Author Topic: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?  (Read 3550 times)

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Online nctnico

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #25 on: November 06, 2019, 11:31:05 am »
no, it just happened your choosen hardware (among the pool of peripherals) to be compatible with your choosen system. if game and 3D is not your intention, why dont just use built in MoBo's GPU? ($0 cost 0 compatibility headache) or maybe you dont have any?
There isn't any onboard video. I actually choose a cheaper graphics card which is more than anough for workstation / 2D CAD use. Less heat is better.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #26 on: November 06, 2019, 05:02:24 pm »
what i wonder is why GPU's manufacturers took this slow to introduce their product to Linux environment. GPU is just a small part in peripherals. i'm talking about all the devices that are meant to be connected to a PC. when i look at a product/device, goto website, there's only Windows driver, Linux driver, none. look at that product, same. why dont every manufacturers will provide driver for both Windows and Linux? my only guess is maintaining compatibility across 1001 type of Linuxes is simply a nightmare, or... Linux market is just not profitable. either due to very small users population, or Linux only profitable at very small area such as IT, or the business or code model of the Linux itself is not that appealing (make your secret sauce / IP open? well thats not good!)

Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #27 on: November 06, 2019, 06:55:24 pm »
what i wonder is why GPU's manufacturers took this slow to introduce their product to Linux environment. GPU is just a small part in peripherals. i'm talking about all the devices that are meant to be connected to a PC. when i look at a product/device, goto website, there's only Windows driver, Linux driver, none. look at that product, same. why dont every manufacturers will provide driver for both Windows and Linux? my only guess is maintaining compatibility across 1001 type of Linuxes is simply a nightmare, or... Linux market is just not profitable. either due to very small users population, or Linux only profitable at very small area such as IT, or the business or code model of the Linux itself is not that appealing (make your secret sauce / IP open? well thats not good!)

Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?
Do you really need to post this crap in every Linux related thread? I don't get why you keep posting this statemant despite overwhelming evidence that Linux has a much bigger share in several market segments. Big enough for software companies to create Linux versions of their software because they lose sales otherwise.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #28 on: November 06, 2019, 07:29:21 pm »
Well, sure. But doesn't NVidia provide Linux drivers? So they do just that. The fact they don't release source code is understandable. Deal with it. And yes, they can't possibly test their drivers on any possible Linux distribution and kernel version, so it's obvious you may run into issues in some cases.

Some people may not like the proprietary approach when targetting Linux, but it's a whole debate in itself. It's clearly not always possible for a commercial company to release everything they do as open source, and I personally don't blame, and understand it.

Now I may have been lucky, but I have never had much problems with NVidia's proprietary drivers on Linux. Granted I don't do anything fancy graphics-wise, but I've used OpenGL quite a bit.

« Last Edit: November 06, 2019, 07:31:46 pm by SiliconWizard »
 
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Offline Karel

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #29 on: November 06, 2019, 07:40:53 pm »
Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?

1.5 pct of 1 billion personal computers are still 15 million Linux desktops.
And most of them aren't kids, housewives or hobbyists. Most Linux desktop users are engineers.

Why do industrial grade EDA software have native Linux versions?
« Last Edit: November 06, 2019, 07:54:13 pm by Karel »
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #30 on: November 07, 2019, 09:06:05 pm »
Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?

1.5 pct of 1 billion personal computers are still 15 million Linux desktops.
And most of them aren't kids, housewives or hobbyists. Most Linux desktop users are engineers.

Why do industrial grade EDA software have native Linux versions?

All true but how many are potential NVIDIA customers who absolutely need bleeding edge performance?  It's going to be a small percentage of those 15 million Linux desktops.   Gamers are more likely to need performance than engineers.  Sure, the engineers want bleeding edge tech but do they really need it?  Yes, some do.  Most don't.  I don't follow the game market but around here they seem to be based on Steam and Steam doesn't fully support Linux.  Some games work, some don't.

Remember, in this dance there are two parties.  Linux refuses to cooperate with closed source and NVIDIA refuses to open up their IP.  Neither are wrong!  I went through the NVIDIA song and dance quite a few years ago with Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a Dell machine.  Dell configured the system and it all worked well until I made the mistake of upgrading the kernel.  The right answer would have been to stay at the level it had and ignore the updates.  It was a total nightmare and the kernel updates were frequent.

This same conversation occurs a couple of times per year and the solution is simple:  If you want to run Linux, buy AMD graphics cards and avoid NVIDIA.  After all these years it is a pretty good bet that NVIDIA isn't going to suddenly change to open source.  They must think their position is correct for their business segment or they would have changed it a long time back.  They're still in business so it must be working out for them.

As to engineering, yes, Linux is an ideal platform.  I use it a lot when I write code that is built with Makefiles.  It just seems easier to do that with a terminal and the toolkit of Linux.  I like it but I'm not an evangelist.  People should make their own decisions.  I have 4 machines with various flavors of Linux and 6 machines with various versions of Windows.  This doesn't include a bunch of Raspberry PIs, two of which are emulating PDP-11s.  I'm agnostic.  All they need to do is get a Live CD and play with it, overlooking the fact that it is 100 times slower than an installed version.



 

Online nctnico

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #31 on: November 07, 2019, 10:35:07 pm »
Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?

1.5 pct of 1 billion personal computers are still 15 million Linux desktops.
And most of them aren't kids, housewives or hobbyists. Most Linux desktop users are engineers.

