Moral Dilemma With Gaming/Drivers
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I have been away from Trisquel for a while, and I very much so want to return to it, but there are still a few things holding me back. I want to game. My friends are all active gamers, and my system is set up for gaming. I know that Steam is not free software, nor are the games that I'd run in Wine. I guess my questions are; what kind of performance can I realistically expect from Nouveau, and how is gnash playback in terms of streaming video?
How well Nouveau works depends on the actual video card. Some work perfectly, others have problems. My understanding is that upgrading the kernel can be necessary for some of them to work properly.
Gnash only works properly for streaming YouTube videos, where it works just fine. The Firefox extension UnPlug works for some others, and you can stream with it by "opening" certain files (Ogg and WebM files can be handled directly by the browser, while MPEG files can be handled by a plugin that works with Totem). This works really well, and I actually use UnPlug for YouTube instead of Gnash, since I don't want to use YouTube's nonfree Javascript. You can download UnPlug for Firefox on whatever system you're currently using to see if it works on the websites you want it to.
Actually, with Trisquel 6, I think the biggest problem you would see is that Wine seems to be broken; you can't install it from the package manager. Hopefully this can be fixed at some point.
Alright. The card is a kepler card, a GTX 690 to be exact. I have no problem working around Wine bugs and/or building from source, but the primary dilemma would be that of playing non-free games(and getting nouveau to work for it).
I don't know about that card and it's not listed on h-node. Maybe someone else can jump in.
With regards to games, have you tried similar free games? I don't know what kinds of games you play. If you play FPSes, some gems are Xonotic, OpenArena, AssaultCube, and Tremulous. If you play RTSes, there's Glest, Warzone 2100, and 0 A.D.; I'm not familiar with 0 A.D., but I know that the others are really great. If it's 4X games, there's FreeCiv and FreeCol. If it's Minecraft, Minetest is pretty good; my brother said that it's not as good as Minecraft, but a good clone, better than he expected. If it's MMORPGs, there's Ryzom.
There are several other interesting free games out there, including Teeworlds (an online 2D shooter) and OpenClonk (a platformer with fighting and RTS elements, has online support).
I have a Kepler chipset, a GTX 660. It IS NOT stable with 3D. Kepler support was only introduced in Linux 3.8, so you'd have to be using a very recent kernel to get it to work, but regardless, it crashes A LOT. I'm talking probably 4-5 GPU lockups a day using just Compiz, forcing me to have to completely reboot. With gaming, it's even less stable.
I do not recommend it, but the option is there if needed. 2D is stable and fine though.
I'm personally okay with the free games. I've actually tried 0 A.D. and Xonotic and liked them. The main issues come from more social games, like WoW.
It seems like Ryzom could be an alternative if you want a social game to play. I've not done much with it and don't know if it fully qualifies as free software(I'm not talking game assets, just software).
Yep, Ryzom is really good, and yes, it is completely free; the art assets are under CC BY-SA, I think.
Hi !
This is my first post here (on the English Forum), sorry for my English, I'm a French user !!
There is a Minecraft clone ? That is very nice, because I want to play with Minecraft on Trisquel GNU/Linux... So Minetest is a very good alternative. :)
0.a.d... This game is very nice, I love it !! But actually my PC can't run only Hedgewars.
I want to buy a new PC (I will buy my CPU, Graphic Card... and make my PC).
But I don't know if Trisquel GNU/Linux will support the hardware of my future PC...
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Welcome to the community!
Since you're making your computer, you can choose only hardware that
will run on 100% free software. Databases like hnode.org may help.
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The 9500GT is a good choice if your going to get an NVIDIA card with good graphics support:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux
It is well supported by the nouveau project and the nouveau driver is now in the mainline kernel so pretty much any free distribution will work out of the box.
Most other readily available NVIDIA graphics cards are not good choices at this time. I'd advise against purchasing an NVIDIA graphics card simply out of principle. NVIDIA doesn't support free software so we should avoid products with NVIDIA chipsets.
The best supported graphics on GNU/Linux is Intel.
Other than that stick to Atheros for wireless PCIe/PCI cards:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog/wireless-networking-gnulinux
There are other possible issues you can run into building a free software friendly system although these are the primary issues you can avoid easily.
ThinkPenguin (I'm the CEO) can also sell you a motherboard if you inquire. There are three desktop models we stock and use specifically for there good support for Trisquel and GNU/Linux in general.
