Yet another tearing topic in Debian Sid
 

I'm having some trouble with tearing in a fresh Debian Sid install ... I'm using a standard ASUS P8Z77V motherboard with onboard graphics. The funny thing is, that Knoppix 7.0.5 gets it perfectly right, so it is possible with my hardware.

So what do I need to do to "copy" all the settings from Knoppix to Debian?

[edit]knoppix doesn't get it right after all ... but it seems to be better[/edit]

Tearing... where? Specific programs?
Install the latet kernel (3.6) from experimental + make sure you have the firmware packages installed. Maybe it helps.
Other than that, buying an AMD or Nvidia card. Intel drivers never been good.

Flash video's, mkv video's (played with totem or VLC, doesn't matter). Dragging windows rather quicly, horizontally, ... basically everywhere.

I've had Nvidia cards in the past but I never experienced a "tear-free" linux so I thought a basic intel.

I might be wrong but will a new kernel help?

Nvidia isnt tear-free (i had a 8200). AMD pretty much is, however (now i have a A8-5500 with HD 7560D) - the driver has a "tear-free" option that really does the job.

And yes, a new kernel *might* help, depending what new modifications are included. Right now the latest kernel is 3.7 in the experimental repos, but it doesnt have the linux-kbuild package yet so you cannot compile kernel modules (if you need them anyway). The latest kernel with the kbuild package is 3.6 in experimental.

Other than that, you can download and install the latest kernel from kernel.org.

OK old topic of mine but still after all those years I'm not "tear free". If I use VLC to watch a movie, it's very apparent.

Sometimes you just have to try another video player. I see a lot of distros and software when reviewing distros, and the variation in performance is enormous.

Which DE/WM do you use?

There are a few things that can help:
-turning off any compositing managers
-using opengl or vdpau (if your cards+drivers support it) for display. Opengl is universal and it should work if you force vblanking in the driver.

I would recommend exactly the opposite. It is well known that tearing in XFCE can be eliminated (or at least seriously reduced) by adding a compositor like Compton. That is why I asked which DE/WM is in use.

Yeah, you can reduce the tearing on dragging desktop items and whatnot because the output is translated into opengl (but the tearing is minimal anyway, at least with nvidia or radeon/r600+glamor with latest git mesa+kernels).

But if you play back some video its easier to set it to output on opengl or vdpau. Best is vdpau (OOTB vsync that works well) but that doesnt work on intel or fglrx (it does work on nvidia, nouveau and radeon's newer than hd2000/3000 cards).
Opengl does the job just fine, but make sure vblank is on by default for your cards drivers (the OSS drivers tend to have it on by default).

Using compton to "straighten stuff up" when playing video leads to inconsistent/low frame rates, stuttering (same goes for fglrx' tear free option btw). Yes, it does have an "unrediect fullscreen app" option, but that didnt always worked for me.
DO NOT use the built in xfce compositor - while it does have a vsync option, it doesnt work well with video playback or games (=tearing+high cpu usage) - because its a software based compositor.

Games are a totally different category, the different 3d engines leading to different results regarding vsync. Some work well, some dont (even if they have a vsync on switch). Starting any opengl application preceded by vblank_mode=1 enables vblank usage by default (0 disables), but even then the engine might override it.

Fantastic, after all those years, I finally managed to get a tear free desktop. The Mainboard is not the same but it is an Intel video card.
Add this to a new file called /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Oh and yes I'm running XFCE4. That - apparently - was part of the problem indeed.