3D and Free Software on Trisquel?
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I am very confused about Free Software and 3D. I have gotten a lot of information from a lot of different people. Can someone please clarify?
1: Some people link me to http://wiki.opengraphics.org/tiki-index.php
2: Some people tell me that intel ones work. (They do, that's what's on my desktop.) But mine is an old desktop and not very high power.
3: Some say that (soon?) certain Radeon cards like the one in my laptop will be supported.
4: There is a list of a lot of cards that have DRI support on the fallowing web site that the Free Software Foundation's site links to.
http://free3d.org/
Is DRI (Direct Render Interface) support the same as 3D?
I guess a good example would be, what do I need to play Nexuiz in Trisquel?
Thank GNU.
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My answers:
1. The Open Graphics Project develops an open HARDWARE board. Curiously, they stopped releasing news and announcements back in spring of 2009, at the same time that they managed to get basic VGA emulation working...
2. For Intel graphics, you want this driver: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/
3. If you have an ATI card, like I do, you will need the "radeon" driver (http://wiki.x.org/wiki/radeon). If your card is in the r600/700 series (like mine, which is HD 3400) then it won't support 3D with the current version of Trisquel. You need version 7.7 of the Mesa OpenGL library, which will be in the NEXT version of Trisquel. You'll want to avoid the brand new r800 series that came out a few months ago, because it isn't supported yet even for 2D.
4. I advise you to look up DRI in your favorite search engine. That will explain it better than I can. But no, it's not the same thing as 3D.
My system uses the NVidia GeForce6100 chipset using the -nv driver. The only visual effects option that's accepted is "none". The -nouveau driver is still marked as experimental in the repo, but I read that Ubuntu 10.04 will use the -nouveau driver for nVidia. I was wondering if it will be added to Trisquel 3.5 in the future or if I need to wait for the next release.
By the way, the -nouveau description in the repo states that users requiring 3D support should use the non-free "nvidia" driver. Although the non-free software is not in the repo, I don't think we should be recommending it (see License Rules under Guidelines for Free System Distributions on the FSF site).
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The Nouveau driver has become quite sophisticated and reliable, as far as I can tell.
"By the way, the -nouveau description in the repo states that users requiring 3D support should use the non-free "nvidia" driver. Although the non-free software is not in the repo, I don't think we should be recommending it (see License Rules under Guidelines for Free System Distributions on the FSF site)."
Is there any way we can change the description to exclude recommendation of the proprietary driver?
I don't think the next version of Trisquel is bound to have 3D acceleration for any Radeon cards, new or old. As far as I know, those so called "free" Radeon drivers aren't really free. They require some binary-blob firmware for the 3D acceleration. AMD would not disclose the firmware because that would make their Digital Restriction Management implementation easier to bypass.
You can read this discussion between a AMD employee and some other guy about the issue here:
http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6585&page=63#627
(the discussion continues on the next pages)
Maybe my info is a bit old and things are different now, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
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So basically, they won't open-source and document their microcode because they assert that it's too risky for their business to allow the user to bypass their DRM, even though Intel already does it and their profits haven't spontaneously combusted yet. This microcode is closed-source, undocumented, DRM-laden, and tivoized, and also happens to be code that an entire crucial part of the hardware system depends on to function; it doesn't get any worse than that.
AMD's petty calculations continue to be more important to them than doing the right thing and supporting freedom.
I did some quick checking, and it appears that the OS usage (non-server uses) is about 88% for Windows, 5% for GUN/Linux and 7% for Mac. Out of the 5%, the truly free (as defined by the FSF) is probably rather small. I would say that from a financial standpoint they could probably care less.
Using a fully free OS such as Trisquel is a matter of principle over convenience, so until we can get more people to understand that these things make a difference we are probably stuck. Don't get me wrong; I am not saying Trisquel is inconvenient (it does all I personally need), but for now fully free systems lag behind (not by any fault of their own) non-free systems in some ways (3D, wifi) and most people are willing to trade control over their own machine in exchange for features. I am wondering, if the electric company said they would give rate discounts in exchange for deciding what music you hear and programs you watch, how many people would go for it...
Most people will choose convenience over principle, until the freedoms abandoned to get convenience come back to bite them, at which time it may well be too late.
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"I did some quick checking, and it appears that the OS usage (non-server uses) is about 88% for Windows, 5% for GUN/Linux and 7% for Mac. Out of the 5%, the truly free (as defined by the FSF) is probably rather small. I would say that from a financial standpoint they could probably care less."
