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Valve have hired another developer to work on Linux graphics drivers

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Seems Valve really are trying to do a big push to get Linux graphics drivers up to scratch. Last night Pierre-Loup tweeted about a new hiring and the name might be familiar to some.

Welcome keithp to the team! Our open graphics group is now 5 strong, but still hiring. Shader compiler performance people especially wanted.

— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) March 13, 2017


Yep, none other than Keith Packard, a well known name in the Linux community who worked on the X Window System. He previously worked for Intel, then moved to HP and now he's settling in at Valve to continue Linux development. He will still remain at HP while doing this work for Valve too.

This is likely work towards pushing Virtual Reality support and making it better on Linux. Our open source drivers have already come a long way, but now we have some serious people paid to push them even further. Not only that, but game porter Feral Interactive have also been pushing more patches into Mesa. Awesome stuff.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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STiAT Mar 14, 2017
I wanted to comment to @Shmerl. But gamingonlinux decided to time out on me. Again. As daily several times. Too pissed to write more right now.

The new server was supposed to be better, since we got it, I have more timeouts and low loading times from austria than when I ask my wife to cook dinner (I'm cooking... for good reason ^^).


Last edited by STiAT on 14 March 2017 at 11:33 pm UTC
Purple Library Guy Mar 15, 2017
Quoting: KimyrielleGraphics drivers and related performance issues are probably our biggest sore spots right now, so that's good news. I hope he won't work on -just- VR though, at least not as long as the drivers are lagging behind their Windows equivalents in general. To be honest, VR is very unlikely to become a mainstream thing in this decade, that will be a battle for another day.
Near as I can tell, there is a fair amount of overlap between what what VR needs and general speed improvement, so VR work won't be useless for everything else.
Eike 10 years Mar 15, 2017
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Quoting: STiATI wanted to comment to @Shmerl. But gamingonlinux decided to time out on me. Again. As daily several times. Too pissed to write more right now.

The new server was supposed to be better, since we got it, I have more timeouts and low loading times from austria than when I ask my wife to cook dinner (I'm cooking... for good reason ^^).

How long does it take you to write messages? I never had this (Germany), but then, I'm mostly writing short messages...
Eike 10 years Mar 15, 2017
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Quoting: ShmerlWhy is contractor work called "consulting"

That's normal in software development.
Shmerl Mar 15, 2017
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: ShmerlWhy is contractor work called "consulting"

That's normal in software development.

I noticed, still it doesn't explain the origin of the term :)
razing32 Mar 15, 2017
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: ShmerlWhy is contractor work called "consulting"

That's normal in software development.

I noticed, still it doesn't explain the origin of the term :)

Some programmer wanted to look better in front of his girlfriend's parents ?
"I do consulting in IT." sounds better than "I am a contractor"

Sincerely signed a contractor for a network company :-p
Eike 10 years Mar 15, 2017
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Quoting: ShmerlI noticed, still it doesn't explain the origin of the term :)

Ah, ok, I thought you might have met the term for the first time.
It might make a bit of sense when thinking of it like a company hiring someone to not only tell them how they solve a problem, but actually helping them doing it.
But I'm also not a friend of the term. My wife read a job offer to me about an "IT cosultant" and asked me if that would match what I'm doing, and I could only tell her "I dont know." It's so unspecific...
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