Cases, power supplies, CPUs, etc aren't much of an issues. The only thing with CPUs is I'd advise you to avoid the ones which support digital restrictions.
You can look up models on Intel's web site:
In the table it should list it as:
Intel® Trusted Execution Technology No
You probably want Intel graphics; Nvidia cards usually work, but it's the product of a reverse-engineering effort, while Intel actually cooperates (very well) with its graphics controllers, so the quality is more assured and there's no worry that you might have to wait for it to be reverse-engineered. My laptop has a very old integrated graphics controller and it still works pretty well.
Whatever you do, do not get AMD graphics. They suck on free systems. No 3D on any of them, some of them display in the wrong resolution, and some of the really bad ones have graphical glitches even with the nonfree firmware.
In any case, check all your components on h-node.org before buying them. Make sure they work perfectly with free software.
Your card is very recent and nouveau had many improvements in Linux 3.8. You have to install the linux-libre repository to take full advantage and yes, I think performance will be good in 3.8.
http://jxself.org/linux-libre/
The new lightspark supports Flash 12.1: https://launchpad.net/~sparkers/+archive/daily (only works in Trisquel 6)
And either way, there are browsers like Midori which are backed by GStreamer and will play any file format supported by gstreamer in HTML5.
EDIT: Depending on the website, there are plugins to replace flash with totem: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011
I want to buy a ASUS NVidia GeForce GTX 670 2Go because I have some video games for Windows like Far Cry 3.
My friends send me those games so I want to play with them !!
I want to make some 3D pictures in Trisquel with Blender. Blender have Cycles, a Real Time Render Engine , and generally, GPU are more faster than CPU in Cycles.
Here, you can find an Introduction to Cycles
In h-node website, I don't see this Graphic Card...
The thing about Nvidia cards is since Nvidia does not cooperate with us, the only support available for them is from reverse-engineering. It has produced good results, but that means newer cards might not work so well yet.
Like I said, you really should get Intel graphics if you can. Intel actually provides specifications and free drivers/firmware for GNU/Linux (for their graphics controllers; I think it varies for WiFi cards). But if you can't use Intel graphics, you should get an older Nvidia card that is known to work well, like the one http://libre.thinkpenguin.com sells (I have that card and it works very nicely).
My future PC will have :
- INTEL i7-3770K 3.5GHz - Graphic HD 4000
- NVidia GeForce GTX 670 2Go
- 2 x HDD Seagate Barracuda 1 To (one for Windows and one for Trisquel
- motherboard : ASUS P8Z77-V
I want to use Windows because I need Internet Explorer to test my HTML, CSS, PHP code. And of course, I want to play with Far Cry 3 and my others Windows games !!!
But I think, in the future, I will buy a PC FOR Trisquel, not for Windows. :)
PS: Sorry for my English, please, ask me if you don't understand. ;)
I would forgo the Nvidia card and just use the Intel graphics you say you're getting, but that's fine. You can always take it back out, after all.
Yes I should forgot the NVidia... But why I want a Graphic Card ?
Because in a few weeks, I will have a LG IPS277L-BN.
I don't know if the INTEL i7-3770K will support this monitor.
Monitors are (supposed to be) plug-and-play. If the Intel HD 4000 supports 1080p, it supports that monitor. I assume it must (1080p is not exactly new), and if for some strange reason it doesn't, you can always buy the video card later. ;)
Even my 945GME from 32 bit Atom supports 1080p.
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If you need to use IE for testing a webpage, you don't have to install Windows just for that ;)
PlayOnLinux is a really cool program, that acts as a frontend for Wine. You just browse the application list of PlayOnLinux, choose the IE version you need, and it installs everything automatically!
1. It gets the Wine version most compatible with the application you want to use.
2. It sets up all the registry hacks that are needed in order to make a not well supported application work.
3. In case of IE PlayOnLinux downloads the correct IE version during installation process.
I dare saying, it's easier to install IE on PlayOnLinux than on Windows itself, where (in case of an older IE version) you will have to search the Internet yourself for an installer.
Of course, if you need Windows for games, thats another story. But, PlayOnLinux is quite helpful in that regard as well!
El 07/03/13 05:13, name at domain escribió:
> If you need to use IE for testing a webpage, you don't have to install
> Windows just for that ;)
>
> PlayOnLinux is a really cool program, that acts as a frontend for
> Wine. You just browse the application list of PlayOnLinux, choose the
> IE version you need, and it installs everything automatically!
