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CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

devblogs.nvidia.com

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Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#81

Post by modeless »

Kipters wrote: post #57
29athrowaway wrote: post #48

When you mention Microsoft + EEE, you get downvoted. Well, they have so far: 1) embraced Linux. 2) extended it with proprietary functionality (Windows living outside WSL), and now what is next? How is this not the same? Of course, the MS employee will downvote me automatically, the VS code users will downvote me too, and I will lose 5 karma for saying the truth.

Next? They're trying to upstream it

The only part they're upstreaming is some ioctls to send opaque blobs from closed-source binaries on the Linux side to closed-source binaries on the Windows side.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#82

Post by nxc18 »

deno wrote: post #61
anaisbetts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many many many apps on Linux still have massive issues with DPI, especially with mixed-DPI environments (which are no longer an edge case, they're the Common Case with a laptop attached to a monitor). Even accessing machines remotely via Xrdp has huge issues because once you create the session with a certain DPI, logging into the session from a different DPI machine means you're stuck reading either extremely tiny or…

Using mixed-blurriness environment sounds like a nightmare to me, even if everything should work correctly.

Its really not, only Linux makes it that way. If its done right (as it is on mac, and to a _very_ slightly lesser extent, Windows) there isn't 'blurriness' at all. One monitor will just happen to be sharper than the other.

I work every day with a 4K monitor and a 1080p monitor side-by-side and it works well. Linux couldn't handle it in any configuration, especially with mixed Intel integrated+nvidia graphics, but Windows is a champ.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#83

Post by uep »

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.

I'm totally on the opposite side.

A Linux environment is superior for doing development (for everything I care about), and nowadays I've been able to play every game that doesn't have a native Linux port in Proton.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#84

Post by shmerl »

xiphias2 wrote: post #70
shmerl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's going to be great for Linux, since usage of Nvidia will drop and progress will accelerate, because no one will have to deal with blob idiosyncrasies caused by Nvidia refusing to upstream their driver. With Intel joining AMD on high end GPU scene with open drivers, it's Nvidia who will be the loser with their dinosaur blob approach.

As games are running both on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, but CUDA is NVIDIA only (and supported by lots of languages and libraries), as a programmer I don't see how AMD could disrupt NVIDIA's developer friendliness/lock in (unless AMD provides a great CUDA implementation).

There is a need to move away from CUDA to begin with. It's an ugly solution since it's tied to Nvidia.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#85

Post by int_19h »

apazzolini wrote: post #52
int_19h wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://x410.dev/ is trivial to set up, and once done, it "just works". But yeah, with VSCode WSL remoting, there's just no particular reason to do that anymore.

What's the performance like on this? Does it feel native or does it feel more like a VM?

I mean, it's just an X server for Win32 - I'm assuming it's a fork of Xming, just polished and neatly packaged for usability. It's fast enough to use interactive apps like text editors.

Just for fun, I tried loading a Word document in LibreOffice - I can see the redraw lagging behind scrolling, but it's still usable enough even when typing.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#86

Post by andybak »

SXX wrote: post #56
alerighi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Linux is becoming the new Windows, and is one of the reason I stopped using it. What is the point of using a system that on every release is more and more bloated and full of crap that it breaks? Docker for example, I hate it, it serves no purpose beside wasting disk space and slowing down your machine. BTRFS is a bugged imitation of ZFS. Wayland not only is bugged but even does less things than Xorg. Most scien…

> Docker for example, I hate it, it serves no purpose beside wasting disk space and slowing down your machine. Docker is a deployment tool and obviously needed by enterprises and I don't think anyone sane using it for their own localhost. > BTRFS is a bugged imitation of ZFS. You don't really have to use it though. ext works flawlessly. > Wayland not only is bugged but even does less things than Xorg. Check out this…

> I don't think anyone sane using it for their own localhost

Today I learned me and a heap of web developers I know aren't sane.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#87

Post by jchw »

anaisbetts wrote: post #21

Having set this up, this is going to be absolutely huge for ML. A lot of nonsense is getting cut down by this: 1. You don't have to install special CUDA-specific drivers that are behind the normal gaming drivers anymore. You'll soon be able to just use the Regular nVidia Drivers (and even now, all you need to do is install a Beta driver version). That's huge for someone just starting out, they don't have to have "the…

> (aka the Wayland Nightmare and DPI issues everywhere)

It’s more of a pick-one. Wayland has pretty good per monitor scaling; your X11 apps will be blurry but that’s about all I’ve experienced.

The Windows DPI nightmare long surpassed it anyways. On a typical Wayland desktop the usual biggest problem is the DPI being set wrong for a monitor. Even on X11 the worst you get is applications that don’t scale correctly.

