Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Instead, we should provide an easy way of getting to the manufacturers support site. This is helpful to the user, and illustrates who is to blame at the same time. That's what we call a Ubu/Ubu situation. As I mentioned, the application should have a Send To function. That would enable you to transfer system information to an offline device as well, or print it out. Similarly, we might have an Install From function if necessary. Could imagine a 'Click here to send an email to the manufacturer!' Which then loads up gmail/thunderbird with a pre-written email asking the manufacturer to support the hardware that is without a linux driver. That'd get a few hits. - David -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20 4:01 +0200]: Exactly. So why does the driver application currently not show any open drivers? The only case when it does that right now is when there are open source printer drivers available on openprinting.org for a printer you are about to set up. But the general answer to your question is because there is no need to. We already ship pretty much all free drivers that are available, and Linux uses them automatically. Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20 1:56 +0200]: If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware manager. That's exactly what I want to avoid. If anything, the UI should become easier, not more complex. Large trees with lots of technobabble and incomprehensible hardware parts names, properties, and drivers is just about the last thing we need to improve usability IMHO. :-) Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Den 23. april 2012 08:55, skrev Martin Pitt: Jo-Erlend Schinstad [2012-04-20 1:56 +0200]: If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware manager. That's exactly what I want to avoid. If anything, the UI should become easier, not more complex. Large trees with lots of technobabble and incomprehensible hardware parts names, properties, and drivers is just about the last thing we need to improve usability IMHO. :-) Right. I remember back in 1998 or something. I asked about drivers, and people told me there's no need to think about that. The drivers are built into the kernel. And for the most part, they were. Fourteen years later, however, drivers are still an issue. Things are improving. When 10.04 was released, I had to use proprietary drivers for my Radeon HD. Now it's optional. I still choose to, because they're so very much better than the built-in ones. Perhaps when 20.04 is released, all of these problems will have been forgotten. In the meantime, we need to provide proprietary drivers. As long as we have to provide proprietary drivers, we should also show the Free Software drivers. It's a little difficult for me to understand why anyone in the Ubuntu community would disagree with this. Sadly, reality is that people are going to have issues with their hardware for a long time to come. All of this is currently because Ubuntu sucks. And, to be honest, it does. Fixing hardware issues in Ubuntu is very complicated. Even finding out how to find out where to go to try and get some help, is complicated. Jo-Erlend Schinstad -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Martin Pitt wrote on 18/04/12 08:14: ... * We install some drivers (like Broadcom wifi) straight from Ubiquity now, which certainly makes sense for devices where there is no free alternative. Ubuntu uses third-party software to display Flash, MP3 and other media, and to work with some wireless hardware. I wrote that sentence in Ubiquity, but now we need to be more specific. A team is working right now on letting you reinstall Ubuntu with exactly the same software you had installed before. To do that, you will need to sign in and download the inventory of software you had installed before. To sign in and download anything, you will need to have an Internet connection. Unless you have Ethernet, mobile broadband, etc, this means you need a working wi-fi driver. You usually won't know that you don't have a working wi-fi driver, unless Ubiquity tells you. So it needs to tell you specifically, You need to install this wireless driver to complete this task. For the others (e. g. NVidia) we pop up a notification and offer to install them. I'd like to walk through the current UI and discuss how this could be made more steamlined and less confusing (e. g. for NVidia it can potentially offer 6 different drivers for you!) * We might consider merging the jockey UI functionality, which is mostly a shallow GUI around install that package now) into software-center, control-center, or something similar to the codec installer. I'd again appreciate if someone from the design team could participate in that (hello Matthew!). ... Here's a design I prepared earlier: Jockey would become an Additional Drivers tab in a Software Updates panel of System Settings. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareAndUpdatesSettings#drivers (I need to update that design to incorporate feedback from Alex Chiang. https://bugs.launchpad.net/jockey/+bug/660669/comments/2) Questions to consider when evaluating that or any other design: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2012-January/013472.html - -- mpt -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk+RlYIACgkQ6PUxNfU6eco/jgCdFce9s61qsXL3L+lfpkTaVkRf p10Amwa+zVhilNnURbW5QuQs/MEa4XbF =KKM6 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Den 18. april 2012 09:14, skrev Martin Pitt: Hello Desktop fans, We have had Jockey for quite a while now to perform the installation of proprietary (e. g. NVidia), alternative (e. g. fglrx vs. fglrx-updates), third-party (e. g. from openprinting.org) drivers. Hardware! Yes, that's an area where large improvements can be made. The ability to easily install third-party drivers is obviously quite valuable. But how do people actually look at drivers? I don't think most people understands the difference between open drivers and proprietary third-party drivers. Nor do I think they care. And why should they? What they want, is for their hardware to work properly. If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware manager. Ubuntu is currently promoting drivers as an optional extra. But that's not true; drivers are always necessary for all hardware. One problem with doing that, is that when you're missing an important driver and it's not available in Jockey, then you get the impression that Ubuntu has no drivers for your system. Reality is that Ubuntu has nearly all of your drivers, but missing one. Users should see that. Otherwise, we're always reinforcing the negative without showing anything positive. The moon looks