Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration • Hacker News Board

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#41

Post by cyphar » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

williamstein wrote: post #28

hiccuphippo wrote: post #15

How good is the Virtualized Linux Environmen for developmentt? Can I run stuff like Docker on it?

Docker mostly works. However, `sudo docker run -it centos bash` fails because the centos image (as do many others) uses extended attributes, which are not compatible with the underlying btrfs filesystem. In those cases, I've been rebuilding the Docker images myself from source, when possible. It's frustratingly close! wstein@penguin:~$ sudo docker run -it centos bash Unable to find image 'centos:latest' locally lates…

btrfs definitely supports extended attributes (and if it didn't you'd get ENOTSUP not EPERM when trying to use them). It's far more likely this is because you cannot set certain xattrs within a user namespace (such as some security.* ones) -- and LXC is being used with user namespaces in ChromeOS.

In fact, I added code to Docker almost 4 years ago to ignore ENOTSUP on xattr errors specifically because of filesystem support (AUFS was the issue at the time). So if it was a support issue you wouldn't see it, because the code already handles it. :P

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#42

Post by opencl » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

pqz wrote: post #33

zozbot123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "crap" Windows notebook becomes perfectly usable, even quite snappy, when the Windows install is wiped out and replaced with Linux. (Barring hardware issues, of course.) It's not like low-end Chromebooks have better hardware specs for the price.

I'm not talking about the hw specs, I'm talking about the shitty build all cheap Windows laptops have. Correct me if wrong but I think all Chromebooks are sturdy and durable regardless of the price.

Some cheap laptops are available with basically the same hardware running either ChromeOS or Windows. See for example HP's Chromebook and Stream line, they are near-identical aside from the keyboard layout and the Windows models having more storage.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#43

Post by williamstein » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #41

williamstein wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Docker mostly works. However, `sudo docker run -it centos bash` fails because the centos image (as do many others) uses extended attributes, which are not compatible with the underlying btrfs filesystem. In those cases, I've been rebuilding the Docker images myself from source, when possible. It's frustratingly close! wstein@penguin:~$ sudo docker run -it centos bash Unable to find image 'centos:latest' locally lates…

btrfs definitely supports extended attributes (and if it didn't you'd get ENOTSUP not EPERM when trying to use them). It's far more likely this is because you cannot set certain xattrs within a user namespace (such as some security.* ones) -- and LXC is being used with user namespaces in ChromeOS. In fact, I added code to Docker almost 4 years ago to ignore ENOTSUP on xattr errors specifically because of filesystem s…

Thanks for the clarification. I love btrfs by the way.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#44

Post by pawelmurias » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

bubblethink wrote: post #14

This is all very cool stuff of course. Somewhat tangentially, I wonder if, collectively, a lot of recent developments such as WSL and crostini push the year of the linux desktop even further out. A new generation of people will experience traditional GNU/linux as we know only in the context of walled garden setups like windows, chromeos, and android (samsung dex I think has something similar). Objectively, this is an…

I would bet on something like Chromebooks combined with steam being the only chance of Linux on desktop succeeding. Gnome and Ubuntu just sucks too hard to win on it's own.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#45

Post by glenrivard » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

Finally. This approach means that GNU/Linux will still work when Google updates ChromeOS to Fuchsia.

They are using Virt-GPU. Google is supporting Virt-IO with Fuchsia.

Google created an equivalent to QEMU and KVM on Fuchsia which is called Machina.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#46

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

bubblethink wrote: post #14

This is all very cool stuff of course. Somewhat tangentially, I wonder if, collectively, a lot of recent developments such as WSL and crostini push the year of the linux desktop even further out. A new generation of people will experience traditional GNU/linux as we know only in the context of walled garden setups like windows, chromeos, and android (samsung dex I think has something similar). Objectively, this is an…

You are pretty much right, GNU/Linux as mass market desktop has lost its opportunity.

ChromeOS market share is irrelevant outside North America, just check the worldwide market share in your favourite source.

Only Android/Linux has really taken off and even there we still don't know what are Google's plans regarding Fuchsia. It might pretty well be that some future Android version will get a new kernel, announced at Google IO.

It is now quite common to attend Linux conferences just to watch the presenters using macOS with a Linux distribution running either on a local or remote VM.

Assuming WSL keeps improving, it wouldn't surprise me to see similar sessions being done from a W10 laptop.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#47

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

> But all in all, I am actually quite happy with my Pixelbook purchase. If the hardware/firmware experience could improve a bit, then it would have been a very, very good purchase despite all the hates from Youtube reviewers.

How do you forgive something like that? The LTE on my Lenovo X1C 6th gen fails randomly (with recent driver updates, it’s just once a week). I’m never buying a Lenovo again, basic functionality like that should just work. Laptops are solved technology. They should not have bugs like this.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#48

Post by drcode » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

opencl wrote: post #40

drcode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean it won't accelerate 2d graphics? Should I expect acceleration in gimp/emacs/etc after the Crostini patch is available?

It'll accelerate 2D graphics that use OpenGL. GIMP and emacs don't use hardware acceleration in the first place. Krita uses OpenGL to draw the canvas so it will get accelerated.

> GIMP and emacs don't use hardware acceleration in the first place.

Honest question: On most OSes, don't regular drawing operations in these programs (Bitblits, font renderings) typically use hardware acceleration through the OS? On crostini, are these things currently done via pure CPU operations, or are they already being mapped to hardware-accelerated API calls, even before the new OpenGL support?

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#49

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

jimmies wrote: post #2

I am a hardcore Linux user. I went so far as buying Chromebooks to wipe ChromeOS and run Linux on them in the last 5 years. As of late, I have decided to leave ChromeOS alone on my new Pixelbook. There are two reasons for that decision: - I just love having the ability to have a pen to draw when I needed to share the screen to explain something for my friends when we talk about technical crap. ChromeOS supports the p…

Unfortunately Pixelbook is not supported by GalliumOS, otherwise a multiboot with actual linux would prove to be a better alternative.

Google sent me a free Acer Chromebook 11 N7, with custom firmware I'm able to dual boot ChromeOS & GalliumOS (built on Xubuntu) & use the latter for running some experiments where fan-less X86 arch comes in handy.

Till X86 based SBC become affordable & widely available, the Celeron based Chromebooks seems to be an google alternative.

Re: Pixelbook and “Nami” Chromebooks the First to Get Linux GPU Acceleration

#50

Post by bitwize » Sat, Jan 19, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

opencl wrote: post #40

drcode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean it won't accelerate 2d graphics? Should I expect acceleration in gimp/emacs/etc after the Crostini patch is available?

It'll accelerate 2D graphics that use OpenGL. GIMP and emacs don't use hardware acceleration in the first place. Krita uses OpenGL to draw the canvas so it will get accelerated.

With Xorg's GLAMOR driver, all 2d graphics use OpenGL.

God knows if Xwayland will incorporate GLAMOR. Since almost all compositors except for Weston assume the presence of a GPU, you'd think it would, but I have not been delighted with Wayland development thus far...