I moved from Nvidia to AMD on Manjaro. I use mesa driver but it's from mesa-nonfree because they moved patented part to a different repo to avoid lawsuits. I want the patented part because it's support for hardware encoders. Does that count as open-source or proprietary?

I moved from Nvidia to AMD on Manjaro. I use mesa driver but it's from mesa-nonfree because they moved patented part to a different repo to avoid lawsuits. I want the patented part because it's support for hardware encoders. Does that count as open-source or proprietary?

It still counts as open source, because it is :-)

It's just a Mesa build configuration option,

-D video-codecs=vc1dec,h264dec,h264enc,h265dec,h265enc

Those particular codecs couldn't be called "free software" though, if they are patent encumbered. Also, that only matters if your country cares what United States thinks. Not everybody subscribes to their corrupt patent system.

That's what happens when commercial entities take over a Linux distro. Their parent distro, Arch, that the vast majority of their packages are built from (verbatim PKGBUILDS, just month old builds usually) isn't doing that to Mesa.

P.S. I should say that for the purposes of the hardware survey, "open source" vs. "proprietary" means not using a proprietary driver from the vendor. So, for AMD, if you are using amdgpu/Mesa you are using the open source driver. If you are using AMD's "Radeon Software for Linux" (a.k.a. "Radeon Pro") you are using the proprietary driver.

Here's where it gets a bit confusing for AMD. The "Radeon Software for Linux" now has an open source kernel component that they also call amdgpu. ("AMDGPU All-Open") but the graphics libraries are proprietary. You will still refer to that as the "proprietary driver" for the GOL hardware info surveys.

By the same token, if someone were using Nouveau/Mesa (which they probably wouldn't be for gaming, it's just for example) for their Nvidia card they'd say they were using open source drivers.

Intel also has proprietary Linux graphics drivers, "Intel Arc Graphics" or some shite.

Last edited by Grogan on 19 September 2023 at 10:48 pm UTC

You will still refer to that as the "proprietary driver" for the GOL hardware info surveys.

Lord Grogan has spoken. You will obey.

Maybe there should be a tooltip next to the driver question in the survey...? Because I get it wrong the first time so who knows how many people did - it became tricky over last few years.

You will still refer to that as the "proprietary driver" for the GOL hardware info surveys.

Lord Grogan has spoken. You will obey.

Yes, I should have used a contraction. "you'll still refer..." or you'd. Used like that it's not authoritative (more like a figure of speech)

Maybe there should be a tooltip next to the driver question in the survey...? Because I get it wrong the first time so who knows how many people did - it became tricky over last few years.

For the Mesa thing, all you knew was that Manjaro didn't enable the video acceleration codecs and someone created a package and called it non-free.

However, the only change to Mesa is that those codecs are disabled by default. Before that relatively recent change, those same codecs were enabled. It simply changed to opt-in.

What it affects is h.264 (AVC) and h.265 (HEVC) video hardware acceleration using OpenGL video, vdpau and vaapi. Both decoding and encoding. The videos will still play, but using software decoding (CPU) which can have tearing and micro-stuttering etc. with any processing latency.

Now, nobody has ever been bothered by these patents, but Mesa changing it to opt-out, making you enable them, shifts the onus to the distributor. Commercial ones don't like that. Community, non-profits don't care because good luck weaponizing those patents against what are essentially charities.

Something Manjaro COULD do is simply enable acceleration for playback (dec) but then transcoding (conversion on the fly) would suffer without accelerated encoding. There's less chance of getting sued for decoding things, because of fair use for interoperability (but that doesn't mean it's free and clear).

The problem with software patents is of course that they lock up ideas so nobody else can use them without royalties or conditions (e.g. they can all but refuse to license it to you). You can write your own code that has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else's, and as soon as your product starts getting $ucce$$ful, you can get hit with patent trolls. It's not even a requirement that patents are advertised, they can be "submarine" patents that nobody knows about.

Last edited by Grogan on 20 September 2023 at 5:07 pm UTC

You will still refer to that as the "proprietary driver" for the GOL hardware info surveys.

Lord Grogan has spoken. You will obey.

Yes, I should have used a contraction. "you'll still refer..." or you'd. Used like that it's not authoritative (more like a figure of speech)

I just thought it was funny.

I just thought it was funny.

Well, I figured you were joking but that "you will..." language is actually something I don't like and would not have done it on purpose. I've known people who spoke like that, Eastern Europeans, and it's no mistake. My answer to that is "oh, I will, will I?" lol

Coincidentally, that just happens to be a thing with me. In general, authoritative speech is a trigger for me... I need to show that person just how little authority they have :-)

I just thought it was funny.