>
> 1. It gets the Wine version most compatible with the application you
> want to use.
> 2. It sets up all the registry hacks that are needed in order to make
> a not well supported application work.
> 3. In case of IE PlayOnLinux downloads the correct IE version during
> installation process.
>
> I dare saying, it's easier to install IE on PlayOnLinux than on
> Windows itself, where (in case of an older IE version) you will have
> to search the Internet yourself for an installer.
>
> Of course, if you need Windows for games, thats another story. But,
> PlayOnLinux is quite helpful in that regard as well!
Are you saying that installing non-free software is useful for the user?
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If you develop a webpage, you need to test it with the browser, that is being used by your target group. So if you want to test it with IE, you either have to install Windows in order to do that, or go the route I described.
Do you think that's unethical to test a webpage with IE?
Running a nonfree program personally isn't unethical because it is you who is being victimized, but steering someone towards nonfree software is.
I'm no web developer, but I'm a software developer. Unfortunately, Wine is too limited for cx_Freeze (a free program which "freezes" Python programs into executables that work without Python and needed libraries being installed on the system), so I don't use it at all right now, but if it did work on Wine, I would create a Windows executable with Wine and ensure that it works on Wine. Similarly, if I needed to compile a C++ program for Windows, I would do it on Wine and test it on Wine. Maybe something really weird will happen that I didn't expect, but in that case, the user can report the problem; it's not my fault if Windows is less capable of executing its own native code than a Windows compatibility layer on top of GNU/Linux.
It's not unreasonable to not test on a system you can't run for personal reasons, in my opinion (such as not wanting to be subjugated, or simply not having the system available to you). In the case of a web developer, I would say test on all free browsers available to you (possibly including Wine Internet Explorer, which is included with Wine) and, most importantly, follow the standards. Don't use deprecated tags and avoid strange hacks. If the browser used doesn't properly follow standards that it was supposed to follow, and you can't test your webpages on this browser, it's not your fault that your perfectly valid webpage broke. They can report the issue, and you can tell them that it's a fault of the browser they're using, which you couldn't test on, and that they ought to be using a better browser, but that you will do your best to fix the problem regardless.
Running Internet Explorer (a proprietary application) on Wine does not turn it "free".
I am not arguing against it though... as long as the goal is the development of something "right" (not SaaS for example).
> Running Internet Explorer (a proprietary application) on Wine does not turn it
> "free".
Who said it does? I said *Wine* Internet Explorer:
http://wiki.winehq.org/iexplore
Technically, I suppose they just call it "iexplore", after the name of the executable. It's there because Windows has decided to call Internet Exploder a part of the Windows operating system, so Wine needs to replace it to be complete.
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I did not want to steer anyone to running non-free software. That's the last thing I'd do, I really admire the philosophy Richard Stalman developed and I believe he is the greatest thinker of our time.
But as Mark wrote, "I want to use Windows because I need Internet Explorer to test my HTML, CSS, PHP code". I merely suggested that he should use IE inside Wine instead. Not only would that minimize the amount of non-free software he has installed, it would make his life more convenient - developing on GNU/Linux, testing on GNU/Linux. Not having to reboot each time he wants to test something in IE. When writing websites, that's what I do. I test them in IE7 and IE8 running in Wine. Not because I want to optimize for IE, but because I'm afraid to break compatibility with IE by accident (IE is so picky, you have to careful what you do CSS-wise). If something doesn't work out right, I do it differently (according to W3C standards of course!) until IE is able to display my work as intended, or at least close enough.
Users who have IE installed will not understand what's going on when they try to access a page and see some bugs. They will instantly blame the developer, so it's the developers job to make sure his work will look good on every browser. That's the practical side of the Internet-spirit. Websites have to be usable by everyone, without discrimination by browser type.
I don't optimize for IE6 though. My patience has it's limits :P It is so outdated that it's ridiculous.
> Users who have IE installed will not understand what's going on when they try
> to access a page and see some bugs. They will instantly blame the developer,
> so it's the developers job to make sure his work will look good on every
> browser.
Yeah, that's perfectly fine. I understand completely. I'm just saying that you shouldn't feel like it's absolutely required, and also attitudes like this are perfectly legitimate:
> I don't optimize for IE6 though. My patience has it's limits :P It is so
> outdated that it's ridiculous.