Why do industrial grade EDA software have native Linux versions?
All true but how many are potential NVIDIA customers who absolutely need bleeding edge performance?  It's going to be a small percentage of those 15 million Linux desktops.   Gamers are more likely to need performance than engineers.  Sure, the engineers want bleeding edge tech but do they really need it?  Yes, some do.  Most don't.  I don't follow the game market but around here they seem to be based on Steam and Steam doesn't fully support Linux.  Some games work, some don't.
Games are not the only target market for manufacturers of graphics cards. There is also the high performance computing market and the embedded computer market. Linux is big in both these markets. NVidia even has a range of embedded computer modules based on their Tegra SoCs. The only OS NVidia supports on those is Linux.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #32 on: November 08, 2019, 12:51:19 am »
Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?

1.5 pct of 1 billion personal computers are still 15 million Linux desktops.
And most of them aren't kids, housewives or hobbyists. Most Linux desktop users are engineers.

Why do industrial grade EDA software have native Linux versions?
All true but how many are potential NVIDIA customers who absolutely need bleeding edge performance?  It's going to be a small percentage of those 15 million Linux desktops.   Gamers are more likely to need performance than engineers.  Sure, the engineers want bleeding edge tech but do they really need it?  Yes, some do.  Most don't.  I don't follow the game market but around here they seem to be based on Steam and Steam doesn't fully support Linux.  Some games work, some don't.
Games are not the only target market for manufacturers of graphics cards. There is also the high performance computing market and the embedded computer market. Linux is big in both these markets. NVidia even has a range of embedded computer modules based on their Tegra SoCs. The only OS NVidia supports on those is Linux.
And yet, NVIDIA is not willing to give up their IP to satisfy the open source crowd.  Two choices:  Buy AMD boards (I assume they have decent performance) or suffer through closed source NVIDIA drivers.  Those are all of the options when it comes to Linux.  No other solutions exist in terms of NVIDIA and Linux.  We can assume that NVIDIA is aware of their reputation in the Linux community and don't care.  Why does this keep coming up?  Nothing is going to change!
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #33 on: November 08, 2019, 12:59:30 am »
Linux represents less than 2% of desktops, why bother?

1.5 pct of 1 billion personal computers are still 15 million Linux desktops.
And most of them aren't kids, housewives or hobbyists. Most Linux desktop users are engineers.

Why do industrial grade EDA software have native Linux versions?
All true but how many are potential NVIDIA customers who absolutely need bleeding edge performance?  It's going to be a small percentage of those 15 million Linux desktops.   Gamers are more likely to need performance than engineers.  Sure, the engineers want bleeding edge tech but do they really need it?  Yes, some do.  Most don't.  I don't follow the game market but around here they seem to be based on Steam and Steam doesn't fully support Linux.  Some games work, some don't.
Games are not the only target market for manufacturers of graphics cards. There is also the high performance computing market and the embedded computer market. Linux is big in both these markets. NVidia even has a range of embedded computer modules based on their Tegra SoCs. The only OS NVidia supports on those is Linux.
And yet, NVIDIA is not willing to give up their IP to satisfy the open source crowd.  Two choices:  Buy AMD boards (I assume they have decent performance) or suffer through closed source NVIDIA drivers.  Those are all of the options when it comes to Linux.  No other solutions exist in terms of NVIDIA and Linux.  We can assume that NVIDIA is aware of their reputation in the Linux community and don't care.  Why does this keep coming up?  Nothing is going to change!
And where is this a problem? So far the only thing I see is that you didn't read the documentation and as a result had to fix your system. How is that Nvidia's fault?

To me it is simple: if I use Nvidia hardware then I have to stick with what is compatible with the drivers available.  BTW this is the same for any piece of hardware whether the drivers are open source of closed source so this is not an NVidia specific issue.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2019, 01:02:13 am by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline legacy

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #34 on: November 08, 2019, 01:45:12 pm »
Remember, in this dance there are two parties.  Linux refuses to cooperate with closed source and NVIDIA refuses to open up their IP.  Neither are wrong! 

Considering the current level "regression" with the ${kernel_next} (while I am writing this, it's v6 planned, on v5-rc6 debugged) is going to blow up, so "no more Linux in the future" is the promise they probably will .. to us.

For example, Alan Cox is tired, and what will happen when even Mr.Linus.T. will be tired? They have been on the scene for 20 years, and we frankly need a solid flush out Apple, Microsoft, and Linux. They did their gold ages, it's time for new things.

There is neither a designated successor in the hierarchy and for me, this means solid unplug.

No more Linus.T? No more Linux.

 
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Online Nominal Animal

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #35 on: November 08, 2019, 03:25:30 pm »
They did their gold ages, it's time for new things.
My thoughts exactly.

We do need a new OS that caters to current needs better.
If we look at hot parts of the Linux kernel, they are things like cgroups and all sorts of interprocess-interprivilege buses, things like virtualization, sandboxing, BSD jails, flatpak/snap/runtime environments...

Revamping the standard C library to something closer to current hardware would also be nice.
 

Offline wnorcott

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Re: Why in 2019, Linux still have problem with "certain" GPUs ?
« Reply #36 on: November 09, 2019, 02:10:42 am »
Hello friends.  I am late to this party but I really think AMD stepped up its game lately not only with video card support but also support of its APUs in Linux.  They seem to just work.  Also give Torvalds his due, but Unix existed long before Linux, and Linux has branches out to Android, Chrome, etc.  and those continue to grow and diverge from the original, and from each other.   Nobody gave up automobiles when Henry Ford died, either. 
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