Open GL and Linux

[anandrkris]

Hi All,

I stumbled across a news article this morning listed in Google news. Here is a an extract from the article.

This should be an embarrassment for all parties concerned; we (by which I mean, the community of Linux users, developers and enthusiasts; I am not a developer or distributor) are still shipping on modern systems a graphics API that is now six years old, and that was superseded four years ago. I had to check Wikipedia for my chronology; GL2.1 was 2006, and 3.0 was 2008. GL4.3 is the current standard. And yet, on the shiney, new Fedora 18 install I set up a few days ago, I get GL2.1, in spite of my somewhat-recent Radeon 6650.

I just want to understand whether Linux really lags so much in terms of Graphics standards and whether it significantly impacts the graphics experience of user, especially gaming. Also, want to know it is because of lack of support from card manufacturers. I dont want to be misguided by the news article. Keen to hear your views.

[anandrkris]

Sharing what I've read lately...
The State Of OpenGL 3/4 Support In Mesa/Gallium3D

For reaching OpenGL 3.2 compliance, most of what's left is OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) 1.50 support along with bits of the geometry shaders enablement. After that, OpenGL 3.3 will quickly come into place.

Geometry Shaders For Gallium3D LLVM

It's likely by the release of Mesa 9.2 (Mesa 10.0) in 5~6 months time that OpenGL 3.2 and even possibly OpenGL 3.3 will be ready finally for users of the open-source graphics drivers on the Linux desktop.