@rmader@floss.social
@rmader@floss.social avatar

rmader

@rmader@floss.social

Mostly #wayland stuff around #gnomeshell, #gstreamer, #Firefox, #Pipewire, #libcamera, #linuxmobile - https://floss.social/@collabora

Generally thing that make the Linux desktop use graphics hardware features. And sometimes random boosts.

Based in Berlin.

Member of the German green party.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

martijnbraam, to random
@martijnbraam@fosstodon.org avatar

A big thanks to Megapixels contributors :)
https://blog.brixit.nl/megapixels-contributions/

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

@martijnbraam Do I understand correctly that you are using Gstreamer for encoding? In that case it might be worth checking out https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/merge_requests/5676 which implements HW encoding. Getting that over the line could be a big deal here - and for other apps like Snapshot or Dino as well.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

@martijnbraam Also the librem5 if I'm not mistaken. I also hope it will just be compatible with cedrus though - the h264 decoder seem to work somewhat well here, even though we'll need to support more tiling modes / drm modifiers in Gst to make it really fast.
Don't know about the kernel side of the encoder though - do you know if it generally works?

rmader, to linuxphones
@rmader@floss.social avatar

If you want to follow the process of getting the #libcamera (with softwareISP) + #pipewire stack into place on #postmarketOS - which will allow way more apps to use cameras on devices like the #librem5, #PinePhone (the #PinePhonePro was the first were it already kinda works) and hopefully many more devices in the future - then here's a meta issue you can subscribe to: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/issues/2787

rmader, to linuxphones
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Just want to quickly share with folks that the new softwareISP does indeed work with the - and with a + pipeline. Here's a first image running Warp (from Flathub).

There's still some stuff to iron out to make this work reliably and ship to users - but things are falling into place.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

FTR., props go to the team and the people who worked on the softwareISP (https://patchwork.libcamera.org/cover/19820/)

The only libcamera patch I needed on top of current master is this one:
https://github.com/rmader/libcamera/commit/330cbe938a68bbe9e5130b618c58358b887babc4

rmader, to GNOME
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Thanks to @slomo the #gstreamer #gtk gtk4paintablesink just got support for DMABuf (and thus Wayland/KMS) passthrough \o/

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-rs/-/merge_requests/1547

This will allow to make video playback in various apps much faster. And, if everything works out, allow the same for Camera viewfinders in apps like #gnome camera / snapshot 🤞

rmader, to linuxphones
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Is there anyone from the community living in Berlin with a working battery who would be willing to help me booting and updating my device once? Unfortunately my battery is dead and I haven't found out how to quickly get a new one - however IIUC it would boot without battery once updated to a newer firmware (https://forums.puri.sm/t/librem-5-does-not-boot-without-battery/16954/11).

rmader, to GNOME
@rmader@floss.social avatar

I'm slowly discovering all the nice stuff in that other devs have been working on.

My personal favorite so far are the generic Cal/Card/WebDav accounts, for several reasons.

First of all, I use CalDav and CardDav extensively, both personally and at work. Especially my contacts are something that I on one side want to be available on all my devices - and on the other side really want to have control over. I.e. I only want that data on providers I trust.

🧵

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

On my phone - which is not yet a one - I use the fabulous , while on my desktops the only real option for me was
And while that is fine, trying using a Gnome Online Account suddenly showed me what I've been missing out so far, which is not only great native apps like , but also integration, global search providers etc.
Until now - around two weeks - the experience has been awesome and it's definitely changing the way I use Gnome.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Another native app I find myself using more and more is
Just because it started to be the most efficient way for me to look things - usually a bicycle route. I.e. its increasingly convincing me by utility, not by the additional reason of better privacy etc.

I should probably add that it actually is a clear goal of mine to use native apps more and more (again) for various reasons - one big one being that it's important for - and, well, I'd say its going great :)

rmader, to random
@rmader@floss.social avatar

I used the weekend for some spring cleaning in my brain, looking into a couple of camera issues in the Gnome-Camera/Snapshot stack.

It turned out to be quite productive. If you faced one of the following issues in the past, things will likely soon get better:

  1. Unreliable camera portal behavior, notably the portal reporting that there are no cameras present.
  2. High delay with some cameras, especially external USB ones.