On Windows mixed DPI is damn near unusable. I don’t mean “sometime in the past.” I mean, now. I have a laptop with a HiDPI screen, that I sometimes connect to two monitors that are normal DPI. The process of connecting them causes Windows to throw a fit, jumping between multiple DPI levels before actually settling on the correct DPI. This often screws up apps that are slow to respond to DPI changes, like Explorer, which sometimes manages to resize my locked taskbar during this process, and it frequently leaves applications in a totally broken state. Here’s an explorer window that didn’t make the transition. https://m.imgur.com/VgrStHQ

Some builtin Windows apps don’t handle DPI switches correctly even then. You have to entirely sign out for Explorer to enforce minimum column widths correctly on a new DPI, and it just won’t on mixed DPI; it appears to adjust them on startup and never again. I filed a feedback item about this one.

As for third party apps, it’s a crapshoot. Qt supports scaling but on Windows mixed DPI setups its broken. IDA Pro launches with enormous window borders and some controls still scaling when loaded after a DPI change. You can of course use compatibility mode to force System scaling, and that makes it work at the cost of blur.

Why are third party apps such a crapshoot? Partly, history. Windows has undergone no less than 4 different iterations of DPI scaling. No, really:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/hidpi/dpi-awa...

There’s plenty of good information on this issue, but as someone who has tried to adhere to per monitor v2, I can say it is not terribly easy unless you limit yourself to dialogs. Builtin resources like fonts do not appear to update, so you need to create your own to support scaling a window with Win32 controls.

And that’s not all. I close my laptop lid when my laptop is docked. Windows helpfully sleeps the laptop even though external monitors, a mouse, and a keyboard are connected. There is no fix. Of course, I tried to make my own solution. https://github.com/jchv/SwitchOnDock

All in all, the Linux desktop sucks, but the Windows desktop gets a free pass because everyone has internalized the ways that it sucks. Meanwhile Linux with Wayland has progressed meaningfully and is still being regarded with unwarranted disdain nonetheless. It isn’t quite to the level of macOS with scaling, but it’s close. And that docking issue is also something that is not an issue on either Linux or macOS. So YMMV.

One thing I cannot do is allow someone to shame Linux for its DPI problems without acknowledging Windows DPI problems.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#88

Post by FridgeSeal »

kyberias wrote: post #28
curiousgal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you be more specific? What exactly is horrible on Windows when you've tried coding?

Command line navigation and support was awkward and painful unless you go through a complicated rigmarole of figuring out which combination of package managers and power shell scripts lets you run something that sort of approximates Linux.

Python and virtual environment a were bizarrely difficult to get working across my + my teammates computers.

Many useful packages weren’t on Windows, or if they were were awkward to install or just weren’t as fast.

Sure I can install WSL and just use that for everything, but then you get to a point where everything is kind of duplicated, and I’m doing everything in Linux anyways, so why not just use that and be done with it?

Windows never felt as fast as Linux, and using it just perpetually annoyed me.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#89

Post by FridgeSeal »

Kipters wrote: post #55
deleuze wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Powershell sucks - Graphical installers / no package manager - No search results / docs for most languages - Weird bugs due to being second class for most languages - Have to use docker in VM - Bad env for writing scripts - We deploy on Linux

Some of these are fixed or there's progress being made: - IMHO PowerShell is not that bad, but the newer PowerShell Core works better and with WSL you can use your favorite linux shell (and mix and match Windows and Linux binaries) - WinGet is in preview - No search results: my experience is 50/50 on that - second class citizen: I wouldn't say most, definitely for Golang - Docker now runs on WSL2 (which is still a so…

PowerShell is horrible and confusing to use. Maybe I’m just dumb, but it was confusing to learn and super unintuitive.

If I’m running everything in WSL/2 why not just run Linux? I don’t remember the last time I had to use something windows specific - and word is available online for the sporadic times that needs to be used.

Re: CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

#90

Post by SXX »

andybak wrote: post #86
SXX wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Docker for example, I hate it, it serves no purpose beside wasting disk space and slowing down your machine. Docker is a deployment tool and obviously needed by enterprises and I don't think anyone sane using it for their own localhost. > BTRFS is a bugged imitation of ZFS. You don't really have to use it though. ext works flawlessly. > Wayland not only is bugged but even does less things than Xorg. Check out this…

> I don't think anyone sane using it for their own localhost Today I learned me and a heap of web developers I know aren't sane.

Okay I guess I just need to sleep and had to make it somewhat more clear: I never seen anyone using docker for deployment of any software for Linux Desktop. There are superior channels formats for this purpose.

Web developers usually need docker on their localhost just so it's work the same way as production environment. Though when you compare Windows on desktop and Linux on desktop you not gonna use docker at all.

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