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Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

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Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#261

Post by kristianp »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #231
ninth_ant wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu LTS is currently on track to be that. Both in the server and desktop space, in my personal experience it feels like a rising number of commercial apps are targeting that distro specifically. It’s not my distribution of choice, but it’s currently doing exactly what you suggest.

The problem with any LTS release is lack of support for newer hardware. Not as much of an issue for an enthusiast or sysadmin who's likely to be using well-supported hardware, but can be a huge one for a more typical end user hoping to run Linux on their recently purchased laptop.

Is that true? I did just that on my newly purchsed laptop in 2023. It was a thinkpad though.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#262

Post by znpy »

Fiveplus wrote: post #17

Valve is practically singlehandedly dragging the Linux ecosystem forward in areas that nobody else wanted to touch. They needed Windows games to run on Linux so we got massive Proton/Wine advancements. They needed better display output for the deck and we got HDR and VRR support in wayland. They also needed smoother frame pacing and we got a scheduler that Zuck is now using to run data centers. Its funny to think tha…

If anything it’s crazy that a company as large as meta is doing such a shitty job that it has to pull in solutions from entirely different industries … but that’s just my opinion

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#263

Post by znpy »

Fiveplus wrote: post #17

Valve is practically singlehandedly dragging the Linux ecosystem forward in areas that nobody else wanted to touch. They needed Windows games to run on Linux so we got massive Proton/Wine advancements. They needed better display output for the deck and we got HDR and VRR support in wayland. They also needed smoother frame pacing and we got a scheduler that Zuck is now using to run data centers. Its funny to think tha…

Gaben is our lord and saviour.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#264

Post by PlanksVariable »

sneak wrote: post #188
tapoxi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is actually extremely small, I've heard estimates at around 350-400 people. They're also a flat organization, with all the good and bad that brings, so scaling with contractors is easier than bringing on employees that might want to work on something else instead.

300 people isn’t “extremely small” for a company. I don’t work with/for companies over 100 people, for example, and those are already quite big.

Of course smaller companies exist — there are 1 person companies! But in a world where many tech companies have 50,000+ employees, 300 is much closer to 100 or 10 and they can all be considered small.

And then you consider it in context: a company with huge impact, brand recognition, and revenue (about $50M/employee in 2025). They’ve remained extremely small compared to how big they could grow.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#265

Post by mips_avatar »

ninth_ant wrote: post #216
iknowstuff wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's far more of that, starting with the lack of a stable ABI in gnu/linux distros. Eventually Valve or Google (with Android) are gonna swoop in with a user-friendly, targetable by devs OS that's actually a single platform

Ubuntu LTS is currently on track to be that. Both in the server and desktop space, in my personal experience it feels like a rising number of commercial apps are targeting that distro specifically. It’s not my distribution of choice, but it’s currently doing exactly what you suggest.

I just installed Ubuntu again after a few years, and it’s striking how familiar the pain points are—especially around graphics. If Ubuntu LTS is positioning itself as the standard commercial Linux target, it has to clearly outperform Windows on fundamentals, not just ideology. Linux feels perpetually one breakthrough release away from actually displacing it.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#266

Post by WackyFighter »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #197
Fiveplus wrote: post #17

Valve is practically singlehandedly dragging the Linux ecosystem forward in areas that nobody else wanted to touch. They needed Windows games to run on Linux so we got massive Proton/Wine advancements. They needed better display output for the deck and we got HDR and VRR support in wayland. They also needed smoother frame pacing and we got a scheduler that Zuck is now using to run data centers. Its funny to think tha…

One would've expected one of the many desktop-oriented distros (some with considerable funding, even) to have tackled these things already, but somehow desktop Linux has been stuck in the awkward midway of "it technically works, just learn to live with the rough edges" until finally Valve took initiative. Go figure.

That isn't it. Generally whatever the majority of users tend to use that where the majority of focus goes.

The vast majority of people that were using Linux on the desktop before 2015 were either hobbyists, developers or people that didn't want to run proprietary software for whatever reason.

These people generally didn't care about a lot of fancy tech mentioned. So this stuff didn't get fixed.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#267

Post by robotnikman »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #153
Fiveplus wrote: post #17

Valve is practically singlehandedly dragging the Linux ecosystem forward in areas that nobody else wanted to touch. They needed Windows games to run on Linux so we got massive Proton/Wine advancements. They needed better display output for the deck and we got HDR and VRR support in wayland. They also needed smoother frame pacing and we got a scheduler that Zuck is now using to run data centers. Its funny to think tha…

To be fair proton is based on DXVK which is some guy’s project because he wanted to play nier automata on Linux. The guy is Philip Rebohler.

And thanks to him I was able to play and finish Nier Automata on the Steam Deck!

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#268

Post by cosmic_cheese »

kristianp wrote: post #261
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with any LTS release is lack of support for newer hardware. Not as much of an issue for an enthusiast or sysadmin who's likely to be using well-supported hardware, but can be a huge one for a more typical end user hoping to run Linux on their recently purchased laptop.

Is that true? I did just that on my newly purchsed laptop in 2023. It was a thinkpad though.

That may have been from a generation that’d been out for many months or a year, or was built on a CPU and chipset that’d been out for quite some time already.

The problem is that Linux can’t handle hardware it doesn’t have drivers for (or can only run it in an extremely basic mode), and LTS kernels only have drivers for hardware that existed prior to their release.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#269

Post by cosmic_cheese »

WackyFighter wrote: post #266
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One would've expected one of the many desktop-oriented distros (some with considerable funding, even) to have tackled these things already, but somehow desktop Linux has been stuck in the awkward midway of "it technically works, just learn to live with the rough edges" until finally Valve took initiative. Go figure.

That isn't it. Generally whatever the majority of users tend to use that where the majority of focus goes. The vast majority of people that were using Linux on the desktop before 2015 were either hobbyists, developers or people that didn't want to run proprietary software for whatever reason. These people generally didn't care about a lot of fancy tech mentioned. So this stuff didn't get fixed.

There’s some truth to that, but a lot of (maybe most) Linux desktop users are on laptops and yet there are many aspects of the Linux laptop experience that skew poor.

I think the bigger problem is that commercial use cases suck much of the air out of the room, leaving little for end user desktop use cases.

Re: Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers

#270

Post by dan-robertson »

butlike wrote: post #219
ZeroCool2u wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Igalia is a bit unique as it serves as a single corporate entity for organizing a lot of sponsored work on the Linux kernel and open source projects. You'll notice in their blog posts they have collaborations with a number of other large companies seeking to sponsor very specific development work. For example, Google works with them a lot. I think it really just simplifies a lot of logistics for paying folks to do th…

Oh ok, so Igalia owns the developer sweatshops now. Got it.

This seems to be a win-win where developers benefit from more work in niche areas, companies benefit by getting better developers for the things they want done, and Igalia gets paid (effectively) for matching the two together, sourcing sufficient work/developers, etc.
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