[Triumf-linux-managers] Is your OPENGL broken?

[Konstantin Olchanski]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 01:17:25PM -0800, Frederick Jones wrote:
> Back in early October, x.org issued a faulty update
> to the X11 packages that causes OPENGL applications
> to fail, at least on three SL 4.x systems here at
> TRIUMF.  The fault is apparently with the X server
> itself (file "Xorg").  The fix I used was to back up to the
> previous rpms:
> 
> xorg-x11-6.8.2-1.EL.69.i386.rpm
> xorg-x11-Xdmx-... etc.
>      -x11-Xnest-
>      -x11-Xvfb-
> 
> I am not sure if this affects any SL 5.X or 6.x systems
> but would be curious to find out.
> 
> If you have a desktop Linux machine, you can check it
> by running "glxgears".  With the faulty X server it will
> fail with an X protocol error.  If it works you will see
> some spinning gears in a small window.
> Also you can check the date on the file Xorg and see if
> it was updated on around October 6 or so.
> 


Fred - we have seen trouble with glxgears, too (through Femlab, G4 & co).

My solution is to install NVidia proprietary drivers which happen
to install OpenGL libraries that seem to work just fine.

I have done this on desktop machines with NVidia graphics,
on server machines with no graphics (only the Nvidia OpenGL libraries
are used, kernel and x11 drivers are not used); but did not try
this on any machine with ATI graphics (I would expect a conflict
between ATI and NVidia proprietary drivers.

I do not know if the ATI proprietary drivers come with usable OpenGL libraries.


-- 
Konstantin Olchanski
Data Acquisition Systems: The Bytes Must Flow!
Email: olchansk-at-triumf-dot-ca
Snail mail: 4004 Wesbrook Mall, TRIUMF, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2A3, Canada