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

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

#11

Post by bubblethink »

robert_foss wrote: post #9

As a developer of this, it's built using Virgil3D[1], which is rather interesting tech, that allows virtualized guests to get hardware accelerated 3D graphics. It works by having the guest run a Mesa3D (Linux Userspace graphics) driver called virgl in the guest, which takes all of the OpenGL/OpenGL ES commands and send them through through Linux VirtIO[3] to the guest, where they are executed by the virglrenderer[1]…

How does this compare (in performance, experience etc.) to the gvt-g approach ? At least one benefit of gvt-g seems to be that it would also work for windows guests.

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

#12

Post by pqz »

lostmsu wrote: post #6
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…

So, why don't you just use Windows or Mac laptop? You'd have all the same advantages without hardware/firmware problems.

I don't know if this is his reason, but at the price range of a Chromebook I assume all Windows notebooks are crap and Macs are non-existent.

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

#14

Post by bubblethink »

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 improvement by most metrics. However, it also means that this will be good enough for most people. I'm worried that it may lead to even fewer resources and exposure to full blown linux desktops. Canonical has also shifted focus away from desktop.

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

#16

Post by devereaux »

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…

Don't take it personally, but I think it is just growing older and getting more busy with work, life etc.

The returns on investment on the time you spend tickering with your laptop are lower - because you have other uses for your time, and because you have expectations set in the past while ChomeOs keeps improving.

Now if you take a long sabbatical or go back to school, maybe you'll tinker again!

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

#18

Post by bubblethink »

pqz wrote: post #13

Is there some way I could try ChromeOS on my regular PC? Inside VMware or natively.

ChromeOS, no. ChromiumOS, yes. vmware/virtualbox, unlikely without hacking. Qemu/kvm, yes in theory. Native, yes. Possible options for native: 1) https://arnoldthebat.co.uk/wordpress/chromium-os/ 2) https://www.neverware.com/

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

#19

Post by robert_foss »

bubblethink wrote: post #11
robert_foss wrote: post #9

As a developer of this, it's built using Virgil3D[1], which is rather interesting tech, that allows virtualized guests to get hardware accelerated 3D graphics. It works by having the guest run a Mesa3D (Linux Userspace graphics) driver called virgl in the guest, which takes all of the OpenGL/OpenGL ES commands and send them through through Linux VirtIO[3] to the guest, where they are executed by the virglrenderer[1]…

How does this compare (in performance, experience etc.) to the gvt-g approach ? At least one benefit of gvt-g seems to be that it would also work for windows guests.

Without being familiar with being familiar with GVT-G, I would think Virgl3D performs worse, by a decent margin.

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

#20

Post by e12e »

jimmies wrote: post #4
josteink wrote: post #3

Does this mean Chromebooks have been running without HW acceleration all these years? Or is this about something else?

No, the "real" ChromeOS has had acceleration all along. It is about the Chromebooks getting HW acceleration for its virtualized Linux environment when you want to run real Linux apps on it.

Thank you, now I understand the other comment here about the implementation using virtualization - i felt i was missing a kernel/host in that explanation - Linux running under Chrome os makes more sense :)
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