Mesa driver and kde

Hello everyone,

I have been using tumbleweed (with the kde desktop) for about a year, so
far very smoothly (I’m a faithful SUSE user since 1998).

A couple of months ago, during an update, zypper asked whether I wanted
to allow the Mesa driver to be installed, with the warning that it could lead to
instabilities with kde. Since then, I have thus added a lock to Mesa*, so that
the request would not show up anymore.

However, during today’s update, zypper asked me to remove the Mesa lock,
the reason being that kwin5 (kde window manager) now requires Mesa.

Do you know if previous problems between kde and Mesa have been resolved,
and whether it’s safe to remove the Mesa lock? Although I am using snapper
under btrfs for troubleshooting, I’d prefer not to break my system.

Thanks!

Serge.

This fun issue coincidently seemed to show up after someone requested a Mesa update if I remember right but maybe not.
Anyway you can resolve it by removing packages **xf86-video-intel **or xf86-video-nouveau.
****https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/534450-Mesa-broken-since-December-will-it-work-again-soon?p=2890835#post2890835

How do you upgrade?

FWIW: TW here on Intel video, no issues with the lastest Mesa packages.

I upgrade with the usual:
sudo zypper -vvv dup --no-allow-vendor-change

Are you using kde as well?

I just find it weird that snapper warned me against using Mesa
under kde a few months ago, and now requests Mesa for kwin.

Thanks for your reply in any case.

S.

Yep, using KDE as well, all up to date, no issues, no warnings about Mesa.

Not installed, but updated. The old was 18.1. The new is 18.3.

with the warning that it could lead to
instabilities with kde. Since then, I have thus added a lock to Mesa*, so that
the request would not show up anymore.

However, during today’s update, zypper asked me to remove the Mesa lock,
the reason being that kwin5 (kde window manager) now requires Mesa.
I don’t think Mesa ever wasn’t required by Plasma. Mesa is a layer within the graphics system that AFAICT kwin heavily relies upon.

Do you know if previous problems between kde and Mesa have been resolved,
and whether it’s safe to remove the Mesa lock?
I don’t recall observing any problem, but I don’t remember any warning from zypper about it either.

Thanks for your answers, I am less worried going on with this update.

You’re right, I have already Mesa installed, so hopefully it will be ok.

Best,

Serge.

The only warning I recall seeing relates to “Mesa-dri-nouveau” when using nvidia hardware with the OSS nouveau driver.

If you use the OSS (nouveau) drivers then hardware acceleration is provided by a separate package “Mesa-dri-nouveau”, this is marked as “experimental” with quite a “scary” warning in relation to KDE/Plasma. I’m using it with an eldlerly 8600GTS without problem. If you wish you can remove and taboo just that package, although without it any openGL rendering will be done by software emulation, thus increasing the CPU utilisation.

Using “experimental” old nouveau X technology isn’t necessary. There’s another FOSS option for NVidia gfx: modesetting:

# inxi -GxxS
System:    Host: g5eas Kernel: 4.19.12-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.5 
           tk: Qt 5.12.0 wm: kwin_x11 dm: KDM Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190112 
Graphics:  Device-1: XGI Z7/Z9 vendor: Gigabyte driver: xgifb v: kernel bus ID: 0a:03.0 chip ID: 18ca:0020 
           Device-2: NVIDIA G98 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 2] vendor: PNY driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 0b:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:06e4 
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nouveau,nv,nvidia 
           compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 2560x1440~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.1 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
# zypper se -si Mesa...
S  | Name           | Type    | Version      | Arch   | Repository
---+----------------+---------+--------------+--------+-----------
i+ | Mesa           | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-demo-x    | package | 8.4.0-1.3    | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-dri       | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-gallium   | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-libEGL1   | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-libGL1    | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-libglapi0 | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS

# inxi -GxxS
System:    Host: big41 Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.19-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0 Desktop: KDE 3.5.10
           tk: Qt 3.3.8c wm: kwin dm: startx Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1 Alpha
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA G84 [GeForce 8600 GT] vendor: XFX Pine driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0
           chip ID: 10de:0402
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.1 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
# zypper se -si Mesa...
i  | Mesa           | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i+ | Mesa-demo-x    | package | 8.3.0-lp151.2.3   | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-dri       | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-gallium   | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-libEGL1   | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-libGL1    | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-libglapi0 | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS
i  | Mesa-libva     | package | 18.3.1-lp151.21.1 | x86_64 | OSS

# inxi -GxxS
System:    Host: p5bse Kernel: 4.19.12-1-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 8.2.1 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.5 
           tk: Qt 5.12.0 wm: kwin_x11 dm: startx Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20190112 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:0a65 
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa alternate: nouveau,nv,nvidia 
           compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.1 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
# zypper se -si Mesa...
i  | Mesa           | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i  | Mesa-dri       | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i  | Mesa-gallium   | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i  | Mesa-libEGL1   | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i  | Mesa-libGL1    | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i  | Mesa-libglapi0 | package | 18.3.1-210.1 | x86_64 | OSS       
i+ | Mesa-demo-x    | package | 8.4.0-1.3    | x86_64 | OSS

Note no installed Mesanouveau and no installed xf86-video-nouveau. NVidia gfx is running on newer technology modesetting X driver. Only the kernel is using integrated (non-experimental) nouveau, on top of which the upper level nouveaus would run, and modesetting does run.

Thanks Paul for the clarification. Apparently the nouveau driver is already installed and my kde
is presently fine, so I will accept this update. The warning provided by snapper is indeed quite scary…