Love or hate Canonical, they've done more to raise the profile of GNU/Linux as a viable desktop solution than anybody else. They are singlehandedly responsible for dispelling the antique notion that GNU/Linux is a Hard and Scary OS for Geeks. Out of 5% market share, I imagine that the truly free distro users are 1-2% of the community (no hard data whatsoever to back that up, just my guess). Everybody in this world that uses a fully-free distro could probably fit into one auditorium, but it's good company. :)
"Don't get me wrong; I am not saying Trisquel is inconvenient (it does all I personally need), but for now fully free systems lag behind (not by any fault of their own) non-free systems in some ways (3D, wifi) and most people are willing to trade control over their own machine in exchange for features."
You are absolutely right; most people, even if generally convinced of the ideals that we talk about, would rather use a distribution FULL of non-free software to get their wifi working out-of-box, than use our high-quality Ubuntu-derived distro, buy a $30 wifi card that works with free drivers, and lose nothing else. It's a tragedy of the commons, and if such a cycle continues it will reach such a point that hardware makers will stop releasing free drivers at all, because they will understand that these communities don't give one tinker's damn whether their driver is under GPL or is an obfuscated DRM monstrosity. And such a cycle has been happening to the Linux kernel itself since 1996.
" It's a tragedy of the commons, and if such a cycle continues it will reach such a point that hardware makers will stop releasing free drivers at all..."
If the rational behind this is to maintain a edge over the competition, perhaps they would release free drivers once newer hardware comes out or at least for lower end hardware. It may provide a good reason to hold on to some of the hardware we have now. There are so few fully free distibutions now, if we ever do get to that point we might have none. Richard Stallman said that it's better for a program to die than become non-free, but if it's impossible to run a computer without non-free software then what?
" these communities don't give one tinker's damn" ... haven't heard that one used in a long time.
I tried the Ubuntu 10 beta didn't even get past first base with my Nvidia card, installation hung at first flash screen (pulsating dots progress logo). I assume it was the card driver that stalled it. Kinda disappointing, even for the beta.
I believe that Ubuntu is changing from the -nv to the -nouveau driver for Lucid. I tried one of the alpha versions as a live CD although I never enabled the restricted drivers or 3D and it worked fine. What type of nVidia card do you have? Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.
@usnica
The answer is some posts above. The problem is not with the free drivers, the problem is with the binary blobs which are in Linux but not in Linux-libre (which is the kernel that Trisquel and other fully free distros use), and those binary blobs are essential in order to have 3D.
But 3d should work in Trisquel with an appropriate Intel GMA?
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"But 3d should work in Trisquel with an appropriate Intel GMA?"
Yes. Except for a couple of odd cards, most of the Intel GMA cards run on a free driver that relies on no binary blobs.
I understand that 3D will not work without the binary blobs and restricted drivers (neither of which I endorse), but I am wondering why Dan Trisquel can't get past the boot screen. I booted the Ubuntu alpha3 live CD and have a full desktop using an nVidia GeForce 6100 (in fact I am replying using the live desktop).
I did notice on the live CD boot options, under F6, there's a "Free Software Only" option. I will try that and see what I get. Seeing as how Trisquel is derived from Ubuntu, I hope there weren't any upstream decisions that could adversely affect our functionality.
---- Update on the "Free Software Only" option ----
I found no difference in the normal boot and this option for the Ubuntu 10 CD. It still offered to install restricted drivers and the various nvidia packages were there which are not present in Trisquel.
@usnica
With the binary blobs and free drivers you can have 3D. Of course it depends on the graphics card you have.
Thanks. I was refering specifically to the Nvidia cards which as far as I know still require the binary blobs even with free drivers. It sounds like most Intel chips have 3D using free drivers and no binary blobs.
Usnica I have a GeForce 7100 GS, it's a few years old now, so I wasn't expecting any problems with drivers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_7_Series#GeForce_7100_Series Also because, the current Ubuntu 9.10, installs fine. The Ubuntu beta, probably would install using safe graphics mode, but I couldn't be bothered. I'm happy with Trisquel.
On another point I've used 3D mode, with the proprietary nVidia drivers, on Ubuntu. I find the driver slows the system, and the graphics are slow. I always switch back to the free driver. The fancy effects are just not worth the performance hit. I'd like to see free 3D drivers in GNU/Linux, although it's not a priority for me.