smaller when it's near the horizon, because you have something to compare it to. So let's compare the one thing that doesn't work with the huge number of things that does. If changes are to be made, I would propose that it displayed all your hardware, what drivers it is currently using and then make it easy to install other drivers. From this application, you should be able to export your hardware info so that you can easily provide this to support. (System Info Hardware Manager Send To: pastebin | email | IM | etc). That is to say, even if your computer doesn't require any proprietary drivers, the application should still be useful. It would then display the drivers, the developer being listed as Linux. If there are alternatives, or third-party drivers are required, then you should be able to easily install them. As a service to the user, this application should also provide links to the manufacturers website for further support. This would both be helpful to the user, and show who's responsible. In other words; We have installed all your drivers for you automatically, except that one. Perhaps this application could also be used to try and find out which computer model you have, and provide some kind of forum where you can connect to other users with the same hardware? That way, people can share their experiences, and support would be able to help a large number of people at the same time, instead of each user having to begin with a Google search and go from there. That would enable automatic detection of some troublesome hardware as well, because it would automatically get many posts. This wouldn't have to be fully automatic, but it should be possible to limit the number of possible models based on the hardware. Then you can look through a photo album to make it easier to spot your model. If you can't find it, then you can upload an image of your own, and then people could help identify that computer, enabling you to more easily get support – improving Ubuntus database of models at the same time. Right now, driver support seems bad in Ubuntu. It's actually awesome. We need to display it as such. When drivers can't be provided at all, it must be obvious to the user who is responsible for that and preferably how to contact them. Don't you think? Jo-Erlend Schinstad -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 01:56:53AM +0200, Jo-Erlend Schinstad wrote: If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware manager. Ubuntu is currently promoting drivers as an optional extra. But that's not true; drivers are always necessary for all hardware. One problem with doing that, is that when you're missing an important driver and it's not available in Jockey, then you get the impression that Ubuntu has no drivers for your system. Reality is that Ubuntu has nearly all of your drivers, but missing one. Users should see that. Otherwise, we're always reinforcing the negative without showing anything positive. It's a good point. And in fact you're right, updates for various non-proprietary drivers are available to users. A good case in point being the x-updates ppa which provides updated X video drivers. And you're right that this is less visible than the fglrx/nvidia updates that come through jockey. Now, drivers provided via a ppa is not the same thing, but from a user's perspective I don't think they really draw a distinction. Newer == better. I kind of worry that partly because we don't have a rolling update, users end up seeking out updates from highly unofficial channels... xorg-edgers, kernel mainline ppas, even installing drivers from third party sites like amd.com and nvidia.com. Half the fglrx and nvidia bug reports we see are a result of some sort of mix-and-match cobbled together system that inevitably breaks in some oddball way. Anything we can do to guide such users towards more sane update solutions would be a positive in my book, so long as doing so doesn't incur additional support workloads. If changes are to be made, I would propose that it displayed all your hardware, what drivers it is currently using and then make it easy to install other drivers. From this application, you should be able to export your hardware info so that you can easily provide this to support. (System Info Hardware Manager Send To: pastebin | email | IM | etc). This is a very interesting idea. Already we have tools scripts and apps scattered hither and yon that gathers this info. Would be nice to have it in a simple, parseable form (maybe a text file somewhere in /var?) might help in a lot of areas. That is to say, even if your computer doesn't require any proprietary drivers, the application should still be useful. It would then display the drivers, the developer being listed as Linux. If there are alternatives, or third-party drivers are required, then you should be able to easily install them. As a service to the user, this application should also provide links to the manufacturers website for further support. This would both be helpful to the user, and show who's responsible. In other words; We have installed all your drivers for you automatically, except that one. Yes, it would be important in a tool like this to make sure it guides people *away* from unsupportable configurations, and makes it clear if they insist on doing it anyway, that it taints their system and may incur other bugs that we can't really fix. In fact, if this tool could communicate the level of taintedness of the system, that might be usable in the apport bug hooks to prevent bugs from being filed to us on such systems. At the same time, for users who aren't as worried about this or who have hardware that simply wasn't properly supported at the time of the release, it'd give them an extra avenue for testing out alternative versions to work around problems or improve their hardware performance, while giving them a measurable way for what'd need done to restore the system to stock. Perhaps this application could also be used to try and find out which computer model you have, and provide some kind of forum where you can connect to other users with the same hardware? That way, people can share their experiences, and support would be able to help a large number of people at the same time, instead of each user having to begin with a Google search and go from there. That would enable automatic detection of some troublesome hardware as well, because it would automatically get many posts. Interesting idea. This could possibly be handy as an os maintainer too. Receive a new computer and pull up a listing of all bugs specific to that system's particular combination of hardware and drivers. Bryce -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: [Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 7:56 PM, Jo-Erlend Schinstad joerlend.schins...