Well, I figured you were joking but that "you will..." language is actually something I don't like and would not have done it on purpose. I've known people who spoke like that, Eastern Europeans, and it's no mistake. My answer to that is "oh, I will, will I?" lol

Coincidentally, that just happens to be a thing with me. In general, authoritative speech is a trigger for me... I need to show that person just how little authority they have :-)

You will switch to Windows, you will conform to the system and you WILL do as we say.

Failure to comply is not an option, any and all attempts to rebel against such authoritative decisions will result in swift action against you.




(This is obviously messing about and not being serious )

(This is obviously messing about and not being serious )

That's good, I'm not like that. It's just that the original joke pointed out my mistake, that I took more seriously :-)

Quick thought for the future. Could Fedora Kinoite be added to the PC distribution list? Or maybe rebrand the Fedora Silverblue option to be Fedora Atomic Desktops based on Fedora new naming scheme. https://fedoramagazine.org/introducing-fedora-atomic-desktops/

For now, I just updated my profile to be Fedora Silverblue with the Plasma Desktop to represent Fedora Kinoite.

Would it make sense to add PS5 DualSense Edge as a separate controller? I am testing it currently and in the PC info I set my controller as "Not listed" because it is not exactly 1:1 feature-wise to PS5 DualSense.

Last edited by Kallestofeles on 4 June 2024 at 9:32 am UTC

Would it make sense to add PS5 DualSense Edge as a separate controller? I am testing it currently and in the PC info I set my controller as "Not listed" because it is not exactly 1:1 feature-wise to PS5 DualSense.

Good shout, added.

A few interesting things in this round of trends update:

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=statistics&view=trends

* KDE Wayland session almost caught up to Gnome Wayland session usage.
* Wayland session itself is at 27.9% and gradually rising (from 19.63% same time last year).
* 60 Hz refresh rate remains surprisingly high still, at 46.14%. Though it's decreasing (50.5% last year).
* AMD GPUs usage is continuing to rise. At 50.15% now vs 46.28% last year.

And almost 1 year later here are my takes:

* KDE Plasma (at least here in GOL) is the de-facto DE, they were trading blows with Gnome from 2019 until mid 2021, when the last takeover occurred and Plasma has been going up steadily since. There's a 12.39% gap between them, which for now, holds the record of being the widest ever. Their performance, usability and customization improvements along being the "chosen" for the Deck, has made KDE the desktop of choice.

* Wayland is also going up slow, but steady, and I expect it to tie x11 in mid-2025 (maybe earlier if Nvidia's 560 driver release succeeds)

* The 60hz refresh rate decline has slowed, same for 1080p decline, looks like the current cost of living situation is refraining people from upgrading.

* AMD keeps growing both in CPU and GPU, growing share in CPUs is something wider and not limited to Linux userbase, Ryzen literally saved AMD CPU division. In GPUs it's because their Linux support is S-tier as opposed to Nvidia.

Yeah, I agree. KDE is just a better DE and Gnome goes into some weird directions and has questionable choices that developers take. And I get the impression they don't really focus on gaming use case, unlike KDE (adaptive sync / VRR is a major example of that).

60 Hz / 1080p is a bit more strange. May be upgrade rate has slowed, but better and affordable options are around for years already so something else might be going on. I.e. like less people caring about low latency and better screen sync experience?

You can see that newer GPUs / CPUs usage is moving ahead, so people do upgrade their main PC components, but they clearly don't upgrade monitors as much even when you'd guess they are using something as outdated as 60 Hz.

And yeah, AMD is just an indisputable leader for Linux gaming.

Last edited by Shmerl on 23 June 2024 at 4:18 pm UTC

Why you guys don't use FreeSync Or GSync?

I had the same question. But I think it correlates with many people still using 60 Hz monitors which don't have it. Which is in itself surprising for gamers.

This is improving, but slowly.

Last edited by Shmerl on 4 August 2024 at 1:28 am UTC

I have no need of it. I don't play as much video games anymore and trying to save money to move to western parts of Europe or buy my small house i'm not buying new computer parts now. PC is 7-8 years old now, monitors are from office sales. I wouldn't really have a use case for high refresh rate monitor anyways (just as i don't have one for my new smart phone) so when i get one it'll be because they become the de facto norm even on the used market.

This adds to my feeling that the majority of games don't really interest me anymore, at least the AAA ones. Some of those i might've bought if they had native builds but that's rare now so i get to save a little money on them at least.

Why you guys don't use FreeSync Or GSync?

It is the VRR option ?

I'm not sure about what it means so I leave it at no but my Screen is Freesync so maybe it should be a yes. How can I check ?

Why you guys don't use FreeSync Or GSync?

It is the VRR option ?

I'm not sure about what it means so I leave it at no but my Screen is Freesync so maybe it should be a yes. How can I check ?

Yes it's VRR but it's the cooler name made by GPU brands. There's settings for it in KDE Plasma's display settings.