GNOME Project retires OpenGL rendering library Clutter
(2022/02/18)
- Reference: 1645205525
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/18/clutter_gnome_retired/
- Source link:
The GNOME Project has announced that it's [1]retiring the Clutter library, the tool that bought OpenGL-based hardware rendering to Linux in 2006.
[2]Clutter was originally written by [3]now-Intel subsidiary OpenedHand and in its day was a widely used library, enabling GObject-based C code to draw user interfaces using OpenGL.
It brought hardware-accelerated 3D to a lot of Linux programs, including the Mutter window manager (Metacity + Clutter) used by GNOME Shell, [4]System76's COSMIC desktop and [5]Raspberry Pi's PIXEL . The Cinnamon desktop uses a [6]fork of Mutter called [7]Muffin .
[8]
These days GNOME's version of [9]Mutter "uses a fork of Cogl, a hardware acceleration abstraction library used to simplify usage of OpenGL pipelines, as well as a fork of Clutter, a scene graph and user interface toolkit."
[10]
[11]
Clutter is indirectly the reason that lots of people found that GNOME 3 and Ubuntu's Unity ran poorly under VirtualBox.
By default, VMs use software OpenGL rendering, making anything that used Clutter sluggish unless you enabled 3D acceleration and [12]installed the VirtualBox guest extensions .
[13]Comparing the descendants of Mandrake and Mandriva Linux
[14]Linux tops Google's Project Zero charts for fastest bug fixes
[15]Red Hat signals Intel's software-defined silicon will debut in Linux 5.18
[16]Hello Slackware, our old friend: Veteran Linux distribution releases version 15.0 at last
GNOME 40 and Gtk 4 subsumed and replaced the functionality of the standalone [17]Clutter library.
So as far as the GNOME project is concerned, it's now surplus to requirements, and as of the next version, GNOME 42, it will be removed and the source code moved to the Gitlab [18]archive .
[19]
To be fair, Clutter has been stable for a long time. The latest version, Clutter 1.26, was back in 2016 and even the last point release, [20]1.26.4 was in 2020.
However, a lot of other Gtk-based desktops haven't moved to Gtk 4 yet, including MATE, Xfce, Pantheon and Pixel. It's possible that someone will have to fork and continue the original Clutter if they come across a deal-breaker of a bug. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://blogs.gnome.org/clutter/2022/02/16/retiring-clutter/
[2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Clutter
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/01/intel_buys_openedhand/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/system76_developing_new_linux_desktop/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/09/new_qt_linux_desktops/
[6] https://github.com/linuxmint/muffin
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/01/linux_mint_17_2_review/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[9] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2013/04/26/xbuntu_round_up/?page=2
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/comparing_the_descendants_of_mandrake/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/14/in_brief_security/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/14/intel_sdsi_linux_5_18/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/07/slackware/
[17] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/clutter
[18] https://gitlab.gnome.org/Archive
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/clutter/-/commit/fd85623d34a54b3f5607011086cf19cb2c756a6a
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
[2]Clutter was originally written by [3]now-Intel subsidiary OpenedHand and in its day was a widely used library, enabling GObject-based C code to draw user interfaces using OpenGL.
It brought hardware-accelerated 3D to a lot of Linux programs, including the Mutter window manager (Metacity + Clutter) used by GNOME Shell, [4]System76's COSMIC desktop and [5]Raspberry Pi's PIXEL . The Cinnamon desktop uses a [6]fork of Mutter called [7]Muffin .
[8]
These days GNOME's version of [9]Mutter "uses a fork of Cogl, a hardware acceleration abstraction library used to simplify usage of OpenGL pipelines, as well as a fork of Clutter, a scene graph and user interface toolkit."
[10]
[11]
Clutter is indirectly the reason that lots of people found that GNOME 3 and Ubuntu's Unity ran poorly under VirtualBox.
By default, VMs use software OpenGL rendering, making anything that used Clutter sluggish unless you enabled 3D acceleration and [12]installed the VirtualBox guest extensions .
[13]Comparing the descendants of Mandrake and Mandriva Linux
[14]Linux tops Google's Project Zero charts for fastest bug fixes
[15]Red Hat signals Intel's software-defined silicon will debut in Linux 5.18
[16]Hello Slackware, our old friend: Veteran Linux distribution releases version 15.0 at last
GNOME 40 and Gtk 4 subsumed and replaced the functionality of the standalone [17]Clutter library.
So as far as the GNOME project is concerned, it's now surplus to requirements, and as of the next version, GNOME 42, it will be removed and the source code moved to the Gitlab [18]archive .
[19]
To be fair, Clutter has been stable for a long time. The latest version, Clutter 1.26, was back in 2016 and even the last point release, [20]1.26.4 was in 2020.
However, a lot of other Gtk-based desktops haven't moved to Gtk 4 yet, including MATE, Xfce, Pantheon and Pixel. It's possible that someone will have to fork and continue the original Clutter if they come across a deal-breaker of a bug. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://blogs.gnome.org/clutter/2022/02/16/retiring-clutter/
[2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Clutter
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/01/intel_buys_openedhand/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/system76_developing_new_linux_desktop/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/09/new_qt_linux_desktops/
[6] https://github.com/linuxmint/muffin
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/01/linux_mint_17_2_review/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[9] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2013/04/26/xbuntu_round_up/?page=2
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/comparing_the_descendants_of_mandrake/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/14/in_brief_security/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/14/intel_sdsi_linux_5_18/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/07/slackware/
[17] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/clutter
[18] https://gitlab.gnome.org/Archive
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YhAlF0UthjGhKCfBSFwXZAAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/clutter/-/commit/fd85623d34a54b3f5607011086cf19cb2c756a6a
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
badflorist
"... some PC "guru" decided to reinvent..."
I think you mean decided to _NOT_ reinvent.
Unless you can tell me of a terminal that would render client OpenGL via X in 2002 (minimum for "decades"), then I'm still under the belief that this hasn't been common in GNU/Linux until the last 10 years or so. Maybe it did exist but I never saw it.
There was some proprietary software that did this in certain Unix OS's (Solaris, i think AIX) although not with OpenGL and also wasn't common.
cornetman
> However, a lot of other Gtk-based desktops haven't moved to Gtk 4 yet, including MATE, Xfce, Pantheon and Pixel.
A lot of applications are still stuck on Gtk 2. It's a lot like the Python 2/3 problem although the porting effort is more substantial with the exclusive move to Cairo for drawing being a big obstacle.
Ozan
I dont expect the archival will happen anytime soon. I just got the latest evolution compiled and it pretty much needed clutter.
After trying all the desktops, I settled on Mate, because it was the only one with a reasonable feature-set that runs properly on a remote terminal via X2Go. Both KDE and Gnome are absolutely unusable under those circumstances because of their perverse design decision to render the display as a single massive image. (Honestly, it's like some PC "guru" decided to reinvent what had been done FAR BETTER with OpenGL decades earlier.)