Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
A Word on Drivers and Compatibility
As we mentioned earlier, Ubuntu and the Linux kernel are open source projects, particularly under the GPL license. In large part due to the philosophies of the GPL, compared to Mac OS X and Windows, Linux handles drivers in a notably different fashion.
In a nutshell, the developers of the Linux kernel believe in the open source movement and wish for all related software to be open source. Furthermore they do not like the implications of attaching a closed source “binary blob” driver to the Linux kernel, because if something goes wrong it can be impossible to debug the issue if it occurs in the driver for which they do not have the code for. As such they have moral and technical objections to the Linux kernel supporting external drivers and actively prevent the creation of such drivers. This is done through mechanisms such as not having a fixed API for external drivers, and by not artificially keeping themselves from making changes to the kernel that would break external drivers. Drivers that they do have the code for can usually just be recompiled against the new kernel and are unaffected as a result. The result is that “binary blob” drivers are systematically opposed.
For the most part, this works fine. Not all hardware is supported under Linux because not everyone is willing to share the specifications and data needed to make a driver, but more than enough device manufacturers are willing to share such data that Linux generally supports non-esoteric hardware quite well. There is one class of notable hold-outs here however, and that’s the GPU manufacturers, namely ATI and NVIDIA.
Compared to other drivers, GPU drivers are different for two reasons. First is the sheer complexity of the drivers - besides interfacing with the hardware, the drivers are responsible for memory management, compiling/optimizing shader code, and providing a great deal of feedback. This in essence makes GPU drivers their own little operating system – one that its developers aren’t necessarily willing to share. The second significant difference here is because of the above, GPU drivers are among the only drivers that have a compelling reason to be updated regularly; they need to be updated to better support newer games and fix bugs in the complex code that runs through them.
Complicating matters further is that some intellectual property in GPUs and drivers is not the property of the company who makes the GPU. AMD doesn’t own everything in their Universal Video Decoder, and just about everyone has some SGI IP in their drivers. In the interest of protecting that IP, it is difficult to release the code for those drivers containing other companies’ IP.
Because of all of this, manufacturer-supplied GPU drivers are not always open source. Intel and S3 do well in this respect (largely because they have few tricks to hide, I suspect), but hyper-competitive NVIDIA and AMD do not. AMD has been looking to rectify this, and back in 2007 we discussed their starting work on a new open source driver. Development has been progressing slowly, and for the R6xx and R7xx hardware, the open source driver is not yet complete. Meanwhile NVIDIA has shown no real interest in an open source driver for their current hardware.
So if you want to use a modern, high-performance video card with Linux, you have little choice but to also deal with a binary blob driver for that card, and this becomes problematic since as we mentioned Linux is designed to discourage such a thing. Both AMD and NVIDIA have found ways around this, but the cost is that installing a binary driver is neither easy, or bug free.
The fundamental method that both use for accomplishing this is through the use of a kernel shim. Both analyze the headers for the kernel to identify how the kernel is organized, then they compile a shim against that kernel. The shim resolves the issues with the lack of a stable API, and the other end of the shim provides the stable API that NVIDIA and ATI need.
Ubuntu in particular takes this one step further, and in the interest of promoting greater out of the box hardware compatibility, includes a version of the binary drivers with the distribution. This is unusual for a Linux distribution and has earned Ubuntu some flak since it’s not strictly adhering to some open source ideals, but it also means that we were not forced to play with driver installers to get Ubuntu fully working. Ubuntu had no issues with both our AMD 2900XT and NVIDIA 8800GTX cards, both of which were picked specifically because we wished to test Ubuntu on suitably old hardware which would exist in time for Ubuntu to include support for it. With that said, the drivers Ubuntu includes are understandably old (once again owing to the idea of a stable platform) which means we can’t avoid installing drivers if we want better performance and application compatibility.
And this is where “easy” comes to an end. We’ll first start with AMD’s installer, the easier of the two. They have a GUI installer that puts in a driver along with a Linux version of the Catalyst Control Center. It’s Spartan, but it gets the job done.
NVIDIA on the other hand does not have a GUI installer – their installer is a text mode installer that requires shutting down the X server (the GUI) in order to install. It’s difficult to understate just how hard this makes driver installation. Not only is doing all of this completely non-obvious, but it requires interfacing with the CLI in a way we were specifically trying to avoid. It’s something that becomes bearable with experience, but I can’t call it acceptable.
