5 ms·

> dropped it because of bad graphics performance (only software rendering supported, many frame drops when watching HD videos on YT) Around Firefox 92 or 93 th

• josephcsible 2y ago
  Isn't it reasonable for applications to assume that, now that virtually all hardware has it, even super-cheap computers like the Raspberry Pi?
  • Narishma 2y ago
    The hardware may be there, but not necessarily the drivers.
    • zamadatix 2y ago
      The drivers are fine for GPU accelerated rendering of the app surfaces, even on the Pi. Hell, the drivers are even there >98% of the time for accelerated decode of the video format itself to boot. Qube's unique choice in software only rendering for user applications is one born out of the isolation goals for security, not what the software/drivers/hardware could do.
      • fsflover 2y ago
        > even on the Pi Only proprietary ones, so not for everyone...
        • zamadatix 2y ago
          Pi 1-3 https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/vc4.html https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/vc4.html Pi 4-5 https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/v3d.html https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/v3d.html
          • fsflover 2y ago
            > Broadcom never released a public specification for the V3D 3.x or 4.x series. So the support must be worse if you prefer free drivers?
            • zamadatix 2y ago
              No, as there isn't a non-free driver alternative to compare V3D to. For VC4 (Pi 1-3) there was a proprietary alternative driver... but it was a bit garbage. It feels you may be conflating the "proprietary firmware blob on the GPU which is used to boot the Pi" story with the GPU driver itself.
              • fsflover 2y ago
                Yes, you are right, "proprietary firmware blob on the GPU which is used to boot the Pi" is what I recall as a big Pi problem. So my original wording is correct that you need proprietary blobs to run Raspberry Pi, isn't it?
                • zamadatix 2y ago
                  "Yes" in that the above statement about needing proprietary blobs to boot the Pis is certainly accurate & true (ongoing science experiments notwithstanding). "No" in that we somehow went from talking about "how apps can safely assume to rely on accelerated rasterization instead of software rasterization" to "how the Raspberry Pi family needs proprietary boot firmware to do anything with app output at all" and I've missed the connection between the two points.
                  • fsflover 2y ago
                    > support must be worse if you prefer free drivers
    • fulafel 2y ago
      Yes. Besides Qubes users, a big population of software rendering users is people who have old and/or buggy drivers that are blacklisted by Firefox.
  • usr1106 2y ago
    I understand GPUs are a security nightmare. If you want to have some understanding of your security, don't use a GPU.
    • irundebian 2y ago
      Yeah, if you really care about security, only use computer which use line printers as output mechanisms.
  • adastra22 2y ago
    The issue for Qubes is security. GPUs can be used to subvert basically all the otherwise hardware-enforced security protections.
    • creole_wither 2y ago
      In a desktop, couldn't you assign a GPU to one video machine and in that scenario would there still be a security problem when there is only one VM using it?
      • adastra22 2y ago
        It’s not about virtual machines. GPUs typically have direct memory access to pretty much all system RAM. There exist PCIe mitigations, but the review does not meet up to Qubes security standards.
      • halJordan 2y ago
        Yes, this is what qubes would probably suggest as the solution.
  • dmm 2y ago
    It's totally reasonable, just unfortunate for this use-case.