On Windows there's Windows Media Foundation and DirectShow that centrally manage everything and also support the "individual nut and bolt" approach. Android has its own central thing (MediaCodec?) that must be used. MacOS and iOS presumably have their own central manager (Quicktime?) too.
But Linux? It doesn't serve as an operating system for media. It's tremendously inconvenient as an admin/user rather than an evangelist.
Comparison is also invalid. Linux as a whole (not the kernel but OS experience) isn't controlled by some Big Brother who decides what and how it's done single mindedly. So such kind of composite result is somewhat expected.
Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it.
ChromeOS hasn't displaced Linux on school laptops, there wasn't any.
LG WebOS hasn't displaced "Linux", it competes with Google TV (formerly Android TV)
So here goes a children explanation.
> Unfortunely I still have to, from time to time.
I, pjmlp, still have to use GNU/Linux desktop from time to time.
> Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it.
Android, ChromeOS and WebOS, have replaced most of my needs, pjmlp, for GNU/Linux in the desktop and similar devices.
Great! I really hope you're happy with that setup! It's your personal computer and by all means, do what works well for you. In the end that's always a personal thing that's different for everyone. Who am I to judge how you use your computer?
But maybe ... stop complaining about Linux desktop then? If you don't like it? This must be like the 3rd time I've seen these types of single-line dismissive "Linux will never win the desktop"-comment from you in the last few days. Just one line, little or no context, or explanation, and IMHO also zero value, and an entire discussion derailed.
This is just becoming disruptive. You don't need to say anything you know. Personally, I rather dislike a number of things, but you don't see me complaining about it with one-liners every chance I get – and when I do say something, at least I make sure it's something of some substance, when I feel it actually contributes. And I sure as hell don't go around complaining people are "children" for disagreeing.
Ideally that kind of thing would be part of GNOME, or KDE, but then there are those that rather keep using twm like experience, making GNU/Linux really only good for headless experiences, at least the UNIX/POSIX part is always there.
Yeah, binary software will have to ship its own copy of ffmpeg... This isn't unique to media codecs though.
No perfect solutions here; both "system-wide codecs" and "every application brings their own codecs" have their own up- and downsides.
Besides, with ffmpeg and gstreamer the system-wide codecs paradigm also works on Linux.
This is one of those "it's different but it doesn't really matter much" type of things. Most people "just" install vlc or mpv or whatnot and things will "just work" for them, not really different from Windows. That it's technically slightly different is almost entirely transparent to the user.
> Firefox currently supports hardware video decoding with Intel's vendor specific VA-API only on Linux, which is not supported by NVIDIA.
(emphasis added)
You further wrote:
> Firefox uses Windows Media Foundation, which is cross-vendor, on Windows. It uses MediaCodec on Android which is again cross-vendor.
And? None of those APIs are cross-platform. Vulkan Video will eventually allow developers (including Firefox developers) to write a single code path for video to cover a wide range of platforms and vendors (likely with the exception of walled gardens like Apple-land, although someone might find a way to support like via a wrapper like MoltenVk for Vulkan).
What are you talking about? They didn't quote that sentence at all, and didn't cut in the middle of the sentence they quoted.
> And? None of those APIs are cross-platform.
Your original objection, the thing that got quoted, was about whether things are cross-vendor. That question is completely unrelated to whether things are cross-platform.
> The idea behind Vulkan Video Extensions is to have a vendor independent and cross-platform video API.
(emphasis added)
So if someone criticizes a portion of your statement which is already countered by your original full statement, you're not allowed to remind your full statement. What kind of logic is that?
My original post says the point of Vulkan Video is it will be cross-platform and cross-vendor. And gives one example of cross-vendor side of things on Linux.
Someone criticizes me by essentially saying "you are incorrect, that's only on Linux. Windows, Android and iOS have their own video APIs...". This "correction" is incorrect because I already said on Linux, and it goes on to actually reinforce the post that he is responding to by highlighting cross-platform side, which also is in the post he is responding to.
So, if you look at the full conversation, the criticism is self-contradictory. This is what I'm pointing out, but you are implying I'm not allowed to do that.
I disagree. When you fragment a statement in a way that changes its meaning and make a straw man out of it, people are justified in responding to it.
The other stuff in your comment did not "counter" what they said. You made statements about cross-vendor and cross-platform. They chose to only respond to one of those statements. That's not incorrect.
> This "correction" is incorrect because I already said on Linux
The first part of your comment specifically said "not "various OS' native APIs"". That goes beyond Linux. The later part of your comment was about Linux in particular, but your introduction was an overall statement that wasn't true.
> When you fragment a statement in a way that changes its meaning
They didn't. You misspoke and they didn't know what you actually meant.
And from your other post: > Obviously, I meant to say statement, not sentence, but I can't edit it anymore.
That was not obvious. They quoted an entire paragraph, and the subsequent paragraph does not change its meaning the way you're claiming it does.
Obviously, I meant to say statement, not sentence, but I can't edit it anymore.
Incorrect. Firefox uses Windows Media Foundation, which is cross-vendor, on Windows. It uses MediaCodec on Android which is again cross-vendor. Presumably it uses whatever iOS' equivalent is as well.
It only uses VA-API on a single OS, Linux, and that's probably more a reflection on the media qualities (or lack thereof) of Linux as a whole. Maybe Vulkan video extensions will be the savior on Linux. Or maybe it won't because it won't be anyone's focus of investment since it's largely a Linux-only problem in the first place.