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DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#281

Post by golergka »

foxhill wrote: post #276
lalaland1125 wrote: post #213

It appears that Microsoft has now initiated the "Extend" phase of their classic Embrace, Extend, Extinguish playbook. The key is that the proprietary Microsoft specific API added by this patch is only usable in a WSL environment as it relies on many pieces of proprietary closed source software that Microsoft is unwilling to open source. This patch does nothing but fragment the Linux ecosystem and encourage people to…

i (and others) called this 3 years ago[1]. people need to stop using windows, entirely. i recently built a gaming machine, pretty high spec, and i've resolved to never install windows on it. there are plenty of games i can't play, a few that i would like to. but i wont give money to developers that wont release linux versions of their games - even when they are utilising engines that have linux ports (PUBG being the…

As a game developer, for most mid-tier inside titles releasing Linux version costs more than it makes, so, no.

And regarding using Windows: company's behavior is important, but product quality, especially when it's a tool you use every day for work, is more important. Linux is ok for certain types of developers, it's still awful for normal users, abysmal for office work and obviously not a choice if you develop Windows software.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#282

Post by hibbelig »

bitcrazed wrote: post #175
lucasyvas wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, of course, decidedly not a Linux distro though. If it was, it wouldn't be an issue. I think there are positives, but it looks a lot like "Extend" to me. I can't even say I wouldn't use it - it might be nice! But I will not use any WSL-only capability, that's for sure.

Hi. Microsoft PM working on WSL, Terminal and Windows. WSL2 literally runs user-mode distros (and their binaries) in containers atop a shared Linux kernel image ( https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel ) inside a lightweight VM that can boot an image from cold in So when you run a binary/distro on WSL2, you are LITERALLY running on Linux in a VM alongside all your favorite Windows apps and tools. If some of t…

With DirectX on WSL, you can do new things when Linux is running on Windows (via WSL). But these new things aren't possible when Linux is running another way (e.g. on the bare metal).

So people who use it are married to Windows.

I think folks would be absolutely excited if this was an initiative to allow writing DirectX applications on Linux, and available for Linux on bare metal. But as people realize this marries them to Windows, they go meh.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#283

Post by mcv »

mpartel wrote: post #268
mcv wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Windows is a painful OS to use for anything other than gaming. Ideally, I'd like to see the exact opposite of this: run Linux with a Windows subsystem just for gaming.

Wine / Steam's Proton does a decent job, and some older games even work better with Wine than with Windows 10. If you have a spare GPU, a VM with PCI passthrough does an even better job, except for some anti-cheat software that artificially discriminates against this setup. In theory it ought to be possible to switch a single GPU to/from a VM without a reboot. In practice I have no idea how huge a refactoring to the…

> "some older games even work better with Wine than with Windows 10."

This has been true for 16 bit games since long before Windows 10. Ages ago one of my favourite games stopped working on Windows, but Wine had no problems with it. So my impression has always been that Wine is excellent for really old games, but slightly more recent games, it could already be very hit and miss.

> "If you have a spare GPU, a VM with PCI passthrough does an even better job, except for some anti-cheat software that artificially discriminates against this setup."

Doesn't every CPU these days have onboard graphics? My Thinkpad X1E should support hybrid graphics, so it'd be nice if I could give the GPU to a VM and have the desktop use the CPU graphics.

But if a Windows VM does a better job, that means Wine doesn't yet do as good a job as Windows. Though it's certainly true that Steam support for Linux is growing. But I don't think every Steam game already works on Linux.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#284

Post by kasabali »

swebs wrote: post #262
bitcrazed wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. PM on Windows & WSL here. Imagine if you could run AI/ML apps and tools that are coded to take advantage of DirectML on Windows and/or atop DirectML via WSL. Now you can run the tools you want and need in whichever environment you like ... on any (capable) GPU you like: You don't have to buy a particular vendor's GPU to run your code. If you're old like me and remember the dark ol' days when games shipped with sp…

>Now you can run the tools you want and need in whichever environment you like Isn't the linked post saying you have to be running on Windows though? It seems like it would make way more sense to either port directX to Linux, or ditch directX and put those resources into supporting Vulcan.