...

rmader, to GNOME
@rmader@floss.social avatar

What I really like about is that it turned out to be a really good release for old and low-end devices. One of my test devices is Thinkpad T400. That hardware is over 15 years old and is has actually got faster over the last few years - especially this release.

One of my favorite improvements here, headed by Christian Hergert, was the boost to VTE. Terminals using are now much faster and responsive. I mean, damn, even switching tabs doesn't trigger a full redraw!

A video of Gnome-Console running on a Thinkpad T400. The Mutter damage overlay is enabled, showing that updates to the content only updates the areas that actually change - even when switching tabs.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

There were also a bunch of improvements to screen casting, resulting in being the first release where I can make fullscreen recordings on this device at reasonable speed. I can even play video during recording, as long as hardware decoding is used (only mpeg2 :P).

A screencast taken on a Thinkpad T400, showing the Setting about page, scrolling in the Podcast app and playing a Video.

ErikUden, to random
@ErikUden@mastodon.de avatar

Fascism isn't adhering to any ideology but “win-no-matter-what”, Mussolini got into power by couping, Hitler got elected. Modern fascist movements have no problem idealizing Europe, Democracy, or “Freedom” because that's what is popular.

The original Nazis called themselves “socialists” for a reason, and some even believe they were that to this day!

The “white power” movement was a horrid “black power” rip-off (those two cannot be compared at all), and modern alt-rightists in Europe call themselves “Identitarian” in order to mimic the progressive's politics focused around identity. Islamophobia is in, so the antisemitism is no longer the main focus. This appropriation only exists to say “look at us! We can be hip and popular too, unlike those guys back then!”

Fascism strives for this divide and fixed hierarchy, and until reached is willing to to make coalitions, even with people fascists would rather see thrown out. This is why fascism loves to piggyback off of capitalism, as it has a hierarchy, and through many systemically racist, sexist, and otherwise discriminatory methods, makes social mobility harder especially for those fascists hate. Sooner than later, however, even that tiny, meaningless chance of mobility will be too much for fascists, which is why even they have to move beyond capitalism once it no longer suits them.

As trans rights are the next civil rights movement to rally against, fascists begin accepting gay people among their ranks. From people of color, to women, to then gay, queer, and now trans people — coalitions will be made and subsequently burned once fascists are in any position of power to do so, one by one, the way they came.

Also, fascism isn't authoritarian by itself. Authoritarianism is simply required in order to uphold this contradictory mess of an “ideology”. Once elections are won, nations are couped, and governments overthrown, the burning of these coalitions commences. Fascism seeks to have as few people at the ruling top as possible, but that contradicts a majority support, so the only way to, most likely temporary, uphold this system is by having some people of the middle class lifted with the power to oppress and subjugate (think SS, Gestapo, ...).

An ideology so defined by separation and segregation won't just stop when it “won”. You think fascists will take over a nation or continent, remove all that they deem unfit (ethnicities, queer people, politically different thinkers or writers,...) and say “that's it! Goal achieved” — no! There is no end goal, there is no plan or idea about what comes after. It's this never ending war that is a necessity to this belief system to work.

Every other belief system at least to some degree seeks an equilibrium whilst fascism needs this decline.

Once fascists take over and achieve everything they now call for, they'll begin re-inventing new enemies and a new divide. Jewish people or Italians may no longer be defined as “white”, and the war against them commences. Even once all of that is achieved and a national hegemony is created, they'll have to expand in order to regain that otherness.

“Us vs. them” only works if a “them” exists, and it doesn't at this point. So after the Hispanics have been deported to Mexico, they'll be followed and removed from there too, because without them fascists are nothing. Whiteness has no clear definition other than being different to all that other stuff and it is a made up concept anyway. The expansion and imperialism always seen in fascist movements exist for this reason. The definition of self comes from not being them.

Fascists always see themselves as the victim, as well as think of every action they take as defense. That's why they re-define what the war is and what it even means to fight — there's been no promised “race war” started by the people of color as fascists claimed for long? No problem, just claim they're now replacing you, so simply existing is too much for a person of color to do.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

@ErikUden Serious question regarding

> Once fascists take over and achieve everything they now call for, they'll begin re-inventing new enemies and a new divide.

Isn't that just the definition of ideology - and a core element of almost every political movements, including most progressive/emancipatory ones?

