Linux Mint 17.3 Xfce 64-bit edition was the OS on my HP Notebook. This OS is stable, does its job, does not pose any problems and is user friendly. But, this stability requires the Linux Mint OS to have old and proved software. This resulted in my Gen 8 Pentium to not have the latest and up to par performance which it could if it had newer software. That is what I thought and boy was I wrong.
On the https://mesamatrix.net website, the latest mesa 12.0.1 advertises latest OpenGL compatibility with Intel Gen8+ graphics. So, I was under the impression that this would also mean the Intel Pentium that have Gen8, i.e. Intel Broadwell graphics like my 3825U. But, this is not the case.
I had changed my OS from the very stable Linux Mint to the latest Ubuntu 16.04.1 release. The Ubuntu Unity release. Thinking that the base edition would offer more latest and stable versions than the spins. I then added the Padoka ppa and the Wine DRI ppa.
The drivers, Mesa, xorg, and more that is available from the Padoka PPA does not even provide Mesa 12.0.1, after upgrading the Mesa was still at 11.2 and OpenGL support at 3.0. Which was a let down. Then I purged the Padoka ppa and added the Oibaf ppa. This gave me the latest mesa alright, but still the supported opengl version is 3.0. So, Intel has just given the code for the Core i processors and has conveniently forgot the Pentium of the Broadwell architecture.
Intel hates Pentium. This is what I gather from my very frustrating experience.
So, I thought okay this may at least prove a decent performer for my games that I run under WINE. The game I tried is the GOG version of Neverwinter Nights 2. This game installed correctly using the Wine DRI ppa version of WINE. And, with the Oibaf mesa. I use the excellent PlayOnLinux software to manage the installation. This is another excellent piece of software. I would describe this in my later posts.
So, I launched the game. But it crashed. After fiddling around I got to the problem. I had enabled the Gallium Nine option in the wine configuration. But later I got to know that this only works well with Nvidia and AMD gpus and not with Intel gpus. So, another bummer. Another wasted effort and bandwidth for getting the latest and greatest. After de-selecting this option, the game opened.
Then another problem, I was not able to alt-tab from the game in fullscreen. The only option was to hard reset the notebook, since after pressing the alt-tab keys, the game would not respond. Then I searched the internet for this problem and came across many other such problems, all relating to Ubuntu Unity. There was one shortcut that worked, The minimize shortcut. This minimized the game, but after opening it again, it would freeze again. So no way of going forward but to hard reset the notebook.
Then, what I thought was to install the Xubuntu-desktop in my Ubuntu installation. The download was an okay ~250MB. After going into the Xubuntu session, I launched the game and was able to alt-tab without much problem.
So, Ubuntu Unity hates WINE gamers. Again, from my personal experience.
Now, I am stuck. I wanted the latest and got burned. What are my options. To go back to Linux Mint 17.3 Xfce 64-bit edition. Or to install the Linux Mint 18 Xfce 64-bit edition. Or to go for the Xubuntu 16.04.1 edition. Lets see. Maybe I would try CentOS 7.3 instead.
What would be better?
On the https://mesamatrix.net website, the latest mesa 12.0.1 advertises latest OpenGL compatibility with Intel Gen8+ graphics. So, I was under the impression that this would also mean the Intel Pentium that have Gen8, i.e. Intel Broadwell graphics like my 3825U. But, this is not the case.
I had changed my OS from the very stable Linux Mint to the latest Ubuntu 16.04.1 release. The Ubuntu Unity release. Thinking that the base edition would offer more latest and stable versions than the spins. I then added the Padoka ppa and the Wine DRI ppa.
The drivers, Mesa, xorg, and more that is available from the Padoka PPA does not even provide Mesa 12.0.1, after upgrading the Mesa was still at 11.2 and OpenGL support at 3.0. Which was a let down. Then I purged the Padoka ppa and added the Oibaf ppa. This gave me the latest mesa alright, but still the supported opengl version is 3.0. So, Intel has just given the code for the Core i processors and has conveniently forgot the Pentium of the Broadwell architecture.
Intel hates Pentium. This is what I gather from my very frustrating experience.
So, I thought okay this may at least prove a decent performer for my games that I run under WINE. The game I tried is the GOG version of Neverwinter Nights 2. This game installed correctly using the Wine DRI ppa version of WINE. And, with the Oibaf mesa. I use the excellent PlayOnLinux software to manage the installation. This is another excellent piece of software. I would describe this in my later posts.
So, I launched the game. But it crashed. After fiddling around I got to the problem. I had enabled the Gallium Nine option in the wine configuration. But later I got to know that this only works well with Nvidia and AMD gpus and not with Intel gpus. So, another bummer. Another wasted effort and bandwidth for getting the latest and greatest. After de-selecting this option, the game opened.
Then another problem, I was not able to alt-tab from the game in fullscreen. The only option was to hard reset the notebook, since after pressing the alt-tab keys, the game would not respond. Then I searched the internet for this problem and came across many other such problems, all relating to Ubuntu Unity. There was one shortcut that worked, The minimize shortcut. This minimized the game, but after opening it again, it would freeze again. So no way of going forward but to hard reset the notebook.
Then, what I thought was to install the Xubuntu-desktop in my Ubuntu installation. The download was an okay ~250MB. After going into the Xubuntu session, I launched the game and was able to alt-tab without much problem.
So, Ubuntu Unity hates WINE gamers. Again, from my personal experience.
Now, I am stuck. I wanted the latest and got burned. What are my options. To go back to Linux Mint 17.3 Xfce 64-bit edition. Or to install the Linux Mint 18 Xfce 64-bit edition. Or to go for the Xubuntu 16.04.1 edition. Lets see. Maybe I would try CentOS 7.3 instead.
What would be better?
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