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OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

asahilinux.org

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Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#251

Post by MBCook »

stirlo wrote: post #214
DCKing wrote: post #7

I wonder if the new Mac Pro's full PCI Express support resolves any limitations that prevents people from using GPUs over Thunderbolt on existing Apple Silicon hardware (this is apparently a hardware limitation). Although the Mac Pro's PCIe extensibility makes it a pretty mystifying niche product from Apple without providing memory and GPU expandability, once Asahi Linux gets running on there you should be able to no…

@Marcan shared some technical details around their PCI Express implementation recently here: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110494017883893557 It seems they didn't make any massive changes and instead just put switches on the existing PCI-E Lanes. That probably doesn't bode well for full GPU support :(

There are no GPU drivers anyway. So I’m not sure it matters (Linux or macOS).

Seems designed more to support lots of low/medium bandwidth cards, not a few high bandwidth cards.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#252

Post by MBCook »

nightski wrote: post #4

This is great work and I commend it. But in other threads people are acting like Asahi Linux hardware support is 100% complete. My fear is that if I were to go this route and purchase the hardware I'd be seeing fraction of the performance and capability I would in Mac OS. To be honest this blog post seems like the project has a long ways to go, not that it is nearly completion. I just can't justify buying hardware fr…

> I just can't justify buying hardware from a company that is so hostile to developers and hackers as nice as it may be.

While I understand what you’re saying, the developers of Asahi have said before that Apple appears to be going out of their way to leave things open for them.

Apple’s boot security is enough they could easily prevent anyone from ever running a non-Apple blessed OS. But Apple made it fully supported to boot directly into a non-Apple OS as your primary OS.

They’re not helping by giving code or documentation, but they’re not putting up roadblocks. Apple seems to be happy with a stance of benevolent indifference.

It’s not official support. But a number of PC vendors don’t give official support either.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#253

Post by MBCook »

thx-2718 wrote: post #167
hedora wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going with the first link. The "best" phone is not globally available. The second "best" comes with three years of OS updates. I stopped reading there; three years is a much, much shorter lifespan than you get with iOS or MacOS. Also, say you have one of these phones, and are in a major city, then break it. How will you get the parts you need to repair it? How many hours will you be without a phone? With Apple phones…

I am sorry but you're missing the point here. I'm not arguing over better hardware (performance) or price. I am arguing over hack-ability; that's it. I hope you can understand that.

> I'm not arguing over better hardware (performance) or price

Neither was the comment you replied to.

They were arguing that Apple provides excellent hardware support (in terms of repairs and how long they take) and lifetime (in terms of how long updates are provided for the device).

Hackability is irrelevant. Apple clearly doesn’t target that market and hadn’t since the Apple II days.

Would you buy a Lamborghini and complain it makes a terrible truck?

That’s not something Apple designs their products for, and their users are either fine with that or willing to make the trade off for the other things Apple does prioritize.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#254

Post by MBCook »

nightski wrote: post #68
coldtea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My fear is that if I were to go this route and purchase the hardware I'd be seeing fraction of the performance and capability I would in Mac OS. The performance is there, it has been running stuff much faster than the vast majority of Intel/AMD laptops for over a year. Regarding the capabilities not sure which one you miss. Do you plan to use it for development, or you want some kind of gaming/multimedia setup? > T…

I don't see why it is unreasonable to desire Apple to provide documentation and open up their hardware. Honestly I'd ask the same as any other hardware vendor. Intel for example provides very detailed technical documents on their new GPUs (A770).

> Intel for example provides very detailed technical documents on their new GPUs

Intel sells parts to other people, and those buyers expect that kind of documentation. And when it comes to GPUs they’re in 3rd place for high end GPUs and are incentivized to give people as much info as possible to optimize for their hardware.

Apple doesn’t sell their computer hardware to any other OEMs, or hsve a 3rd party making their OS, so they don’t need to produce documentation for anyone.

I agree it would be nice if it was documented. But absent a law forcing them I don’t see it happening.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#255

Post by MBCook »

hedora wrote: post #174
Timon3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the CPU run at similar frequencies between Mac OS and Linux (since they're writing their own drivers this isn't guaranteed)? Is the scheduling done similarly? Are there any special hardware modes you have to activate with e.g. binary blobs? There are a bunch of factors that could affect performance even under the same OS (try underclocking your CPU or play around with schedulers). Given the mostly non-existent d…

The currently top-rated top-level HN comment goes into those details. This release significantly improves CPU power management, to the point where it should be similar to MacOS. Some of this stuff is handled by binary blobs that get installed/upgraded by MacOS, and are running by the time Linux boots. With the previous release, power per watt and absolute performance were already better than high-end x86 laptops, so…

Right. Everything I’ve seen implies they’re both using the hardware the same way (no “limp mode” or such).