@ubuntu.com wrote: Den 18. april 2012 09:14, skrev Martin Pitt: Hello Desktop fans, We have had Jockey for quite a while now to perform the installation of proprietary (e. g. NVidia), alternative (e. g. fglrx vs. fglrx-updates), third-party (e. g. from openprinting.org) drivers. Hardware! Yes, that's an area where large improvements can be made. The ability to easily install third-party drivers is obviously quite valuable. But how do people actually look at drivers? I don't think most people understands the difference between open drivers and proprietary third-party drivers. Nor do I think they care. And why should they? What they want, is for their hardware to work properly. Hmm. I think you should be careful not to jump to conclusions here. You may run into a lot of trouble coming to consensus among the community, or even among the Ubuntu developers, regarding this point. Don't take it for granted that everyone will turn a blind eye to proprietary software running on their system. A lot of people think it is important to remind our users that the *reason* why their OS runs so well is because the vast preponderance of its software is free and open source software. Licensing matters -- whether or not you agree with that point, licensing nonetheless matters to a lot of people, and whitewashing the subject will not be an easy sell. All I'm saying is that you're touching on a very controversial issue here, and regardless of what I personally believe or how convinced you may be of your own opinion, realize that you can expect resistance from various people if you're going to say why should users care whether their drivers are open source or proprietary?. People will give you reasons why -- reasons that they feel very passionately about. Just be prepared. ;) Instead, a good compromise would be to provide the user a summary of the pros and cons of using proprietary drivers without making it overly complex. You almost have to take it on a per-driver basis, because it really does vary (aside from the fact that Ubuntu developers can't directly support or enhance or fix bugs on proprietary drivers; this point is going to be the same for all proprietary drivers). But for other drivers like fglrx, there are issues such as whether kernel mode setting is supported, the expected 2D performance, the expected 3D performance, the expected stability, and so on. If we could somehow capture these points in a user-accessible way and allow the user to make an informed decision, that would be better than trying to *over-*simplify and make a decision for them, whether that decision is in favor of open drivers or proprietary ones. Because remember, it's hardly a foregone conclusion that proprietary drivers are always going to work better or be more stable. It really depends on the use case. For instance, there was an EIGHT MONTH period where I could get a solid 60 fps with 100% stability from the radeon open drivers playing my favorite game (Savage 2), but it would crash on startup with the proprietary fglrx. This continued, as I said, for eight successive monthly releases of fglrx. But on the flip side, there were many applications that would lock up the whole system if started with the open drivers, but fglrx would render them decently well. We're going to be shipping drivers with really nasty tradeoffs like this for years and years to come, and if we don't deal with the complexity, the users will deal with it the only way they can: they will ignorantly claim, Ubuntu sucks! as soon as their system or some program crashes for *any* reason. Complex problems require complex reasoning, even with licensing itself completely out of the picture (and the licensing debate will open a whole new can of worms by itself). If this was going to be redesigned, I would rather see it as a Hardware manager. Ubuntu is currently promoting drivers as an optional extra. But that's not true; drivers are always necessary for all hardware. One problem with doing that, is that when you're missing an important driver and it's not available in Jockey, then you get the impression that Ubuntu has no drivers for your system. Reality is that Ubuntu has nearly all of your drivers, but missing one. Users should see that. Otherwise, we're always reinforcing the negative without showing anything positive. The moon looks smaller when it's near the horizon, because you have something to compare it to. So let's compare the one thing that doesn't work with the huge number of things that does. Are you basically suggesting a shameless clone of the Windows Device Manager? Not a terrible idea, if it can be executed well. And I mean *well*. Linspire had a similar thing a few years back, but it was abysmal: you couldn't get any real information from it, and the information that *was* there was very technical and inscrutable to end users. It also didn't tell you whether
[Desktop 12.10 Topic] The future of third-party driver installation
Hello Desktop fans, We have had Jockey for quite a while now to perform the installation of proprietary (e. g. NVidia), alternative (e. g. fglrx vs. fglrx-updates), third-party (e. g. from openprinting.org) drivers. However, I feel that this needs some refreshing: * The code base of Jockey is quite complex, it was meant for a lot more stuff than we are actually using it for. We also came up with simpler ways of mapping hardware to packages, mostly with additional tags in the apt package lists. We also have a more upstream friendly API in PackageKit/aptdaemon now to do this kind of thing. We can simplify the jockey code base and backend logic a lot (up to the extend of completely dropping it) by making full use of above new technologies and dropping the extra features we don't use. The exception is the openprinting.org detection, but that could go into system-config-printer or python-cups directly. * We install some drivers (like Broadcom wifi) straight from Ubiquity now, which certainly makes sense for devices where there is no free alternative. For the others (e. g. NVidia) we pop up a notification and offer to install them. I'd like to walk through the current UI and discuss how this could be made more steamlined and less confusing (e. g. for NVidia it can potentially offer 6 different drivers for you!) * We might consider merging the jockey UI functionality, which is mostly a shallow GUI around install that package now) into software-center, control-center, or something similar to the codec installer. I'd again appreciate if someone from the design team could participate in that (hello Matthew!). Thanks, Martin -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
