X out the window (anti-aliased fonts, Direct hardware access, etc.)
Adam
“As I’ve already said, maybe you should finally take a look at the DRI project to see just what kind of security mechanisms they have in place, alright?”
It doesn’t matter. There is still a tradeoff. Direct hardware access exchanges security for performance. Anytime you allow direct hardware access, you compromize the integrity of the system. There is no way around that.
What are the security holes I’m exposing myself to by running X as setuid?
Any specific examples of (non-fixed) holes? Any references other than loose statements from various mailing-lists? Any security advisories which are older than say a month and not resolved?
Just saying X is one big security hole without providing examples or references is pretty useless.
“No one is arguing that there are problems with X. But what you perceive as a problem (bad performace) really don’t exist with the newer versions of XFree86 on any reasonably modern hardware.”
My personal experience says that the problems have not been fixed. And I am running the latest version of X Windows and there is an accelerated driver for my vid card. So if you have any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong, I’d be more than willing to listen.
The player I’ve been using ix Xine (which for whatever reason, won’t play videoCD’s. It might have to do with the Asian formating.)
“It doesn’t matter. There is still a tradeoff. Direct hardware access exchanges security for performance. Anytime you allow direct hardware access, you compromize the integrity of the system. There is no way around that.”
This is true for every single OS on the planet, including Windows and MacOS. Are you going to suddenly start arguing that they have the same performance and security problems as X Windows now?
Instead of actually looking at what the DRI is doing and the security mechanisms it has in place, you’d rather point out the it has the exact same tradeoff present in every Operating System on the planet?!?
First, what video card are you using and what version of X (you say you’re suing the latest, which would be 4.2.0)?
Out of curiousity, check dmesg for any lines pertaining to mtrr. For example, my dmesg shows:
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch ([email protected])
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
Also, mplayer has always been the best performing video player for me, and will use the DRI if it’s available on your video card (unfortunately, the number of supported cards isn’t huge). I think it will also play VideoCD’s, too. If not, VideoLAN has always worked well for me when it comes to playing CDs.
Lastly, I do apologize for getting carried away earlier. It just really bugs me when people seemingly blast X without really understanding it very well.
Adam
“This is true for every single OS on the planet, including Windows and MacOS. Are you going to suddenly start arguing that they have the same performance and security problems as X Windows now?”
No. Windows has traditionally had no security anyway. So it wasn’t really an issue. Everything ran with full access to the entire system and that was that (on consumer versions of Windows that is).
“No. Windows has traditionally had no security anyway. So it wasn’t really an issue. Everything ran with full access to the entire system and that was that (on consumer versions of Windows that is). ”
Frankly, I’d consider that an even bigger issue than having a sound and stable security mechanism in place like the DRI project does.
Adam
“First, what video card are you using and what version of X (you say you’re suing the latest, which would be 4.2.0)?”
The card is a Matrox Millenium G400. XFree version is 4.1 so it isn’t the absolute latest (I haven’t kept up on it for a bit). But starting with XFree4, there is an accelerated driver for the G400.
As far as the mtrr lines, I’m not at my Linux box right now so I can’t check. But I don’t think I have ever seen anything like this.
I haven’t tried mplayer though. I will give a shot and see if I get better performance.
Hmmm… I would recommend upgrade to the latest version of X, or at least the latest driver from Matrox…
Of course, make sure that DRI is enabled
If it is, you’ll see a line like:
(II) MGA(0): Direct rendering enabled
Unfortunately, even mplayer will only use the DRI with certain codecs, and I don’t believe that mpeg is one of them (the ones that support using the DRI are usually the ones that use DirectShow under Windows, iirc).
mtrrs are usually enabled by default on kernels from all the major distributions.
Adam
I just reconfigured my minitower with removable boot drives and installed my old copy of RH7.1 and Ximian Desktop – spent 2 days downloading all the fixes. Wonderful setup! Ximian Doorman does a respectable job with dependencies (if you don’t try to download too much at one time). Except for this morning’s fiasco trying to delete a print job from the queue. What a pain. lpc does everything with a print job but delete it! Finally found lprm (thank God for Google). How intuitively obvious…NOT. Why isn’t all print queue management in one place?? Was 1 hour late for an appointment because of it. Linux is still too much of a kludge, but slowly improving.
