CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#11

Post by cma » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

black_puppydog wrote: post #5

FiReaNG3L wrote: post #2

This is BIG for machine learning adoption! 2 years ago it was a nightmare to setup everything on a Windows box, and wasn't working in any VMs (WSL or VirtualBox). Very excited about this.

This feels like it's gonna be terrible for people already doing ML. Now, the following has more than a bit of elitism, I'm aware of that, so please don't comment to point that bit out... I'm afraid that searching for answers to specific ML questions will start feeling like trying to google some Windows problems (every few years when I make the mistake of trying to help someone out) where it's all "download this, then…

Hope we don't see things like: "Google announces today that to work around Windows' file path length limitations, Tensorflow's directory structure is being rewritten to use three characters or less per directory."

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#12

Post by anonymousDan » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

benbristow wrote: post #9

blastonico wrote: post #4

How long to start seeing advertisement like "Linux, best viewed on Windows".

Does kind of feel that way. Having a full Windows Desktop with good graphics drivers and software like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, commercial games etc. and Linux for the programming/server-software side of things. I have literally no reason to dual-boot with Ubuntu anymore. WSL2 and Visual Studio Code fulfils all my Linux coding requirements. Maybe (probably?) a bad thing but it's damn convenient.

Yeah I just started using Windows 10/WSL yesterday and I have to say I'm impressed. Are there any downsides/painpoints I should be aware of?

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#13

Post by etaioinshrdlu » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Pity. CUDA was/is proof positive that Linux on the desktop is perfectly feasible and that you can use it to both do a UI and do meaningful computation on the same machine without getting tied down into all kinds of licensing schemes. Opening this further up to Windows gives fewer people a really good reason to try out Linux as their daily driver. I personally don't get why any developer would prefer Windows over Linu…

Well, CUDA is about the opposite of open source. It needs special hardware and a closed source driver.

CUDA on Windows was already a big deal in engineering. Scientists and academics preferred Linux (and python, and docker) and Windows is playing catch up there to become compatible with the tools that have grown in popularity over the last 5 years.

Personally, as an open source advocate, I think competition (even from MS) is healthy. It drives everyone to build a better product.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#14

Post by zantana » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

vaidhy wrote: post #8

My biggest concern for not trying it out right now is that the insider preview for windows is asking for all kinds of data permissions :(

Indeed. I'm not sure why WSL has consistently required some bleeding edge version of Windows to run. I remember trying to get on a managed desktop at work a couple of years ago and apparently the LTS version of Windows used in the enterprise is even farther behind.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#15

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

This is finally the year of the Linux desktop. However, it is running on Windows as WSL.

With this support now for CUDA now, it can be argued that the best, most versatile developer experience is on Windows. You now have access to all the Windows specific tools (such as Visual Studio) as well as all the Linux tools in a very seamless environment.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#16

Post by benbristow » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

anonymousDan wrote: post #12

benbristow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does kind of feel that way. Having a full Windows Desktop with good graphics drivers and software like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, commercial games etc. and Linux for the programming/server-software side of things. I have literally no reason to dual-boot with Ubuntu anymore. WSL2 and Visual Studio Code fulfils all my Linux coding requirements. Maybe (probably?) a bad thing but it's damn convenient.

Yeah I just started using Windows 10/WSL yesterday and I have to say I'm impressed. Are there any downsides/painpoints I should be aware of?

Haven't really used it enough to say. I used it to work on a Ruby on Rails app that I used to dual boot exclusively for and it was seamless and fast.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#17

Post by curiousgal » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

FiReaNG3L wrote: post #2

This is BIG for machine learning adoption! 2 years ago it was a nightmare to setup everything on a Windows box, and wasn't working in any VMs (WSL or VirtualBox). Very excited about this.

Other than C# and other Microsoft specific stacks, I've found coding on Windows to be absolutely horrible compared to Linux.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#18

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #13

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Pity. CUDA was/is proof positive that Linux on the desktop is perfectly feasible and that you can use it to both do a UI and do meaningful computation on the same machine without getting tied down into all kinds of licensing schemes. Opening this further up to Windows gives fewer people a really good reason to try out Linux as their daily driver. I personally don't get why any developer would prefer Windows over Linu…

Well, CUDA is about the opposite of open source. It needs special hardware and a closed source driver. CUDA on Windows was already a big deal in engineering. Scientists and academics preferred Linux (and python, and docker) and Windows is playing catch up there to become compatible with the tools that have grown in popularity over the last 5 years. Personally, as an open source advocate, I think competition (even fro…

Yes, but that doesn't really contradict what I said. As long as manufacturers are willing to support Linux for their products even those that require special hardware, and in spite of having a closed driver this is possible and will work very well, so well that an entire profession can be better supported on Linux than on Windows. And that's very interesting, especially given that CUDA is an outflow of gaming hardware which was better supported on Windows.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#19

Post by benbristow » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Pity. CUDA was/is proof positive that Linux on the desktop is perfectly feasible and that you can use it to both do a UI and do meaningful computation on the same machine without getting tied down into all kinds of licensing schemes. Opening this further up to Windows gives fewer people a really good reason to try out Linux as their daily driver. I personally don't get why any developer would prefer Windows over Linu…

You can use those software repositories through WSL2, using apt as per usual. And Windows now has WinGet so you can install software just like you would with apt/yum/pacman etc.

It's definitely not as robust - you can't uninstall stuff using WinGet but the concept is there.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#20

Post by mattwad » Thu, Jun 18, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Pity. CUDA was/is proof positive that Linux on the desktop is perfectly feasible and that you can use it to both do a UI and do meaningful computation on the same machine without getting tied down into all kinds of licensing schemes. Opening this further up to Windows gives fewer people a really good reason to try out Linux as their daily driver. I personally don't get why any developer would prefer Windows over Linu…

Well, same could be said for Macs. I have both a Macbook and Surface. Windows has surpassed Mac at this point in dev friendliness due to WSL. I've got VS Code and Docker Desktop running remotely to WSL 2 and my Surface Pro is silent. Meanwhile, my Macbook's fan is raging right now with just a single VS Code window. That's very anecdotal, but I have a nice, native sandbox for all my work. It's honestly the best of both worlds. With Mac, every time I upgrade I have to re-install XCode just to compile some Node binaries and use Git. I could go on and on about how little Apple cares about devs, but we are clearly not the target audience. I haven't tried Linux in a while, but on its own it is still the worst of the three for everything that's not software development.