Blender on PBP

[Phillip Bell]

June 6, 2022

I originally didn't have Blender on PBP, then I did, then it didn't work with new OS updates, then I fixed that, now it doesn't work with new OpenGL3.3.

PineBook Pro 1st edition
Manjaro/Arch
Linux D0 5.7.19-1-MANJARO-ARM #1 SMP Wed Sep 2 20:43:09 +03 2020 aarch64 GNU/Linux
OpenGL 3.3 support (/etc/environment updated with PAN_MESA_DEBUG="gl3")
community/blender-2.7-es2 2.79b.r71421.e045fe53f1b-9


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warning: Could not find a matching GPU name. Things may not behave as expected.
Detected OpenGL configuration:
Vendor: Panfrost
Renderer: Mali-T860 (Panfrost)
ERROR (gpu.shader): OVERLAY_shader_armature_shape_425 GeomShader:  
     |  
  20 | {
     |  
     | Error: maximum output vertices (2) exceeds GL_MAX_GEOMETRY_OUTPUT_VERTICES

Writing: /tmp/blender.crash.txt
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

---------------------------------------------

Sure, the geometry shader doesn't work properly as described here:

"Note that GL 3.3 support is incomplete and some rendering features do not work yet, notably geometry shaders."

But darn it, it USED TO, up until the latest rolling Arch distro that I upgraded to today

[kebab]

June 6, 2022

I originally didn't have Blender on PBP, then I did, then it didn't work with new OS updates, then I fixed that, now it doesn't work with new OpenGL3.3.

PineBook Pro 1st edition
Manjaro/Arch
Linux D0 5.7.19-1-MANJARO-ARM #1 SMP Wed Sep 2 20:43:09 +03 2020 aarch64 GNU/Linux
OpenGL 3.3 support (/etc/environment updated with PAN_MESA_DEBUG="gl3")
community/blender-2.7-es2 2.79b.r71421.e045fe53f1b-9


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warning: Could not find a matching GPU name. Things may not behave as expected.
Detected OpenGL configuration:
Vendor: Panfrost
Renderer: Mali-T860 (Panfrost)
ERROR (gpu.shader): OVERLAY_shader_armature_shape_425 GeomShader:  
     |  
  20 | {
     |  
     | Error: maximum output vertices (2) exceeds GL_MAX_GEOMETRY_OUTPUT_VERTICES

Writing: /tmp/blender.crash.txt
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

---------------------------------------------

Sure, the geometry shader doesn't work properly as described here:

"Note that GL 3.3 support is incomplete and some rendering features do not work yet, notably geometry shaders."

But darn it, it USED TO, up until the latest rolling Arch distro that I upgraded to today

If it's Arch, why not just downgrade the relevant packages? https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Downgrading_packages

[Dendrocalamus64]

     | Error: maximum output vertices (2) exceeds GL_MAX_GEOMETRY_OUTPUT_VERTICES

That's the crash message from trying to run Blender 3.3.0, which is currently the version you get if you install package 'blender'. The experimental OpenGL 3.3 support that Manjaro has specifically doesn't have a sufficient implementation of geometry shaders. It would be nice if we could crowdfund this somewhere. OpenGL 3.3 is ancient (Release date: March 11, 2010) and we ought to have it by now.

You list the other package in the repos, community/blender-2.7-es2. The executable from that one is 'blender-2.7' rather than 'blender'. It sounds like you have both installed and you're running the wrong one, and 2.7 from the repos doesn't run any more anyway because it's built against out-of-date library versions. Fixing that by downgrading would require downgrading too much of the system. The only maintainer is busy resettling refugees from the Russo-Ukrainian war, so it doesn't get updated anymore.

I did get the AUR version, which is the exact same git version, to build against current manjaro, and documented it in a post in the comment thread there. I want to clean it up so AUR builds on PBP don't require modification (except for changing to aarch64 in PKGBUILD), but I don't have right time now because of the project I actually needed blender for. On the plus side, it works.

EDIT: Updated my post on AUR to use a python 3.9 -> 3.10 patch instead which removes about 2/3 of the former hassle of building it.