I think we are on the same page with this. My computer use doesn't depend upon 3D so at the personal level this is a non-issue. I would however, like to see a solution to the 3D problem for those that need the enhancements offered by 3D. As for Ubuntu, I only booted the alpha 3 version. I may burn a CD of the beta to see if anything changes (or breaks). I also didn't mention that my nVidia GeForce 6100 is onboard... I don't know if that makes a difference.
It's difficult though. I am a video gamer and love video games. It often seems like I have to check my software values outside the door and just go with non-free like Nintendo to get gaming. But, interestingly, this is not true. There are plenty of Free Software video games; they just won't work on Free Software systems. This is a huge priority for me as I usually have to end up installing Windows to play Free Software video games that could run on GNU/Linux. It makes it almost impossible to be a video gamer and live in truly Free Software environment. Which creates this double standard for me where I almost have to say, “Everyone should dual boot because even though Free Software is good for everything else, you need Windows to be a serious video gamer so just forget about your values or you're probably not going to play a decent 3D game again for a good 10 to 20 years at least.”
This is what almost all my friends do. They use Ubuntu for computing and Windows for gaming because the GNU/Linux community, to spite making many great games, has decided that it doesn't care enough about Free Software drivers for that can do 3D to make it a priority. And sense our society is largely based on entrainment and gaming; this is where Windows will remain a tag along for almost all GNU/Linux users because this perfectly usable system can't do 3D accept with Intel Motherboards and almost no one but me seems to really care.
It seems like most GNU/Linux users don't really care about freedom so they don't see using Windows for gaming as a problem. Or, if they care about freedom, they usually are more into computer tech and don't really care about gaming. So, it doesn't effect their lives and hobbies so, again, they don't care either. For the rare person who uses Free Software, cares about Freedom, and still wants gaming; you'll get help from almost no one as almost no one else is like you or cares. That seems to be my experience anyway, sadly to say.
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It used to not be as important that game console software is free, because they were not general-purpose computers designed to interpret as wide a range of code as possible. However, this is becoming less true with each new generation of consoles, as modern consoles (like cell-phones) are designed with the same specifications as computers and are expected to do many of the things that computers traditionally do, like browse the internet and play movies. We need to find some inroads into the console industry, or it's going to continue to be a worse place for freedom at the rate it's going.
In the GNU/Linux using world, you have the Free Software activist one one side who is a techie and rarely or never plays video games, because he's mostly concerned with everyday code and replicating whatever practical functionality is still missing from fully-free systems (see the FSF's list of high-priority projects for a flavor of what I am talking about). On the other side, you have the devil-may-care Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora user who dual-boots into Windows to do all his gaming. He uses GNU/Linux presumably only because he likes it, maybe even just because (for the time being) it can be used as a means to brag to his friends about how much he knows about computers. "Cop my 1337 Windows 7/Ubuntu 9.10/Kubuntu 9.10 triple-boot, guyz!" We need to convince the Free Software people to care about videogames and regard a fully-free as an EXTREMELY vital high-priority project that makes or breaks our adoption. We need to convince the gamer that he can use WINE to run all his games and lose very little in the translation, and in the process ditch Windows altogether if he even cares one mite about the community that gave him his nice operating system in the first place. We need to let the kernel people know that is a tremendous betrayal of the values we rely on them to uphold if they accept DRM-laden modules like the one Noveau uses into the kernel. We have a lot of work to do.
Trisquel Gamer will continue to be a vital touchstone for the intersection between truly free software and videogames. It features several 3D games of high quality, but the problem is only the Intel cards will run them, and less than optimally at that.
Don't forget about those of us in the middle. I'm not a techie, but yet don't play video games. Probably 95% of my use is spread across web surfing, email, OpenOffice, Rhythmbox, gThumb. I am also learning to use Gimp to make wallpapers so I'll add that in. All of these are handled very well with fully free GNU/Linux. If we only address the computer software for now (not consoles), I wonder what percentage of people use the computer for gaming and what percentage only use it for "every day" tasks, such as internet, email, music, video, pictures, documents. I have seen some claims that the vast majority are not gamers, so if one of our goals is to move people from proprietary to fully-free systems, there should be a large group of users for which this is possible. The main obstacles I see are:
1) Systems come preinstalled with proprietary software.