Driver upgrades are an issue on both sides, because the installers are not completely capable of finding and eliminating older versions of the binary drivers. In one instance, for the NVIDIA drivers we had to track down a rather sizable shell script that automatically deleted the old drivers before installing the new ones, as that was deemed the “right” way to install the drivers. We had less of an issue with ATI’s drivers, but to be fair the primary card I used for my time with Ubuntu was the 8800GTX. I can’t confidently say that there are not other issues that I may have not run in to.
The Ubuntu community does supply tools to help with GPU driver installations, Once such tool is EnvyNG, which reduces the driver installation process to selecting what driver you want to install and it does the rest. This is a far easier way to install drivers, in the right situation it’s even easier than it already is under Windows. But it suffers from needing to have the latest driver data hardcoded in to it, which means you can only use it to install drivers it knows about, and nothing newer. It’s not regularly updated (as of this writing the latest driver versions it has are NV 173.14.12 and ATI Catalyst 8.6) so it’s good for installing newer drivers, but not the newest drivers.
The other tool is access to Ubuntu’s Personal Package Archives, which are a collection of user-built binaries that can be installed through the Ubuntu package manager (more on this later). It’s harder to use than EnvyNG, but anyone can build a PPA, which makes updates more likely. As it’s user-generated however, this still means that there won’t always be the latest drivers available, which means we’re still back to using ATI and NVIDIA’s installers.
As it stands, installing new GPU drivers on Ubuntu is between an annoyance and unbearable, depending on how many hoops you need to jump through. It’s certainly not easy.
The other problem with GPU drivers is that they do not always stay working. Among the issues we encountered was ATI’s driver failing to work after installing an Ubuntu update, and an NVIDIA driver that kept rebooting the system during testing for reasons we never determined (once we wiped the system, all was well).
Our final issue with the state of GPU drivers on Ubuntu is their overall quality. With a bit of digging we can come up with issues on both sides of the isle, so it’s not as if either side is clean here. But with that said, we only ended up experiencing issues with ATI’s drivers. We encountered some oddities when moving windows that was eventually fixed in the Catalyst 9.3 drivers. It turns out that the problem was that ATI’s drivers lacked support for redirected OpenGL rendering; Linux guru Phoronix has a great article on what this is, including videos, that explains the importance of this change.
Ultimately we hate to sound like we’re beating a dead horse here, but we can’t ignore the GPU driver situation on Ubuntu (and really, Linux as a whole). The drivers have too many issues, and installing newer drivers to fix those issues is too hard. Things could be worse, Ubuntu could only distribute driver updates with OS updates ala Apple, but they could also be better. For the moment it’s the weakest point for Ubuntu when it comes to installing it on a high-end system.
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apt1002 - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
Excellent article, thank you. I will definitely be passing it on.I completely agree with superfrie2 about the CLI. Why resist it?
Versions: I, like you, originally plumped for Hardy Heron because it is an LTS version. I recently changed my mind, and now run the latest stable Ubuntu. As a single user, at home, the benefits of a long-term unchanging OS are pretty small, and in the end it was more important to me to have more recent versions of software. Now if I were administering a network for an office, it would be a different matter...
Package management: Yes, this is absolutely the most amazing part of free software! How cool is it to get all your software, no matter who wrote it, from one source, which spends all its time diligently tracking its dependencies, checking it for compatibility, monitoring its security flaws, filtering out malware, imposing sensible standards, and resisting all attempts by big corporations to shove stuff down your throat that you don't want, all completely for free? And you can upgrade *everything* to the latest versions, at your own convenience, in a single command. I still don't quite believe it.
Unpackaged software: Yes, I agree, unpackaged software is not nearly as good as packaged software. It's non-uniform, may not have a good uninstaller, might require me to install something else first, might not work, and might conceal malware of some sort. That's no different from any other OS. However, it's not as bad as you make out. There *is* a slightly more old-fashioned way of installing software: tarballs. They're primitive, but they are standard across all versions of Unix (certainly all Linux distributions), they work, and pretty much all Linux software is available in this form. It never gets worse than that.
Games: A fair cop. Linux is bad for games.
GPUs: Another fair cop. I lived with manually installing binary nVidia drivers for five years, but life's too short for that kind of nonsense. These days I buy Intel graphics only.
40 second boot: More like 20 for me on my desktop machine, and about 12 on my netbook (which boots off SSD). After I installed, I spent a couple of minutes removing software I didn't use (e.g. nautilus, gdm, and most of the task bar applets), and it pays off every time I boot.
