Recent searches
Search options
Hot take:
Linux distros like Mint, Debian, and Ubuntu LTS that ship "stable" Mesa graphics drivers aren't shipping stability at all. They're shipping headaches for gamers in the form of severely outdated drivers that lead to instability and bug reports for issues that were solved months ago...
@killyourfm Nah that’s just straight correct. There were a bunch of laptop speaker drivers that were fixed 6+ months ago that hit the kernel months ago, but older distros are months behind on them.
@killyourfm Ubuntu are going to change this and ship latest kernel https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kernel-version-selection-for-ubuntu-releases/47007
@apjone Heyyy, this is excellent news!
@killyourfm @apjone but still the rest of the stack (graphics, firmware) is left outdated.
@apjone @killyourfm kind of olf news... Also the Ubuntu kernel release cycle as already been changed last year, bringing some benefits faster.
@killyourfm This is one I just don't get - we should be at a stage now where people can just always take the latest drivers, at least on Ubuntu. Windows users don't have to think about this at all.
@mdiluz What's UTTERLY baffling is these distros seem happier to provide updated proprietary graphics drivers than they do open-source ones...
Sidenote: this is good news https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kernel-version-selection-for-ubuntu-releases/47007
@killyourfm yeah. Though tbh it does feel great to finally be beyond the stage of needing oibaf or whatever ppas just to get an opengl 4.5 context...
Maybe the open source Nvidia kernel module will improve this too.
Tbf I'm a little too far from the problem to really understand why it's all still hard to do. I assume it is, there's a lot of great ppl working on it. Doesn't stop it being so frustrating though :(
@killyourfm @mdiluz it's not bafling at all if you see the difference in performance and features. Also you're ignoring some facts. Why don't you ask them, why are things the way they are?
@killyourfm Not that hot of a take, in particular for Debian.
You can't make your distro stable just by freezing unstable software in a random version. What that makes is an unsupported distro.
A stable distro is very desirable, but if the software doesn't work that way what can you do.
@killyourfm you aren't hardcore unless you game on AlmaLinux 
@killyourfm I agree with your take. That’s why I’ve moved to more up to date distros like Vanilla and Arch.
@killyourfm 100%
It drives me fucking insane that this is still a thing.
@killyourfm mint updates mesa, no?
@killyourfm please help an ignorant of anything related to gaming linux nerd dad who basically tinkers on bash scripting supporting a teenage son gamer know what it means to have an oudated mesa. Device in question is a Lenovo T14 Gen2 AMD Ryzen 7. Does this only cause issues for top tier fps games? or are there graphics improvements all around to be had? ubuntu 24.04 btw... maybe there is a ppa to use??
@killyourfm
Sadly this is nothing new. MESA drivers should always be available as the latest stable release.
However i have been using the kisak mesa ppa
(https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa) for that reason for several years now. Never had a problem with it. But i agree this should not be needed in the first place.
@killyourfm to be honest, LTS distros are not meant for on the edge gaming.
That's whats rolling distributions are for like #openSUSE Tumbleweed.
@killyourfm
Stability / Security
VS
Regressions / New things
Gamers have often new hardware or needs, so it's difficult to follow the market...
@Aisyk @killyourfm that may be true in rich countries not at all in most world. Besides this even in some countries it's hard to ger recent hardware, or very high-end hardware, this is true even in some european countries.
@killyourfm I think the best option is to keep it as is, BUT, offer an "unstable" branch that allows you to run the latest for modern fixes.
@killyourfm Ubuntu user here, that rathers LTS versions, but that usually tests and uses interim releases to keep up with what's new.
I don't game much, I very much value the stability of the LTS versions.
I won't talk about other distros, but that take seems like it's ignoring some facts.
@killyourfm
1. while gaming is indeed an important thing for computer users in general, is much less important on the Linux users context, so criticizing distros that cater to their users, while the others have other options, seems to me a bit weird.
@killyourfm
2. your argument ignores that Ubunt has regular hardware enablement stacks.
3. steam snap with diffferent versions of graphics stacks.
4. content snaps that include newer versions of graphical stacks such as mesa.
@killyourfm
5. Ubuntu has been speeding up its kernel release schedule and trying to make it to bring more recent versions, which will also push for more recent graphical stacks.
@killyourfm
6. Ubuntu has a special release cycle for nvidia drivers, that has been created with NVIDIA, and depends on nvidia release schedule. Those drivers get updated semi independently of the distro version, and often users can switch between versions with the distro drivers tool.
@killyourfm
There's a much greater problem with how games are built, packaged and distributed than with any of the most significant Linux distros.