Mozilla Firefox 94 for Linux switches from GLX to EGL

In the next version of Firefox 94, the EGL backend for Linux users will be enabled. This will increase WebGL performance and reduce resource consumption.

To use hardware-accelerated APIs, such as OpenGL, with window systems such as X11 or Wayland, there must be an interface that brings them together. For OpenGL on X11 most programs use GLX, while its successor, EGL, is used on Wayland, Android and in the built-in space. While EGL has some major advantages over GLX and can theoretically be used just as well on the X11, its adoption there has been very slow.

Main benefits:

- Improved WebGL performance. Due to the sharing of the zero-copy DMABUF buffer, WebGL can be realized both in the sandbox and in the system ram. WebGL is not only used in games, but also in Google Maps.
- Low energy consumption. We don't have to redraw the entire window if only a small part of the content has changed.
- Fewer bugs. EGL is more modern, more suitable for complex hardware accelerated desktop applications and used on multiple platforms, compared to GLX.
- Hardware video decoding by default.

Team: Martin Stránský, Andrew Osmond, Jamie Nicol, Grep V, Jan Ikenmeyer (Darkspirit), Michel Dänzer, Firefox GFX-Team, Mesa project and collaborators, Nvidia driver team, GTK team.