2) People are used to systems with proprietary software and are resistant to change.
I also have a suggestion, and I appreciate comments from anyone. Would it be possible to have a technical section of the forums and an activist/promotional section of the forums? It might make it easier for people to get solutions to the "how do I ..." questions without reading through the philosophical posts. I don't mind all of it together; in fact I enjoy reading all the posts. I was just wondering if anyone thinks it might help the users, especially as we add users.
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Correct, people don't typically think of software in terms of proprietary vs. free software, in other words software that leaves its users locked in and powerless to help themselves and their neighbors versus software that's good for the values of sharing and mutual respect that are taught in Kindergarten. Google's Chrome OS for netbooks might be built on top of GNU/Linux, but to Joe Average it's just Chrome OS. NTM it's a horrible example of Software as a Service. Moral: Google and its servers owns your computing, and you do not. The average user would be hard-pressed to know it's a GNU/Linux distribution, and won't care when he finds out.
If people have to sign onto an absurdly restrictive license agreement to use the operating system that comes with their computers, they will accept that as a fact of life. We have to show them that there is a better way, and that it's worth the small initial sacrifices in familiarity and convenience to switch to that.
On another note, currently these forums are a front-end for the trisquel-users mailing list, so splitting the forums into sub-forums is not a good solution. Eventually the forum traffic could be so high that it is necessary to start splitting into multiple sub-forums, and the mailing list concept may have to be scrapped. Let's hope we get to be that big eventually. :)
I guess my question is whether this is more because video card manufacturers don't care about Free Software and thus regard DRM above freedom, or is it more because there is not a strong Free Software gaming community to demand Freedom?
What is a practical way to get ATI or NVidia to care about Freedom is less than a year or so? Or is this something that will take decades? Is there a practical way to get a high end 3D Free Software driver? Or are we pretty much screwed until enough people care to protest? And what are the chances of that?
Again, this is sad and in many ways disappoints me. Not only are 3D Free Software games destroyed, so are many "2D" games because they use "3D" features in their games. Take Hedgewars. While it is a 2D game, it plays like crap on my Radeon card because it uses some levels of "3D" to render. Even in reduced quality the game runs like a snail on a dual core 64 bit computer with 3 gigs. It should be running lightening fast without a hiccup, and would be with Windows. But, my $500.00 laptop grinds to an embracing halt to try to play a 2D game and it seems few people care. Hedgewars isn't going to go out of their way to avoud the "3D" things used in it. It makes it look cool and most people don't care about freedom and will be playing it on Windows, Mac, or Ubuntu with non-free drivers anyway. Why would Hedgewars go out of their way to change the fundamentals of their game to work on a small percent of a small percent of computer users? And, sense most of the Free Software community are more interested in, "practical," computing, they don't see this as a true need. Thus, again, Windows is almost a requirement, or at the very least non-free drivers are almost a requirement, for anyone who is a Free Software activists but is also a video gamer. There is almost no way to play Free Software 3D games, or about half of the "2D" games that use "3D," without a non-free driver or system. Is there such a thing as an Intel Netbook or Laptop that doesn't use some other companie's video device?
Oh, and have fun trying to play Nexuiz or Tremulous on Trisquel without Intel. The entire computer feels like it's passing molasses through a straw. I have to play move and wait with the mouse just to get to the button to get out. My $500.00 becomes a brick. And I am still supposed to not use a non-free driver or dual boot to Windows to fix this? Or, is my option to buy another computer? If so, what kind of Netbook or Laptop out there fixes this? As far as I know, there may be none.
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"I guess my question is whether this is more because video card manufacturers don't care about Free Software and thus regard DRM above freedom, or is it more because there is not a strong Free Software gaming community to demand Freedom?"
Both are factors, of course.
"What is a practical way to get ATI or NVidia to care about Freedom is less than a year or so? Or is this something that will take decades? Is there a practical way to get a high end 3D Free Software driver? Or are we pretty much screwed until enough people care to protest? And what are the chances of that?"
We've reached the point where the free software drivers are high-end and run 3D graphics as smoothly as their proprietary equivalents. But both AMD and NVidea still won't open-source the blobs that the Linux maintainers stupidly accepted into the kernel. Our community must pressure these companies to change their positions, to prove to us that they care more about their users' freedoms than their own petty calculations of "risk". And I am serious, we absolutely must frame the debate in those terms. The kernel people had enough influence that they could simply deny the nonfree modules offered by AMD and NVidea, demanding that they be open-sourced and devoid of DRM first. But they failed to do that, setting back our community significantly.