I don't see an end to most leftish movements short from a utopia. And I'd go as far as saying that continuous struggle is simply: politics. Do I miss something?

rmader, to linux
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Friends of energy efficiency - the Light Video 0.1.0 update is out, build with 4.14 and 1.24.1.

This should be the first app targeting the / FDO desktop enabling Wayland video offloading (think zero-copy playback) by default. In many cases (actually more than I expected) this can improve battery lifetime - and on low-end devices even playback performance - significantly.

https://flathub.org/apps/org.sigxcpu.Livi

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

This is kinda a technology preview in order to see if we can ship features like this enabled by default in a lot more apps in the ecosystem.

Thus I'd be very super happy if you'll try it on lots of hardware - be Intel/AMD laptops or ARM64 devices (with V4L2 stateless decoders, such as most devices).

Chances that you really hit a zero-copy path are highest with a recent compositor - i.e. if you are using , or a recent version of , , etc.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

Note that there are still a number of limitations to offloading to KMS/display controllers. In these cases Livi should fall back just fine and will just be less efficient.
I hope we can lift them step by step. A few of them being:

  • only hardware decoded video, not sw decoded
  • only VA-API or V4L2-stateless, no V4L2-stateful or Vulkan yet (but at least the later should fall in place naturally)
  • depending on the compositor and hw: only if the display dimensions match the video, e.g. 16:9
rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

As well as only working when nothing is rendered on top of the video, like overlays, subtitles etc. Note that this limitation comes purely from HW/compositors - from the app side it is supported and works quite well on e.g. , which already implements sophisticated hw plane management.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

@user8e8f87c livi is very minimalistic in its approach and mainly targets mobile. There are a few others that are maybe more feature complete - or we find some hero to port Totem to GTK4 and do some modenizations.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

I guess I should have elaborated a bit more why and what for I'm asking for testing. So my main goal is to find remaining cases where the output looks like one of the attached images, which are complete deal breakers for users.

These are usually driver bugs - in Mesa or the kernel - and optimally should get reported accordingly. But if you see something like this are you are not sure where to report it - please feel free to DM me!

The picture shows a laptop screen playing a video in zero-copy mode - but the colors of the video are heavily off and mostly green, with a some purple.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

If you want to check whether Livi is actually using zero-copy, there's unfortunately not one single way, but different ones depending on the hardware and compositor you use.

One Intel or AMD a simple way is to use intel_gpu_top or radeontop via ssh and check whether the 3D parts of the GPU are reported being idle, such as in the first post.

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

If you run Gnome, you can enable the opaque region overlay, which draws green or purple overlays over the content whenever Mutter is compositing - and shows the content normally when doing direct-scanount / zero-copy.

You can enable it via alt+f2 -> "lg" -> "Flags" -> OPAQUE_REGION

When things work correctly, you should get a purple overlay when in windowed mode or player controls are visible - and a normal image when fullscreen without controls.

Livi in fullscreen mode, playing a video. No player elements are visible and there's neither a green or purple overlay over the image.
Livi in fullscreen mode, playing a video. Some player elements over the video are visible and the whole image is slighly green from the opaque overlay.
Livi in fullscreen mode, playing a video. Some player elements over the video are visible and there is neither a green or puprle overlay.

sonny, (edited ) to random
@sonny@floss.social avatar

Can't decide what to do to relax after an intense working day

5 minutes poll while I drink my tea

Choose wisely

rmader,
@rmader@floss.social avatar

@sonny That was a bit short :D

rmader, to GNOME
@rmader@floss.social avatar

For those who like me find themselves often listening radio on youtube during work - lofi stuff in my case - I can really recommend giving #gnome #shortwave a try. If you search for a genre, chances are high that you get like 5-10 stations to choose from. And using a dedicated radio app has a bunch of benefits in different domains.

rmader, to random
@rmader@floss.social avatar

#GStreamer 1.24 got released today and comes with explicit modifier support for DMABuf. Fittingly the MR to add support for that to the #PipeWire Gst plugin also just landed.

This fixes some long standing issues where things could terribly break - one example being #vaapi encoding on Intel.

So if you have an app that you'd like to support screen sharing on Wayland (and uses #GStreamer): the upcoming cycle will be a great time to start with that!

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/merge_requests/1881

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