Overall, I think Linux is almost ready enough for most people because of products like Ximian. Still need help with my CD burner, though.
Still can’t figure out why my hardware modems download slower than my WinModems (on Windows, Linux, or BeOS).
“Hmmm… I would recommend upgrade to the latest version of X or at least the latest driver from Matrox…”
I’ll try that. But I am actually going to build a new Linux system anyway and I plan to select all the components to optomize this one for Linux (it probably won’t even have Windows on it).
Any suggestions for video card?
Simba, please email me or IM me on ICQ (6070904) or MSN (my hotmail address) or Y! (eugenia_loli) or AIM (eugenialoli) if you are reading this. I would like to “propose” something.
It doesn’t matter. There is still a tradeoff. Direct hardware access exchanges security for performance. Anytime you allow direct hardware access, you compromize the integrity of the system. There is no way around that.
Then disable DRI. Don’t let people use it if you think it’s a security risk (which it really isn’t).
I just reconfigured my minitower with removable boot drives and installed my old copy of RH7.1 and Ximian Desktop – spent 2 days downloading all the fixes. Wonderful setup! Ximian Doorman does a respectable job with dependencies (if you don’t try to download too much at one time). Except for this morning’s fiasco trying to delete a print job from the queue. What a pain. lpc does everything with a print job but delete it! Finally found lprm (thank God for Google). How intuitively obvious…NOT. Why isn’t all print queue management in one place?? Was 1 hour late for an appointment because of it. Linux is still too much of a kludge, but slowly improving.
Two things come from this
a) LRP/LQP etc. suck. They really do. This is why all the distros are currently migrating to cups which is an order of magnitude better.
b) RedHat 7.1 is old
Hey kid, I may not be able to run bolt upright under an ordinary sized dining room table any more, but I’m still not about to be called old without slapping you about abit… etc.
Red Hat 7.1 is only 12 months old, it’s still in the supported versions list despite not being last of its line (unlike say 6.2 which is supported solely for old 6.x customers)
And yeah, there is no significant difference in theory between the performance potential of Xv and the appropriate DirectX equivalent in Windows. Basically you slap YCbCr buffers into an API and the video card magically does a color transformation and then scales and overlays the result with (optional) chromakey. 99.99% of the work is happening on some silicon or in the movie player software, neither of which are components of X
The cost of Direct rendering GLX is not so obviously trivial though, with really great drivers you should be able to match Windows frame-for-frame, but only nVidia have ever demonstrated this, and of course they don’t use DRI. So it’s possible, but perhaps only for the great wizards who inhabit video card manufacturers.
“Any suggestions for video card?”
Simba: The Radeon 7500 works really well. Many people have had luck with nVidia cards (though I have issues with nVidia).
“The cost of Direct rendering GLX is not so obviously trivial though, with really great drivers you should be able to match Windows frame-for-frame, but only nVidia have ever demonstrated this, and of course they don’t use DRI. So it’s possible, but perhaps only for the great wizards who inhabit video card manufacturers.”
Anonymous: The DRI drivers for the Rage 128 are said to perform better than the Windows drivers for the cards. This will probably also be the case with the Radeon drivers once the TCL branch is stabilized and merged into the main DRI and XFree86 tree.
Adam
Red Hat 7.1 is only 12 months old, it’s still in the supported versions list despite not being last of its line (unlike say 6.2 which is supported solely for old 6.x customers)
Heh, I didn’t quite mean it in that way. More that it hasn’t got as many whizzy GUI bits as new distros – things really are moving very fast in the Linux desktop world at the moment
Tweleve months is actually a lot of time! Hell, there are a lot of significant differences between KDE3.0 and KDE HEAD.
… is how many choices of OS you have on a Macintosh computer? IIRC, you are locked into one OS for those PCs. Why does nobody go after Apple for forcing users to use their operating system. And you want to talk about tightly locked source code? Why do you think nobody develops games for Mac (aside from the fact that there aren’t many users)?
