Tobias Klausmann composed on 2016-08-06 01:18 (UTC+0200):
Felix Miata wrote:
Do note that nouveau is not the only NVidia driver alternative. FOSS video driver development focus has been transitioning from chip-specific to generic[1]. That means instead of much of the effort that has in the past been going into intel, nouveau or ati/amd/radeon drivers, has been redirected into the modesetting driver.
To use modesetting, the easiest way is simply to uninstall the chip-specific xf86- or proprietary driver. In Tumbleweed back in March Egbert Eich provided us with a new driver config technique using /etc/X11/xorg_pci_ids/*.ids. Docs about it I've yet to locate, but here are a few references:
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=972126 https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/377691 https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/379539
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/4cojj9/it_is_probably_time_to_di...
Sorry to say but you took this a bit wrong. You have several parts within the graphics stack, one part is the X servers driver(s) *xf86-* which can mostly be replaced by the generic xf86-video-modesetting. But that is only a small part of the picture, you have libdrm (intel, nouveau ,...), Mesa with its OpenGL implementation for the particular hardware you use and finally the kernel module. If you are going to use the modesetting driver, you will still end up with the Mesa implementation and the kernel module for your hardware (if you are not using the nvidia closed source driver or some other closed source driver).
The modesetting driver heavily depends on the OpenGL implementation for your hardware to accelerated 2D content (glamor), so if you have a bug there, you will face problems even by only using a desktop.
I realize there are several components to video for Xorg, but non-developer types can't be expected to keep track of which component does what or depends on what. From where I sit, X either starts or not, and crashes or not, and produces corruption or not. If all are nots, I'm good. If something isn't a not, and not a not is a problem for me, I boot something else, to see whether either a different installation on the same hardware, or on different hardware, matches the problem observed, or not. If I think my observation can be useful to other users or X-related devs, and don't find it to be a reported problem anywhere, I consider to either mention it in an appropriate forum, and/or file a bug. When I find a problem in X, usually I find it's not an openSUSE exclusive, so no one here hears from me about it before upstream does, if ever. :-)
On the long run the generic driver is the way to go, but personally i'm not certain its already the time to throw away the xf86-video-* drivers,
I don't see any material inconsistency between your last paragraph and what I wrote. The main thrust of my response was that NVidia gfxchip TW users are not stuck with nouveau as their only fallback when a kernel upgrade breaks their proprietary video driver and they have good reason to want to use that freshly installed kernel. Everything else was tangential. I have a bunch of installations using the server-built-in modesetting driver instead of the chip-specific drivers, and not demonstrating any observable negative impact in comparison. In fact, I have nearly every installation with a gfxchip supported by the modesetting driver configured to use the modesetting driver. That this works may be because I don't like bling and do everything I know how to avoid its use. I have no idea whether or when I am or could be looking at "3D" something or other. All _I_ see on _my_ screens are two dimensional objects. :-) -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org