latest current + latest ports + nvidia == no GL (pthread problem?)

[Steve Kargl]

On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 08:12:26PM -0800, Doug Barton wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Steve Kargl wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 07:45:08PM -0800, Doug Barton wrote:
> > > As several people were kind enough to point out, the KSE developers are
> > > still conveniently ignoring the fact that third party drivers and
> > > software use static LDT allocation, and therefore are incompatible with
> > > KSE.
> >
> > Take off your rose colored glass.  The KSE developers have warned
> > about this problem for months.  If nvidia chooses not to update
> > their source, complain to nvidia.
> 
> Thank you for providing an excellent example of my point below.

Huh?  The KSE developers have warned us about this for months.
They are not ignoring the problem.  Indeed, read /usr/src/UPDATING.
The 20040130 entry states "Anyone that is using nvidia supplied
drivers and libraries should use a libmap.conf that maps libpthread
to libc_r since their drivers/libraries do not work with libpthread".
This hardly looks like the KSE developers are ignoring the problem.

If you need the nvidia driver, then ask nvidia to update the drivers.

> > > The following entries in /etc/libmap.conf solve the immediate problem
> > > with making GL apps work again:
> > >
> > > libpthread.so.1 libc_r.so.5
> > > libpthread.so   libc_r.so
> >
> > Alternatively, you can remove the nvidia drivers and use the nv
> > driver that come with XFree86.
> 
> Um, I can't actually. For this particular situation, my choices are use
> the nvidia drivers + current, or use windows. (And no, I'm not
> interested in debating why my choices are thus limited.) But that's not
> particularly relevant to the larger point, which is (AFAIK), the nvidia
> drivers aren't the only victims here. Choosing to break compatibility
> with third party software (what little of it there is) simply drives
> more nails in the coffin of FreeBSD as anything other than a niche
> platform.

AFAIK, nvidia (and maybe wine) is the only piece of 3rd party 
software that abuse static allocation of LDT.
> 
> > > It's incredibly disappointing to me that after all this time this is
> > > still an issue. Sitting in an ivory tower and proclaiming how the world
> > > _ought_ to be isn't really a useful approach to software design.
> >
> > It's incredibly insulting to me that you have the audacity to
> > denigrate the work of the KSE developers.
> 
> Getting insulted on other people's behalf is rarely a useful exercise.

Perhaps.  But then again, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

> And regardless of how hard someone has worked on something, two things
> are true of every contribution to the project (including mine).
> 
> 1. It doesn't matter how hard you work on something, if it's a bad idea,
> it's a  bad idea.

Agreed.

> 2. If it doesn't meet the needs of a significant percentage of FreeBSD
> users, it's a bad idea.

I've never polled the FreeBSD community of their graphics cards
choice, so I didn't realize that a significant percentage of FreeBSD
users used nvidia drivers and their GL library.  I guess I'll trash
my ATI and S3 graphics cards and join the sheep.  

-- 
Steve