Back on subject though… If Linux becomes the standard, or even a competitor i nthe market, you will see the changes occur in real-time. It will still be open-source, sure, but the price will makes the inevitable climb to match Microsoft. Companies like RedHat will be forced to price war with MS and will eventually see the money to be made by “following the leader”, as it were. Many people may not like Microsoft, but they innovate and that is how they stay on top. Look at any company that innovates and has a good marketing department and you will see that they flourish and are vastly popular. It is the way of a capitalistic society. So if Linux can get over its idealism and embrace capitalism, it will be more widely used.
Linux distributors can thank Big Blue for their huge marketing campaign that pushes for Linux servers. But again, note the company who is doing the marketing for the OS. I have yet to see a commercial for a Linux distribution. Get visible, get people to recognize you and you will gain popularity. We live in a society where a vast majority of people don’t know how to adjust the horizontal size of their monitors using the buttons on the front of it. Try walking down the street and see how many people know what Linux is. Just ask each person you walk by. Not some canned survey. My best friend is an avid computer gamer and he didn’t know what Linux was until I told him and showed him my Linux server. Do you know what that friend does when not playing games? Watches television. Has he ever seen a Linuxc ad? Yes, the ones from IBM, but that’s geared at businesses so what does he care?
Where are the marketing campaigns geared at the individual consumer? Nonexistant. Why? Because that would require money and that would drive prices up and the open source community wouldn’t like that. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of this capitalist society we live in. It’s all about the profit margin. Welcome to the USA, folks! Be well and good luck.
~Soukyan
“… is how many choices of OS you have on a Macintosh computer? IIRC, you are locked into one OS for those PCs. Why does nobody go after Apple for forcing users to use their operating system. And you want to talk about tightly locked source code? Why do you think nobody develops games for Mac (aside from the fact that there aren’t many users)?”
You aren’t locked into MacOS with Apple anymore than you are locked into Windows with x86 systems.
Among the alternatives on Apple are several flavors of Linux that make PowerPC versions (off the top of my head: SuSE, Yellow Dog, LinuxPPC, Debian), NetBSD, and OpenBSD, and of course, the Apple sponsored but none the less open source, community developed Darwin. There aren’t is many alternative operating systems for Macs simply because there isn’t as much interest in the platform.
“If Linux becomes the standard, or even a competitor i nthe market, you will see the changes occur in real-time. It will still be open-source, sure, but the price will makes the inevitable climb to match Microsoft. Companies like RedHat will be forced to price war with MS and will eventually see the money to be made by “following the leader”, as it were.”
That can’t happen. The GPL says that I can redistribute the software. So basically, I can buy one copy of a Linux CD for $100, make 20 copies and sell them for $10 a piece and I am $100 richer. So basically, Linux vendors can’t charge very much for the software because if they do, people will just get the software (and get it perfectly legally) from other sources. Value added features they can charge for (for example, bundling commercial software with their distros) because these value added features you cannot legally redistribute.
And besides… There will always be Debian which will always be free.
“Many people may not like Microsoft, but they innovate and that is how they stay on top.”
No… They stay on top by setting proprietary standards that force people to use Windows. For example, they change the MS Office file formats so often that people are often forced into using MS Office because they need to share files with coworkers and such. This in turn forces them to use Windows.
“So if Linux can get over its idealism and embrace capitalism, it will be more widely used.”
The GPL prevents Linux from working in a capitalistic way because as I said, people can legally redistribute the OS without violating copyright laws.
“I have yet to see a commercial for a Linux distribution.”
I don’t think advertising on television is cost effective to market a product like Linux. How much does it cost to buy a telivision spot? Quite a bit. And corporate IT people don’t make decisions based on something they saw in a television commercial. It’s probably much more effective to market Linux in trade magazines. And I see a lot of adds from Red Hat and SuSE that do just that.
Microsoft doesn’t market their corporate geared stuff on TV either. I mean when was the last time you saw a TV commercial for .NET? Or Windows XP Server? It’s just not cost effective to market those products on TV. On the other hand, your television is probably bombarded with Microsoft commercials for consumer level products like MSN.
So basically, I don’t think Red Hat would make enough sales from television commercials to cover the cost of the advertisements.