Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 23rd Dec 2008 20:20 UTC, submitted by AdamW
The first pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring is now available. This alpha concentrates on updating to the major desktop components of the distribution, including KDE 4.2 Beta 2, GNOME 2.25.2, Xfce 4.6 Beta 2, X.org server 1.5, and kernel 2.6.28 rc8. It is also the first distribution to introduce the major new Tcl/Tk release, 8.6. The alpha is available only in the DVD Free edition with a traditional installer and no proprietary applications; future pre-releases will add the live CD One edition with proprietary drivers. Please help test this first pre-release and report bugs to Mandriva.
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Member since:2007-02-17
... Perhaps because the Linux graphics platform of choice is Nvidia hardware with Nvidia's drivers. From the OSNews story above: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13284
I should say that performing like crap on the most popular Linux graphics platform in 2008, as you spend so many words admitting that KDE4 does, is a problem.
I should say that performing like crap on the most popular Linux graphics platform in 2008, as you spend so many words admitting that KDE4 does, is a problem.
It is indeed a problem because many people, yourself included apparently, have apparently totally got the wrong end of the stick here.
It is not KDE4 that performs horribly, it is rather (and most unfortunately) "the Linux graphics platform of choice, Nvidia hardware with Nvidia's drivers" that performs horribly.
Benchmarks show that Nvidia hardware with Nvidia's (current) drivers as a graphics platform on Linux performs slower than software rendering.
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11044
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=793&num=1
(3D performance is fine, it is only the 2D performance of Nvidia's current binary drivers that suffer this bug).
The problem does not only affect KDE4, it also affects some other modern desktop applications such as Firefox 3 and OpenOffice, because they too utilise the GPU (on systems where one is identified) to speed up rendering operations. Unfortunately, Nvidia hardware with Nvidia's (current) drivers actually slows it down.
From the first link I gave above:
There are ongoing complains about poor 2D performance of NVidia GPUs, about 2 years ago it started with people complaining about slow text rendering with subpixel-antialiasing, but the more programs use the XRender api, the more complaints are posted. KDE4 which uses XRender a lot and also relies on more advanced feature is really slow (I would call it almost unuseable), also FireFox3 is no joy with nvidia's binary drivers.
Fortunately this point is about to become moot. Nvidia will no doubt soon release their current beta drivers, and the performance bug will go away.
When it finally does so, the Linux graphics platform of choice will finally correctly support KDE4, Firefox 3 and OpenOffice, and other programs that utilise the Xrender functionality (as it should have done all along), and this will finally reveal to the majority of Linux users that KDE4 is actually easily the fastest desktop platform available for Linux.
Member since:2005-07-24
It is indeed a problem because many people, yourself included apparently, have apparently totally got the wrong end of the stick here.
No. I have the right end of the stick. That's why you have to type, and type, and type so many paragraphs to "prove" me wrong. And I can just point to the obvious truth.
KDE4 jumped on the wrong boat with this particular design decision... despite any spin that you or Aseigo care to put on it after the fact. It was, perhaps, based upon a reasonable guess about the future of commonly available, hardware accelerated Xrender support at the time the decision was made. But it was based upon a *wrong* guess.
Edited 2008-12-27 02:30 UTC
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Member since:
2005-07-24
I have two comments.
1. Concision is obviously not your forte:
steve@firefly:~$ wc -c lemur2_responses.txt
4555 lemur2_responses.txt
steve@firefly:~$ wc -w lemur2_responses.txt
762 lemur2_responses.txt
2. You seem really worked up over this issue. Perhaps because the Linux graphics platform of choice is Nvidia hardware with Nvidia's drivers. From the OSNews story above: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13284
I should say that performing like crap on the most popular Linux graphics platform in 2008, as you spend so many words admitting that KDE4 does, is a problem.
Edited 2008-12-26 17:07 UTC