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Fuchsia overview

fuchsia.dev

191–200 of 235 posts

Re: Fuchsia overview

#191
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do so by using different teams, and their open source variants always lag behind what their closed source drivers are capable of doing across Windows, Apple and game consoles.

The drivers are decent enough nonetheless. I think having an open driver done by a different team and maybe a bit less optimized is still preferable to not having an official open driver at all.

I used to enjoy my OpenGL 4.1 driver on Radeon HD 6250, which was still short of OpenGL 4.4/DX 11 on Windows, but still quite ok I guess, all it does now with open source drivers is OpenGL 3.3.

So no that isn't decent enough, and I only keep it like this, because it is just a little travel laptop that I keep on using until it eventually dies.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#192
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drivers are decent enough nonetheless. I think having an open driver done by a different team and maybe a bit less optimized is still preferable to not having an official open driver at all.

I used to enjoy my OpenGL 4.1 driver on Radeon HD 6250, which was still short of OpenGL 4.4/DX 11 on Windows, but still quite ok I guess, all it does now with open source drivers is OpenGL 3.3. So no that isn't decent enough, and I only keep it like this, because it is just a little travel laptop that I keep on using until it eventually dies.

Why even mention a fairly ancient GPU when AMD has really only gotten their act together fairly recently with amdgpu, but that supports Vulkan as I would expect.

I don't get this constant obsession with mentioning how 8 years ago this and this on Linux sucked. Yes, it did, things improved considerably since then.

If you're only willing to run Linux on ancient, underpowered hardware and then complain about the experience, be my guest, but I think you'd be better served by a Mac.

There's a whole class of people who run Linux on shitty little laptops and then compare the experience to their brand new iMac. I guess somewhere there's still the mentality that since one's not paying for Linux, it's not for my serious hardware, only second hand.

As much as I'd have liked for AMD to get their shit together sooner, I am glad they eventually did and are improving amdgpu at a decent speed.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#193

I was trying to find out from that site who's behind this and if that information is in there it must be really well hidden. Apart from other concerns, I'm not going to touch an OS from a group that doesn't clearly state who they are.

It's GOOG's GPL-less replacement for the Linux kernel, made so they can control the phones even more.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#194
post #193

I was trying to find out from that site who's behind this and if that information is in there it must be really well hidden. Apart from other concerns, I'm not going to touch an OS from a group that doesn't clearly state who they are.

It's GOOG's GPL-less replacement for the Linux kernel, made so they can control the phones even more.

Now I understand why much of the language in there looks more like foggy marketing hype than a comprehensible explanation.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#195
It's been 4 years and it's still being developed? Apparently android v1/v2 was released about 1 year later after the first iPhone.

It doesn't seem so easy to make a new OS/kernel.

The linux kernel is not perfect, but at least it works well, it's mature, and developers know how to work on it.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not say that is a fundamental reason. They have been willing to do it when the proper incentives are there. The incentive to keeping it closed source is primarily part of a strategy to sabotage their competitors, which I hope is not a behavior that anyone here is complicit in. Please don't work for hardware companies that do this, there are plenty of companies out there that know how to spend their money in o…

This claim is wrong. It’s not about sabotaging competitors, it’s about being afraid that your competitors would steal your IP they gives you an advantage. Every Nvidia and Intel competitor (AMD) is probably already reverse engineering their binary drivers and binary libraries trying to steal their IP, so Intel and Nvidia’s fears are imo justified. If NVIDIA or Intel could easily protect their open source code from be…

Having worked for a GPU company, it's not even about stealing IP. It's about giving ammo to your competitors for suing you. If you publish the source code to your drivers then let's say Nvidia can read through them and find a few similarities in your hardware to something they have patented, and then sue you for IP infringement. They can't do this without some evidence that there might be a similarity, but weak evidence is enough. So they basically send you a set of 100 patents that they say you violate, and then it's your job to spend your legal resources to show how you don't violate those patents. It might be easy to show this for say 90 of those patents, but there can be a few which require considerable work, and if you're a small company you don't have the resources to fight off lawsuits all the time. So open sourcing your drivers opens you up to a lot of potential attacks, with very little upside. More specifically, it opens up the companies that buy GPU IP from you to attacks. Nvidia on the other hand has the resources to keep throwing accusations at you and see what sticks and force you to burn cash on legal resources.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#197
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's GOOG's GPL-less replacement for the Linux kernel, made so they can control the phones even more.

Now I understand why much of the language in there looks more like foggy marketing hype than a comprehensible explanation.

Besides, the page's CSS is (besides colours) very alike to their other properties. https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/tutorials/he...

And, well "For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies."

Re: Fuchsia overview

#198
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to enjoy my OpenGL 4.1 driver on Radeon HD 6250, which was still short of OpenGL 4.4/DX 11 on Windows, but still quite ok I guess, all it does now with open source drivers is OpenGL 3.3. So no that isn't decent enough, and I only keep it like this, because it is just a little travel laptop that I keep on using until it eventually dies.

Why even mention a fairly ancient GPU when AMD has really only gotten their act together fairly recently with amdgpu, but that supports Vulkan as I would expect. I don't get this constant obsession with mentioning how 8 years ago this and this on Linux sucked. Yes, it did, things improved considerably since then. If you're only willing to run Linux on ancient, underpowered hardware and then complain about the experie…

That was just one example, I can provide more up to date ones as well.

Indeed, that is why this Linux laptop is the surviving one that still runs Linux on bare metal, everywhere else I just VMs, if at all.

Re: Fuchsia overview

#200
post #5
post #2

Another Google project that will end up being abandoned. Flutter, Dart, messaging, etc. They need to just fix Android.

I have a strong feeling that Fuchsia will not be abandoned. I can't put my finger on it, but Google's approach and tone around Fuchsia feels really different from how they talked about / marketed Reader, or even Wave, or other things they shut down. I'm an Android developer learning Flutter and Dart out of both curiosity and an gamble that it will likely be a faster-improving way to make cross-platform apps than othe…

It’s the feeling that Google will be able to use it to implement more Apple-like iron fist control over hardware vendors and tie-ins that makes it seem more permanent.
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