;)
You can use http://browsershots.org/ to test IE without running it on your system.
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Wow, that's a neat idea. Never heard of browsershots before!
Still, somewhere, someone has to run IE in order to make a screenshot. Won't help much if the site being tested is still in development and has to be made IE-compatible before release...
You would still need proprietary components to use Cycles on GPU. Blender uses CUDA, but it is not fully supported by free software.
The system is actually built already. The CPU is a 3930k, so no integrated graphics there, and the GPU is a 690(I am definitely not getting rid of that thing). I use it for a combination of light gaming and programming along with a bit of media playback and dvd ripping. It's running Debian now, but I very much so want to support a fully free distro. I only have those concerns with gaming and graphics support.
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I don't know what you mean by "support" although the best thing you can do is contribute. For most people that means a financial contribution.
Donate:
https://trisquel.info/en/donate
Or better yet become a member:
http://trisquel.info/en/member
And there is also a "gift store" with branded products in it (Trisquel gets a percentage):
https://trisquel.info/en/store
ThinkPenguin also has some branded items (case badges) and Trisquel friendly hardware (with 25% profits going to Trisquel):
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
You don't have to use Trisquel to contribute to it. You can also contribute to the Free Software Foundation (although Trisquel really needs the money more than the FSF).
You can also work on documenting Trisquel in the wiki, etc if you don't have the money and do have the time:
Translation is also needed. There are also meetings if your an able developer.
I just wanted to say that I tried installing the devel iso of Trisquel 6.0, and there were some serious graphics issues with my card. Multi-monitor support was not supported, neither was the second GPU on the board. I think I may have to stay with Debian for right now.
What gfx card is that?
( lspci|grep VGA )
GTX 690. I was just reading on Xinerama and nouveau, and it may be configurable. I think I have to take a second look at it.
That's such a new card you probably could benefit from installing the latest Linux-libre kernel. And perhaps a newer X too.
You can get the kernel here http://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/#downloads
Hi !
I need to work with Windows Internet Explorer because I create some website. I want to play with Far Cry 2 because I love this game ! Actually, that is very important for me.
To work with Blender on Trisquel, I'm ready to chosse the NVidia GeForce 9500GT 1Go, not the NVidia GeForce GTX 670 2Go.
But actually, I don't know if a simple NVidia GeForce 9500GT 1Go will work with my Monitor (LG IPS277L-BN 27" 1920x1080) and Far Cry 2 (with the best graphics).
So my questions are : Can I buy 2 or 3 NVidia GeForce 9500GT 1Go to do a SLI ? Is it possible with Trisquel ? 0.a.d, Minetest, Hedgewars (on Trisquel) will work fine ? Far Cry 2 will work with the maximum graphics (water : ultra, Textures : ultra, resolution 1920x1080...) on Windows ?
Thanks a lot for your answer.
PS : If my English is bad, I'm sorry... :S
Hi,
I can not comment using Blender on Trisquel running Noveau. In general I would not go for the "double medium price" solution (2x 9500GT). A GF 9800GT or even better a 9800GTX will provide a much better performance than a doubled 9500GT plus the fact that open source drivers most likely will not support SLI (double card). I have used a 9800GT myself for a long time and it has enough power to run the most older demanding games in 1080p. I played Metro 2033, Crysis 2 and Rage with my G9800GT (of course under Windows). By choosing a double 9500GT running in SLI mode you could support the business of Chris (who supports Trisquel). But speaking from a plain budget / performance perspective I would buy the fastest 9X00 based NVidia card I can get used from e-bay and add a silent cooling solution to it (also low-budget from e-bay). Currently you should stay away from any newer card since they play not nicely with Noveau. My new 450GTS for example currently has no 3D acceleration under Trisquel. If you search a bit in the mailing list / forum you can find some "posting" of me where I show some benchmark values.
To make a long story short: Go for a powerful GT9800 card and use dual boot for gaming / working.
Those are examples from German E-Bay what I would look out for:
http://www.ebay.de/itm/NVIDIA-GeForce-9800-GT-/261180602293?pt=DE_Elektronik_Computer_Computer_Graphikkarten&hash=item3ccf93b7b5
plus such a cooler:
http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/425/accelero-l2-plus.html?c=2182
You might even have a good chance to get a 9800GT which already has such or a similar VGA cooler installed.
Not fully Trisquel Free Software compliant but way more pragmatic.
Regards,
H.
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