Linux tends to be faster because the kernel is just far better optimized than Apple’s appears to be. Massive sums of money (and person hours) have been spent speeding up Linux networking, file systems, scheduling, etc. and it was all sent back to mainline.

Apple’s kernel team can’t possibly compete based on resources alone. They do their best but MS, Google, Amazon, Redhat, and so many others are constantly improving Linux to squeeze out every last drop of performance.

So in many ways Linux is better optimized. I remember one of the developers posting a few weeks ago about just how much faster code compilation was under Linux, because the file system layer is so much better. It was like 6x or something. Sort of an accidental ideal benchmark for stressing that.

But you won’t be disappointed.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#256

Post by MBCook »

hollerith wrote: post #185
jb1991 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still do so with VMs, officially endorsed. But Bootcamp is RIP. Asahi Linux is not a VM, so not a fair comparison.

I wasn't comparing. I was refuting your assertion. What has changed that prevents Apple from officially endorsing another OS nowadays when it clearly was able to do so in the past?

My assumption would be support.

Boot Camp was officially supported. It gave them an advantage because it helped people move over to a Mac from windows because they could still run some of their software.

If Apple was to help Asahi officially, I think they would be worried that they would be on the hook either for continuing to support it or for damage done to the hardware by other peoples changes to the code.

Basically I think it’s a combination of not wanting to spend the money and being worried about the potential downsides of doing it.

The upside, in terms of additional sales, is likely very small.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#257

Post by MBCook »

ex3ndr wrote: post #236

Super curious if it is possible to run nvidia gpu on new Mac Pro using Asahi Linux? Can it be vritualized with pass-through?

The one announced yesterday?

I think the main problem would be where would you get ARM drivers?

On Intel people were able to existing driver blobs. But if there are no official ARM blobs anywhere, it would be a much bigger effort.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#258

Post by MBCook »

haolez wrote: post #250

Can Asahi Linux run on the new Mac Pro? Would I be able to use the GPU to run LLM models?

They’ve never done an M2 Ultra, as no one (anywhere) has one yet.

I believe they said they will work on it but they can’t promise a support date because they don’t know how long it will take once they have the hardware. And I don’t know when they’ll get the hardware.

So basically the recommendation was “don’t buy it to run Asahi yet, you’ll probably be waiting a bit”.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#259

Post by MBCook »

htk wrote: post #6

"And yes, the team is already working on Vulkan." This can do more for gaming on the Mac than Apple's efforts combined.

Are you aware that Apple made it clear yesterday they have a full Direct3D 12 translation layer yesterday?

The biggest problem is chicken and the egg. There is no high-end gaming hardware, there are few games, and there isn’t much demand for the kind of games Windows gets.

But without the hardware it’s not clear the games makes sense. And without the gamers it’s not clear porting makes sense. And without the hardware the gamers and the games won’t come.

Even if Apple released a 100% functional and performant Vulcan implementation tomorrow I seriously doubt it would make any real difference to the gaming market on the Mac.

Re: OpenGL 3.1 on Asahi Linux

#260

Post by MBCook »

tormeh wrote: post #49

Sorry, but what's the point? Why not just buy a Linux laptop and have everything work out of the box? Why are Linux enthusiasts putting so much effort into supporting hardware from companies that - at best - ignore Linux? This question is also valid for other manufacturers, btw, not just Apple. So much time wasted doing free labor for hardware companies that will just break your stuff with the next hardware iteration…

Are there any PC laptops, running Linux or Windows, that you can buy for a similar price that run as long, as cool (temp), as fast, and with a screen as good as an M2 Air?

I know there are faster machines, but they’re usually hotter. There are cooler machines, but they’re usually not as fast. There are cheaper machines but the screens are worse. And there are long battery life machines but they’re usually low performance Chromebooks.

I don’t know of any other machine that made the trade-offs to end up offering a similar combination. At any price.

And I said nothing about noise or thinness.

Once you’ve used one, it’s a very seductive combination of features. I don’t want to go back to “6-8 hours of battery life is enough”, or hearing fans, or using my laptop as a hand-warmer in summer. And I don’t understand how 1080p is still so common.

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