Whichever environment you like as long as it's on Windows

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#285

Post by ninkendo »

deadbunny wrote: post #70
_vbdg wrote: post #2

> This also enables third party APIs, such as the popular NVIDIA Cuda compute API, to be hardware accelerated within a WSL environment. Dollars to donuts this is why Microsoft is implementing this. GPU acceleration is becoming a critical feature for many users (but especially developers) and this will continue. If WSL is to be a serious competitor, this is necessary and I'm glad to see it showing up. This is true of…

Yup, from one of the MS staff replies further in the thread[1] > There is a single usecase for this: WSL2 developer who wants to run machine learning on his GPU. The developer is working on his laptop, which is running Windows and that laptop has a single GPU that Windows is using. Can't say I can get behind MS trying to shift maintenance for a Windows only "feature" onto the Linux devs here. 1. https://lkml.org/lkml…

> Can't say I can get behind MS trying to shift maintenance for a Windows only "feature" onto the Linux devs here.

Interesting take on the situation. This is effectively a driver they need to get into the kernel (just one that targets a paravirtualization host and not “real” hardware), and Linus has been adamant that the correct way to write a driver in Linux is to upstream it into the kernel.

The perspective that upstreaming a driver into the Linux kernel is a burden for Linux kernel developers is one I haven’t heard before, and seems to clash with Linus’s typical stance. Is this something that has some prior examples? Genuinely curious.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#287

Post by zokier »

dependenttypes wrote: post #266
mcv wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does an amazing job, but a lot of apps and games do not work flawlessly. Or didn't, last time I tried Wine. Maybe this situation has changed a lot since then, which would be awesome.

Every single versions has a lot of improvements, esp regarding compatibility. I suggest giving it a try once again.

That directly implies that every single version has had lot to improve. And this is not to diss wine, but it is difficult problem they are tackling.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#288

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mcv wrote: post #263
boudin wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Wine has a different architecture because distributing microsoft binaries is not legal, so technically it's not the same thing, but it still does an amazing job and a lot of apps/games works flawlessly.

It does an amazing job, but a lot of apps and games do not work flawlessly. Or didn't, last time I tried Wine. Maybe this situation has changed a lot since then, which would be awesome.

Are you familiar with Proton? Steam have put a lot of work in to making WINE work flawlessly for many games.

https://www.protondb.com/

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#289

Post by mpartel »

mcv wrote: post #283
mpartel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine / Steam's Proton does a decent job, and some older games even work better with Wine than with Windows 10. If you have a spare GPU, a VM with PCI passthrough does an even better job, except for some anti-cheat software that artificially discriminates against this setup. In theory it ought to be possible to switch a single GPU to/from a VM without a reboot. In practice I have no idea how huge a refactoring to the…

> "some older games even work better with Wine than with Windows 10." This has been true for 16 bit games since long before Windows 10. Ages ago one of my favourite games stopped working on Windows, but Wine had no problems with it. So my impression has always been that Wine is excellent for really old games, but slightly more recent games, it could already be very hit and miss. > "If you have a spare GPU, a VM with…

> Doesn't every CPU these days have onboard graphics?

On laptops, pretty much. On Intel desktops, yes, aside from Xeons. On AMD desktops, only some lower end Ryzens have "G" models.

Re: DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

#290

Post by traverseda »

dazzawazza wrote: post #274
lalaland1125 wrote: post #213

It appears that Microsoft has now initiated the "Extend" phase of their classic Embrace, Extend, Extinguish playbook. The key is that the proprietary Microsoft specific API added by this patch is only usable in a WSL environment as it relies on many pieces of proprietary closed source software that Microsoft is unwilling to open source. This patch does nothing but fragment the Linux ecosystem and encourage people to…

As a FreeBSD user I find this kind of comment hilarious given I see Linux specific code littering upstream open source projects with no thought for other platforms on a regular basis. I occasionally see resistance to fixing these issues as well.

I think a lot of that is coming from redhat/IBM, which is currently doing their own take on EEE. Believe me I get pissy about that too.
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