Separate menu bar and task bar: I, like you, prefer a Windows-ish layout with everything at the bottom, so after I installed I spent a minute or two dragging-and-dropping it all down there.
GregE - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I use GNU/Linux for 100% of my needs, but then I have for years and my hardware and software reflect this. For example I have a Creative Zen 32gb SSD music player and only buy DRM free MP3s. In Linux I plug it in and fire up Amarok and it automatically appears in the menus and I can move tracks back and forth. I knew this when I bought it, I would never buy an iPod as I know it would make life difficult.The lesson here is that if you live in a Linux world you make your choices and purchases accordingly. A few minutes with Google can save you a lot of hassle when it comes to buying hardware.
There are three web sites any Ubuntu neophyte needs to learn.
1 www.medibuntu.org where multimedia hassles evaporate.
2 http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty">http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty the missing manual where you will find the solution to just about any issue.
3 http://www.getdeb.net/">http://www.getdeb.net/ where new versions of packages are published outside of the normal repositories. You need to learn how to use gdebi installer, but essentially you download a deb and double click on it.
Then there are PPA repositories for the true bleeding edge. This is the realm of the advanced user.
For a home user it is always best to keep up to date. The software is updated daily, what did not work yesterday works today. Hardware drivers appear all the time, by sticking with LTS releases you are frozen in time. Six months is a long time, a year is ancient history. An example is USB TV sticks, buy one and plug it into 8.10 and nothing happens, plug it in 9.04 and it just works or still does not work, but will in 9.10
Yes it is a wild ride, but never boring. For some it is an adventure, for others it is too anarchic.
I use Debian Sid which is a rolling release. That means that there are no new versions, every day is an update that goes on forever. Ubuntu is good for beginners and the experienced, the more you learn the deeper you can go into a world of software that exceeds 30,000 programs that are all free in both senses.
I look forward to part 2 of this article, but remember that the author is a Linux beginner, clearly technically adept but still a Linux beginner.
It all comes down to choice.
allasm - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
> I use Debian Sid which is a rolling release.> That means that there are no new versions, every day is an update that goes on forever.
This is actually one of the best things about Ubuntu and Debian - you NEVER have to reinstall your OS.
With Windows you may live with one OS for years (few manage to do that without reinstalling, but it is definitely possible) - but you HAVE to wipe everything clean and install a new OS eventually. With Debian and Ubuntu you can simply constantly upgrade and be happy. At the same time noone forces you to upgrade ALL the time, or upgrade EVERYTHING - if you arehappy with, say, firefox v2 and dont want to go to v3 because your fav skin is not there yet - just dont upgrade one app (and decide for yourself if uyou need the security fixes).
Some time ago I turned on a Debian box which was offline/turned off for 2+ years and managed to update it (to a new release) with just two reboots (one for the new kernel to take effect). That was it, it worked right after that. To be fair, I did have to update a few config files manually after that to make it flawless, but even without manual updates the OS at least booted "into" the new release. Natuarally, all my user data stayed intact, as did most of the OS settings. Most (99%) programs worked as expected as well - the problematic 1% falling on some GUI programs not dealing well with new X/window manager. And had no garbage files or whatever after the update (unlike what you get if you try to upgrade a winXP to say WinVista)
Having said all that, I 100% agree that linux has its problems as a desktop OS (I use windows more than linux day-to-day), but I totally disagree that using one OS for a long time is a weak point of Ubuntu.
P.S. one thing i never tried is upgrading a 32 bit distro to 64 bit - i wonder if this is possible on a live OS using a package manager.
wolfdale - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
A good article but I have a few pointers.1) More linux distros need to be reviewed. Your "out of the box" review was informational but seemed to more in-tuned with commercial products aimed for making a profit (ie, is this a good buy for your money?). I, for one, used to check AnandTech.com before making a big computer item purchase. However linux is free to the public thus the tradeoff for the user would now be how much time should I invest in learning and customizing this particular distro. Multi-distro comparisons along with a few customized snapshots would help the average user on deciding what to spend with his valuable time and effort.
2) Include Linux compatibility on hardware reviews. Like I said earlier, I once used AnandTech.com as my guide for all PC related purchases and I have to say about 80% of the time it was correct. But, try to imagine my horror about 1.5 years ago when my brand spanking new HD4850 video card refused to do anything related to 3-D on Ubuntu. I spent weeks trying to get it to work but ended up selling it and going with Nvidia. Of course it was a driver issue but no where did AnandTech.com mentioned this other than saying it was a best buy.
