General > General Technical Chat
Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux [advice needed for a Linux workstation at home]
radar_macgyver:
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on January 19, 2019, 07:51:09 am ---24 FPS is the movie frame-rate (23.976). My monitors are all 60Hz. Vsync also works at 60Hz, I guess.
This needs a framerate conversion from 24.976Hz to 60Hz. What I noticed is, when only one monitor is active and video is full screen, then the BLIT changes to FLIP. BLIT means a bitmap image is copied at a certain location in the video screen RAM (asynchronous, I guess), while FLIP means a full image is built in a buffer, and the buffer is flipped to display during a vertical sync, synchronous with the monitor's frame rate.
BLIP or FLIP, a framerate conversion is still required from 24 to 60fps.
When properly implemented, the frame-rate conversion must be done (on the fly), and with frame interpolation. Without frame interpolation, the image will stutter here and there, because 60Hz is not a multiple of 23.976Hz.
I don't know who's job the frame rate conversion is, the GPU driver, the movie player/decoder, or maybe some other window composer.
--- End quote ---
Hmm... my preferred media player (VLC) doesn't even show the FPS counter so it must not use openGL for rendering. I did find that turning off 'Allow Flipping' in the NVIDIA X server configuration induced some tearing, which makes sense since no matter if vsync is enabled or not, unless you do page flipping (have two frame buffers, render to one while the other is visible, then exchange buffers) you are pretty much guaranteed to see tearing at some point.
Frame rate conversion is handled by the media player.
bsfeechannel:
--- Quote from: rstofer on January 19, 2019, 10:42:11 pm ---I have been running Win 10 since it came out and it is a vast improvement on Win 7 and that was darn near perfect.
--- End quote ---
What is interesting to note about Windows users, observing them justify their choice, is that they always say that the current version of Windows is a vast improvement of the previous version, and that the current version is perfect. I've been reading this kind of comment in forums for the last 20 years or so.
Well, if the current is perfect and is a vast improvement over the previous, then the previous version sucks.
If Microsoft releases Windows 11, this version will be a vast improvement over the previous version, which is Windows 10, of course this means that Windows 10 sucks.
Which is exactly what everybody else is saying about Windows 10 now.
So this Windows perfection is just a myth.
Whales:
Regarding Linux graphics driver issues: often the Arch Linux wiki is a good place to look for help.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nvidia#Multiple_monitors
--- Quote ---If you are using TwinView and vertical sync (the "Sync to VBlank" option in nvidia-settings), you will notice that only one screen is being properly synced, unless you have two identical monitors. Although nvidia-settings does offer an option to change which screen is being synced (the "Sync to this display device" option), this does not always work.
--- End quote ---
Eep. I have working vsync across multiple monitors, but I run the open-source radeon drivers. I remember the fun that was the proprietary (FGLRX/Catalyst) drivers for Radeon, glad I don't have to use those anymore.
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 18, 2019, 10:28:37 am ---
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 18, 2019, 04:07:13 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 18, 2019, 03:41:55 am ---OP: Do it only if you are willing and able to learn a new tool. If you just need a tool that works like Windows but isn't Windows, don't bother: the switch will just aggravate you.
--- End quote ---
I think the problem is that the latest version of Windows is not very good, so the only alternatives are to use an older version of Windows that will become unsupported at some point or use some other OS altogether.
--- End quote ---
I agree. Windows XP (in a VM) is still my go-to Windows. I can't even use Windows 10 because the font anti-aliasing (causing me an instant headache) can't be disabled.
--- End quote ---
Thankyou thankyou thankyou. I'm not the only person in the world. Windows 7 font rendering causes me repeatable headaches. I have not spent much time on 10, but I agree my first choice is XP in a VM. Faster, easier on the eyes, etc.
A few years back freetype (font renderer on Linux) changed its hinting to be more Windows like, so fonts suddenly became a lot blurrier. I found some environment var exports that reverted these changes in every app except Firefox and Thunderbird. Yay, the two things I use the most ignore my preferences.
rstofer:
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 19, 2019, 11:34:11 pm ---Things have changed a lot since then. Given the enormous amount of engineering software for which a Linux version is available nowadays there must be something wrong with that 2% number. I'm pretty sure nearly 100% of companies which do some form or engineering use Linux. About a year ago I had a demo for some electronics CAD packages. Every company had an answer to whether it could run on Linux: either native or in a VM. None said the package couldn't be used under Linux.
--- End quote ---
The problem with industry and Linux is the multitude of license Terms and Conditions. Where I worked we wouldn't even consider Open Source or any similar offerings. We bought site licenses for everything and we only bought Microsoft. There was a movement early on to transition to Apple but the only people who wanted to go that way worked for IT. The end users were happy with Microsoft and the legal department didn't see a problem.
If you have to run software in a VM, is it really Linux software? I wonder if Wine is the most used Linux application.
Linux tries to remain chaste, no proprietary software. If you want a driver for your nVidia board you first have to learn how to add third party repositories to the search list. More time with Google, I suppose. It used to be that I had to recompile the driver every time there was a kernel upgrade and it seemed like that was happening monthly. It was a huge PITA. This was with RedHat Enterprise Linux, I don't know how it affected other distros.
It does seem like Linux finally got WiFi to work. It was a gigantic PITA a few years back. My most recent installations have been seemless.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: rstofer on January 20, 2019, 01:11:45 am ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 19, 2019, 11:34:11 pm ---Things have changed a lot since then. Given the enormous amount of engineering software for which a Linux version is available nowadays there must be something wrong with that 2% number. I'm pretty sure nearly 100% of companies which do some form or engineering use Linux. About a year ago I had a demo for some electronics CAD packages. Every company had an answer to whether it could run on Linux: either native or in a VM. None said the package couldn't be used under Linux.
--- End quote ---
The problem with industry and Linux is the multitude of license Terms and Conditions. Where I worked we wouldn't even consider Open Source or any similar offerings.
--- End quote ---
Again: you don't have to run open source software in Linux. I'm running quite a few closed source applications.
--- Quote ---If you have to run software in a VM, is it really Linux software? I wonder if Wine is the most used Linux application.
--- End quote ---
Wine doesn't work. A virtual machine is the way to go. The only software I run in a Windows VM are: MS Office, Hyperterminal, Flashmagic, Orcad Capture and a few random pieces I use once or twice per year (usually vendor specific software).
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