Re: default desktop: availability on all arches
On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:56:58AM +0100, Steven Chamberlain wrote:
> On 10/09/14 07:40, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > I think the "DebianDesktop requalification" table lacks an important
> > row: the availability of the desktop environment in question on all
> > Debian architectures.
>
> Not everyone has been persuaded on that principle yet :P But on
> kfreebsd CDs we can at least override the default desktop if it's
> something we don't have.
I just re-checked on powerpc in qemu, unlike my other setups it's not a real
machine, but qemu is at least a reproducible setup without out-of-archive
bits like all three of my armhf rigs. A d-i run takes two ages and three
forevers, though... Powerpc is not a slow architecture, but is extremely
slow in qemu.
> Let's discuss your other point about 3D acceleration though:
>
> > llvmpipe is not a strict requirement, but I have yet to find a non-x86
> > opengl driver that gnome's compositor can work with. I tried:
> > * an A10 laptop with non-free unpackaged Mali blob
> > * Exynos4412 hardkernel, unpackaged opengl drivers
> > * chroot on Raspberry Pi, non-free Broadcom stuff
> > * qemu stuff has no accelerated opengl either
>
> What happens otherwise if trying to start GNOME3 (or others)?
> * without 3D, with llvmpipe
> * without both
llvmpipe doesn't work at all -- not ported to -- on !x86 !armhf.
> Does it fall back gracefully to a fallback/flashback mode, and does that
> still work these days?
All you get is a non-windowed screen that says:
.----
Oh no! Something has gone wrong.
A problem has occured and the system can't recover.
Please log out and try again.
Log Out.
`----
You can't even press "Log Out", upon clicking the mouse cursor disappears
and pressing any key on the keyboard turns the screen black, without no
way out other than Alt-Ctrl-F1.
According to what I read on the Interwebs, the fallback mode has been
removed in Gnome 3.8, and flashback is just a plugin on gnome-shell.
> In this mode would it still meet the 'accessibility' or other criteria
> already on the Wiki page?
'Accessibility' is usually meant as being helpful to the blind, poor-
sighted and those with hand-control disabilities: modes with big letters,
contrasted screen elements, doubleclick and shift workarounds, etc.
I'd say you'd need 'availability' or 'portability': gnome3 with a solid -1
(works only on 3 architectures at all -- 2 usably), no idea about kde,
no problems for the rest.
For example the Allwinner10-based laptop I had with me on DebConf 2013, I
tested with xfce, but as A10 is terribly underpowered even for arm, I ended
up with lxde with a bunch of programs from xfce. This worked great.
> > Thus, it's safe to say anyone with a non-Nvidia non-Radeon non-Intel GPU
> > will need llvmpipe.
>
> The Radeon users would need to be using non-free microcode too I guess?
I'm well-armed but not well-x86ed, all my home boxes got nvidia, can't
check.
> > I'd say the default desktop environment should work on almost all setups.
>
> Yes, surely.
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