Thanks for listening, I feel better now. I'm looking forward to reading your Ubuntu 9.04 review and please keep adding more linux related articles.
ParadigmComplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
When I first saw that there was going to be a "first time with Linux" article on Anandtech, I have to admit I was a bit worried. While the hardware reviews here are excellent, it's already something you guys are familiar with - it's not new grounds, you know what to look for. I sadly expected Ryan would enter with the wrong mindset, trip over something small and end up with an unfair review like almost all "first time with Linux" reviews end up being.Boy, was I wrong.
With only one major issue (about APT, which I explained in another post) and only a handful of little things (which I expect will be largely remedied in Part 2), this article was excellent. Pretty much every major thing that needed to be touched on was hit, most of Ubuntu's major pluses and minuses fairly reviewed. It's evident you really did your homework, Ryan. Very well done. I should have known better then to doubt anyone from anandtech, you guys are brilliant :D
Fox5 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
One last thing I forgot to say....Good job on the article. I (and many others) would have liked to see 9.04 instead (I don't know of anyone who uses the LTS releases, those seemed to be aimed at system integrators, such as Dell's netbooks with ubuntu), but the article itself was quality.
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I'd like to make one last addition in similar spirit. I appreciate this article as a generally unbiased review that covers many important aspects of a general-purpose OS.And just to be sure: I'm not a Linux fanatic, in fact, for some reason, I'm writing up this post on Vista x64 ;)
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
You're right that there are historical reasons that dictate that one Linux binary might be in /usr/bin, another in /sbin or /usr/sbin, yet another one in /usr/local/bin, etc.However, you really couldn't care less as long as the binary is in your path. which foo will then tell you the location. Furthermore, there's hardly any need to manually configure something in the installation directory. Virtually anything that can be user-configured (and there's a lot more that can than on Windows) can be configured in a file below ~ (your home). The name of the config file is usually intuitive.
But yeah, for things that you configure as admin (think X11 in /etc/X11/xorg.conf or Postgres usually somewhere under /usr/local/pgsql) you might need to know the directory. However, the admin installs the app, so he should know. Furthermore, GUIs exist to configure most admin-ish things (I don't know what it's in Ubuntu for X but it's sax2 in SUSE; and it's pgadmin for Postgresql in both Ubuntu and SUSE)
ParadigmComplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Again, if I may extend from what you've said:Even though it is technically possible to reorder the directory structure, Ubuntu isn't going to do it for a variety of reasons:
First and foremost, one must remember Ubuntu is essentially just a snapshot of Debian's in-development branch (unstable aka Sid) with some polish aiming towards user-friendliness and (paid) support. Other then the user-friendly tweaks and support, Ubuntu is whatever Debian is at the time of the snapshot. And while Debian has a lot of great qualities, user-friendliness isn't one of them (hence the need for Ubuntu). Debian focuses on F/OSS principles (DFSG), stability, security, and portability - Debian isn't going to reorder everything in the name of user-friendless.
Second, it'd break compatibility with every other Linux program out there. Despite the fact that Ryan seemed to think it's a pain to install things that aren't from Ubuntu's servers, it's quite common. If Ubuntu rearranges things, it'd break everything else from everyone else.
Third, it would be a tremendous amount of work. I don't have a number off-hand, but Ubuntu has a huge number of programs available in it's repos that would have to be changed. Theoretically it could be done with a script, but it's risking breaking quite a lot for no real gain. And this would have to be done every six months from the latest Debian freeze.
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I disagree with the evaluation of the package manager.First, there's a repo for almost anything. I quickly got used to adding a repo containing newer builds of a desired app and then installing via apt-get.
Second, with a few exceptions, you can just download source code and then install via "./configure; make; sudo make install." This usually works very well if, before running those commands, you have a quick look at the README and install required dependencies via apt-get (the versions of the dependencies in the package manager almost always are fine).
Third, and most importantly, you can simply update your whole Ubuntu distribution via dist-upgrade. True, you might occasionally get issues from doing that (ATI/NVIDIA driver comes to mind) but think of the convenience. You get a coffee while "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" runs and when you get back, virtually EVERYTHING is upgraded to a recent version. Compare that with Windows, where you might waste hours to upgrade all apps (think of coming back to your parent's PC after 10 months, discovering all apps are outdated).