"Is there such a thing as an Intel Netbook or Laptop that doesn't use some other companie's video device?"
I'm not sure what you're asking here. Virtually all motherboards sold with integrated graphics have Intel devices, which are most laptops and desktop computers at the low end of the price scale.
Thank GNU for your response. I guess what I was referring to is that I tried many computers, netbooks, in a line up and none of them could run Nexuiz well with the video inside of them. They all lagged slowly moving the mouse in the menu.
As Andrew has said, the free drivers have come a long way but many, if not most, still depend on the binary blobs for 3D functionality. It may not be that the Free Software community doesn't care, as much as the lack of source for the binary blobs may be limiting the development. It may also be a matter of the community applying the available resources in way that benefits as many users as possible. If we take the Free Software principle of transfering control from the hands of the developers (proprietary approach) into the hands of the users (Free Software approach), then failing to address your needs as a user is a failure to apply this principle.
One things manufacturers do listen to is market share. You can bet that if Free Software users were 80% of the market instead of <10%, the drivers would be open and the blobs would be gone. In the mean time, we can, as Andrew has said, put pressure on the manufacturers to open up the documentation as well as increase awareness and usage of Free Software.
With respect to development, I sometimes wonder if we had to pay $100 to $200 per OS plus another $100 for an office suite as users of proprietary systems do, what the difference in development might be. I'm not advocating this, and money doesn't necessarily guarantee quality, but with the number of users out there we might be able to provide for some hefty R&D. Although the Free Software community has not taken this route, it has still produced an excellent OS and collection of packages that meet the needs of so many users.
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"With respect to development, I sometimes wonder if we had to pay $100 to $200 per OS plus another $100 for an office suite as users of proprietary systems do, what the difference in development might be. I'm not advocating this, and money doesn't necessarily guarantee quality, but with the number of users out there we might be able to provide for some hefty R&D. Although the Free Software community has not taken this route, it has still produced an excellent OS and collection of packages that meet the needs of so many users."
We would be limiting our adoption potential by charging the exorbitant entry fees that Microsoft and Apple do. Users would simply avoid such distributions, download gratis forks of such distributions and lose nothing, so this route is unfeasible.
What we SHOULD encourage is for every user of a GNU/Linux system to join the FSF as a paying member and donate to the free software projects they care about most. If enough people in the community choose to do this, as I have, we could actually begin paying software programmers to work on the most critical projects full-time. Think of how much that would advance Free Software. The Free Software Foundation has the discernment and experience to use its donation money to fund the projects that benefit our community most.
You are right. Perhaps a better way of say this would have been "if all the GNU/Linus users chose to invest financially the same way that Microsoft and Apple users are forced to, imagine the resources that would be available for Free Software development". I wasn't trying to say GNU/Linux users should pay, and hopefully it wasn't taken that way.
Also, is there a way to donate directly to Trisquel, or is it better to route donations through the FSF?
I was looking to buy a specific card because the 2d acceleration in my Nvidia card is pretty bad. from http://www.free3d.org/ the ATI Radeon X850 is the best to use for free 3D acceleration according to them. what do others think? anyone else have this card? or could anyone tell me what kind of performance I could expect.
thanks
As has been already said, you won't have 3D acceleration with any AMD/ATI or Nvidia video cards in fully free system such as Triquel. The Radeon cards, although there are free drivers for them, they require non-free firmware for to 3D acceleration. I guess the site www.free3d.org just does not take in account the firmware need for those "free" card that are listed there.
For now, the only way you can have 3D acceleration in a free system is with SOME of the integrated Intel cards.
By firmware are you refering to the binary blobs? The link to free3D.org is provided by the FSF on their website under Resources > Hardware > Video Cards and I thought they only recommended free software and drivers that don't require binary blobs.
Yes, I'm referring to binary blob firmware, and yes, the FSF are against such firmware. I guess it was just their mistake to include this website as a reference for free 3D accelerating cards.
There is a Lenovo Netbook on newegg that uses Intel Atom as its processor and for its graphics it is.
"Graphics
Graphics Processor Intel GMA 3150
Video Memory Shared system memory"
Does that mean I can play 3D games on it?
Thank GNU
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It's on this list of supported chipsets: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html
So yes, you can. :)
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