NVidia 9800GT + Noveau = 3D out of the box ?
Hi there,
I have just grabbed the latest Trisquel ISO for AMD64 and tested it in Live mode. It seems to me from the Xorg.0.log that Noveau is loaded but some dri libs are missing.
Shouldn't 3D at least work somewhat with my GeForce 9800GT ? It works flawlessly with Kanotix and aptosid in Live CD mode although I am not shure if they bring any firmware BLOBs with them.
Or do I need to wait for a newer version of Trisquel with newer kernel and newer Mesa version ?
TIA,
D$
Is the older version of Mesa (7.10) the reason for missing 3D acceleration ?
From here (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/MesaDrivers) I would think that I need at least Mesa 7.11
nv50 and nvc0
On February 28th, 2011, the original nv50 Gallium3D driver was completely replaced (in git) by the nvc0 Gallium3D driver ported to NV50 family of cards. These drivers are included in Mesa 7.11. For nvc0 and the new nv50 drivers, you have to use at least the 2.6.38 kernel or you will encounter memory corruption.
IIRC Aptosid had Mesa 7.11
Given the age of your card (it was launched in 2008 according to Wikipedia), it is unlikely that the newest Mesa is required.
Try to install the package named libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental (you can, for instance, search it in the Synaptic package manager, which can be launched from the System/Administration menu). It will probably work from a Live CD too. However you may need to restart the X Server (without rebooting!). To do so you can log in a "real" terminal with Crtl+Alt+F[1-6] (i.e., Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F2 or...) and then execute this command to restart Trisquel's display manager:
$ sudo service gdm restart
The 3D acceleration brought by libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental comes at the cost of less stability (hence the "experimental" in the name).
1st, thanks for taking the time to answer !
>Given the age of your card, it is unlikely
>that the newest Mesa is required.
Well with all respect, given the fact that it is listed in the nouveau wiki itself I think it is very likely that I need Mesa 7.11 and nothing else to run the Gallium3D version for my card. Gallium3D has provided the most steady stream of updates to 3D features. At least from what I have seen in benchmarks over at Phoronix the last year.
I tried to install mesa-dri-experimental from the Live CD and it somewhat worked. 3D is working with some quirks (strange slow-downs, some corruptions, etc).
No matter how "experimental" one considers mesa-dri right now. A few month ago with Mesa 7.10 I barely got a running 3D accelerated LXDE (Knoppix) and it fully crashed even with OpenArena after 2 minutes of gaming. With Mesa 7.11 I could play Darkplaces (strongly-enhanced Quake engine) at very playable framerates (> 60 FPS). The only issues I was aware off was some clipping at the edge of the level. I wouldn't be surprised if I can run even Alien Arena on this driver.
The mesa version provided from scratch with Trisquel without installation worked better than the 7.10 I tested with Knoppix but not as well as the 7.11 I tested with the latest XFCE Aptosid in Live mode. Also 7.11 Gallium behaved much more stable than the 7.10 experimental DRI lib.
I am not sure to understand: you did obtain 3D acceleration on Trisquel (although it does not ship with the latest Mesa), didn't you? At the same time you seem to object to my claim that "it is unlikely that the newest Mesa is required". That is why I am not sure to understand.
I understood that Gallium3D would only operate with the latest Mesa. But that does not make it a requirement to 3D acceleration. It mainly aims at simplifying the development of the drivers, hence the enhanced stability.
Look, my point to object you claim is quite simple. To some aspect you are right: I got somewhat working 3D acceleration inside Trisquel by following the steps you described.
It was better than my last experience with Mesa 7.10 in Knoppix but (and that is the important thing) it is a given fact that in the noveau wiki itself they state that the older Gallium3d driver was replaced nearly a year ago (Feb 2011). Hence I objected your statement. Working 3D inside Trisquel would have meant the availability of a more recent driver as the Gallium 3D included with Mesa 7.11.
From my observation in aptosid the newer driver works faster, more stable and with less glitches.
If another Debian-based distribution has a better working open-source driver for a rather common NVidia card as my 9800 I can hardly see a point why this version isn't included in Trisquel. Thats all...
it is a given fact that in the noveau wiki itself they state that the older Gallium3d driver was replaced nearly a year ago (Feb 2011). Hence I objected your statement.
There is a newer improved driver (on top of Gallium3D). But the older one, available in Trisquel, also enables 3D acceleration (you have even experienced it). That is all I stated! Nothing more.
From my observation in aptosid the newer driver works faster, more stable and with less glitches.
If another Debian-based distribution has a better working open-source driver for a rather common NVidia card as my 9800 I can hardly see a point why this version isn't included in Trisquel.
Trisquel reuses the work of Ubuntu (which, itself, reuses the work of Debian). The Trisquel project, in its current state, is far from being able to build an entire GNU/Linux distribution directly from the upstream sources. Actually, the main developer, Rúben (alias quidam), can hardly make a living. You can help: beyond donations, you can become a member: https://trisquel.info/member
It is as Magic Bannana said we are downstream of other distros. For example the current version of Trisquel (5) is based off Ubuntu 11.04 which at the time of this post is roughly 8 months old. Trisquel releases tend to happen approximately 4 months after their corresponding Ubuntu release because of the work involved. As Magic Bannana also mentioned there is only one main developer. It isn't like we have a massive billion dollar company backing us (i.e. redhat).
The main concern for us here is freedom. While it is nice to sometimes have the latest and greatest with limited resources it isn't always possible. So in these sort of cases we will let upstream do the packaging. If/when Ubuntu packages that driver into their distro it will make it's way into the corresponding Trisquel release. Unfortunately we just don't have the resources to package the latest versions of everything.
If you would like to help the project out we would LOVE that. Here are some ways you can help. Packaging software would be one way if that particular piece of software is of importance to you. Thanks!
@Magic Banana & SirGrant:
Thanks for clarification and sorry if I sounded too demanding. I can well understand that limited resources make it close to impossible to keep the speed up with the latest version of Ubuntu. It's also sad that Rúben can hardly make a living. Is he working as full-time dev for Trisquel ?
As for Trisquel support I guess I can and will do what I do for some other distributions as well: Hang around in the forum answering questions now and then, test the latest versions available plus providing feedback and seed the latest Trisquel ISOs inside my torrent client.
So, thanks for your support and all the best for Trisquel !
Don't worry about it. I don't think you sounded too demanding. Considering that you only joined the forum 5 days ago I wouldn't necessarily expect you to know how the distro is developed or how it's relationship to other distros is. Basically if the new version/patch is in Ubuntu and under a free license it will make its way down into Trisquel. It just takes a bit of time.
As far as Ruben goes here was his latest update about the financial situation. From membership he gets about 250 euros a month. But this was back in Oct. 2011 so it may have gone up some plus money from donations. However if you google "Spanish Minimum wage" it comes up as 748 eur/month. So unfortunately membership isn't quite where we would like it to be.
Yes! Please help out in any way you can. We really appreciate it.