FS#52980 - [blender] Include blender-softwaregl executable

Attached to Project: Community Packages
Opened by Alex VonHoene (avh.on1) - Wednesday, 15 February 2017, 20:14 GMT
Last edited by Sven-Hendrik Haase (Svenstaro) - Friday, 03 March 2017, 07:43 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages
Status Closed
Assigned To Sven-Hendrik Haase (Svenstaro)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:
The official Blender distribution includes an executable script 'blender-softwaregl' which allows Blender to run on computers without OpenGL compatible graphics hardware.

blender 17:2.78.b-1 does not include this file.
The attached files 'lscpu-output.txt' and 'lspci-output.txt' show the hardware of a machine (Thinkpad X40) which requires software OpenGL.
The attached file 'blender-noOpenGL-error.txt' shows the error thrown by community/blender 17:2.78.b-1 on the same machine.

Steps to reproduce:
1. On a computer that does not have a discrete graphics card or integrated graphics, install the community/blender package.
2. Run 'blender'. Blender will throw an error similar to the one in 'blender-noOpenGL-error.txt'.

For contrast:
1. On the same machine, download Blender 2.78.b:
- 32 bit: http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/graphics/blender/release/Blender2.78/blender-2.78b-linux-glibc219-i686.tar.bz2
- 64 bit: http://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/graphics/blender/release/Blender2.78/blender-2.78b-linux-glibc219-x86_64.tar.bz2
2. Extract the bzipped tarball.
3. In the resulting directory, run './blender-softwaregl'. Blender will run without throwing OpenGL errors.
   lscpu-output.txt (0.6 KiB)
   lspci-output.txt (1.8 KiB)
   blender-noOpenGL-error.txt (0.2 KiB)
This task depends upon

Closed by  Sven-Hendrik Haase (Svenstaro)
Friday, 03 March 2017, 07:43 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Comment by Doug Newgard (Scimmia) - Saturday, 18 February 2017, 05:43 GMT
What kind of system has no OpenGL support at all?
Comment by Alex VonHoene (avh.on1) - Sunday, 26 February 2017, 16:02 GMT
  • Field changed: Percent Complete (100% → 0%)
My apologies for lagging, but some systems do not meet the OpenGL requirements for Blender. In particular, Blender 2.78 is the first version which *requires* OpenGL 2. Any maching which only supports OpenGL 1.x now needs software emulation of OpenGL 2.0. Further, some machines do not have working graphics drivers, or their users choose not to use closed-source drivers. Finally, some old machines, like the IBM Thinkpad X40 I use daily, do not have any sort of OpenGL-supporting hardware whatsoever, and rely entirely on software emulation.
Comment by Doug Newgard (Scimmia) - Sunday, 26 February 2017, 16:04 GMT
Wouldn't most of these have llvmpipe available via gallium?
Comment by Alex VonHoene (avh.on1) - Wednesday, 01 March 2017, 21:39 GMT
If Gallium works without requiring recompiling, then that would be a fine solution. If not, it could be provided via a "blender-softwaregl" or "blender-gallium" package, mutually exclusive to this "blender" package. However, on my opengl-less laptop, installing "libva-mesa-driver", described as "VA-API implementation for gallium", did not allow blender to work. I have no idea if this is the right way to use Gallium or not.

It still seems like the simplest solution would be to modify the file "blender-softwaregl" to have the right library/directory paths and drop it into /usr/bin alongside the "blender" executable.

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