Re: Module Proposal: GNOME Shell



Le vendredi 02 avril 2010 à 08:34 -0400, Owen Taylor a écrit : 
> We've always planned to require graphics acceleration. To review:
> 
>  * We can't take advantage of the capabilities of graphics
>    acceleration in the user interface design unless we can count
>    on it - otherwise the graphics acceleration is at best tack-on
>    eye candy.
> 
>  * Developing two separate code paths for accelerated and
>    non-accelerated graphics is also a large increase in
>    development resources.

These are good arguments, but you are still being way too optimistic
when it comes to the state of drivers. 
      * Intel drivers are in a terrible shape, and it’s a nightmare to
        get a kernel+X combination that works with all adapters. 
      * Radeon KMS drivers are very slow (too slow to run gnome-shell,
        at least) and still stabilizing. 
      * Nouveau is still experimental. 
      * Non-free drivers are terribly lagging behind in terms of
        non-core functionality (RandR? Ha, ha, ha.) 
      * Hardware from manufacturers other than the big 3 has zero
        support.

> * There is zero reason that virtual machines can't also have 3D
>    acceleration - and VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels, etc, do this
>    currently. KVM/qemu lags, that just needs to be fixed.

This is easier said than done. And if VMware has 3D support, it is still
very unstable. Which is expected when you try to access the same
hardware with different drivers in the host and the guest, both as
crappy.

You are also forgetting the trend towards thin clients. The protocols to
display 3D remotely do not even exist. Everything has yet to be invented
if you want to see 3D on what will be the standard desktop for an
increasing part of our users.

> So, the official plan is basically that people can still use the 
> GNOME 2 panel and window manager with GNOME 3 applications and
> libraries, if necessary, but this is a transitional state, 
> and to get the GNOME 3 experience, you need hardware acceleration.

As things are going, you are leaving us no choice but to keep shipping
gnome-panel by default for a very long time, unless we want to provide
two radically different user experiences.

Cheers,
-- 
 .''`.      Josselin Mouette
: :' :
`. `'  “If you behave this way because you are blackmailed by someone,
  `-    […] I will see what I can do for you.”  -- Jörg Schilling

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