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We've said "things should be better" since GLX became a thing. The real problem is that every Linux-based OS is too stupid to realize when something in the wind

We've said "things should be better" since GLX became a thing. The real problem is that every Linux-based OS is too stupid to realize when something in the windowing system is broken. Every time I upgrade Ubuntu, I run into a login loop where Xinit refuses to work, gets sacked, then redirects me back to the login screen. The fix is a simple one liner. I see the solution to my problem has 11k upvotes. The solution is 5 years old. It's been like this for almost a decade, and I haven't even gotten into Laptops with Integrated/Discrete "piggyback" setups. That nut still is not cracked. It's kind of sad.

mort96 7y ago
I have one of those laptops with integrated and discrete cards. Really, it works way better than you'd think; the official discrete GPU driver is a part of the kernel and gets better with each kernel release and requires no weird proprietary blobs, and running a program on the discrete instead of integrated GPU just requires running it with `DRI_PRIME=1` in the environment. The main issues with GPUs in Linux rests squarely on nvidia's shoulders. Intel has worked flawlessly for ages, and after AMD actually started upstreaming their drivers, their cards have been a dream to work with.
- sneakernets 7y ago
  Thing is, I need NVidia because of CUDA. It's so frustrating to be put in a situation where I have to deal with the sucky drivers because, where else am I going to go? For some silly reason, AMD still has a reputation of "sub-par" to some science circles, and to this day I have no idea why that is the case. I suppose it's hard to market "OpenCL", which is why Khronos is rolling it into Vulkan very soon. NVidia showed up with just as much marketing as they did a useful product. And (please correct me if I'm wrong) OpenCL support in NVidia drivers is still in the "consideration" phases as far as I understand it.
  - mort96 7y ago
    Yeah, it's certainly an issue, because people do have nvidia cards and they don't work as well as they should have on Linux. I'm just pointing out that it's in large part nvidia's fault, not really Linux' graphics stack's. I myself have an nvidia card in my desktop, and while it's _mostly_ fine with the proprietary drivers, there are occasional graphical glitches which just don't happen with other cards. (The nouveau drivers just don't work at all, which is also largely nvidia's fault from what I understand, due to not providing many docs and forcing the nouveau folks to reverse engineer everything.) Coincidentally, I decided to try getting into OpenCL a couple days ago. I've just used the Intel OpenCL runtime, but Arch Wiki's GPGPU page mentions opencl-nvidia: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU#NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU#NVIDIA I don't understand why CUDA is that big, when it's locked down and supported by only one vendor, and OpenCL exists and is open and supported by all vendors. But then again, there are probably some market forces I don't understand; I also can't really grasp why Direct3D is that big when it's locked down and supported by only one OS vendor and OpenGL exists.

mort96 7y ago

I have one of those laptops with integrated and discrete cards. Really, it works way better than you'd think; the official discrete GPU driver is a part of the kernel and gets better with each kernel release and requires no weird proprietary blobs, and running a program on the discrete instead of integrated GPU just requires running it with `DRI_PRIME=1` in the environment. The main issues with GPUs in Linux rests squarely on nvidia's shoulders. Intel has worked flawlessly for ages, and after AMD actually started upstreaming their drivers, their cards have been a dream to work with.

sneakernets 7y ago
Thing is, I need NVidia because of CUDA. It's so frustrating to be put in a situation where I have to deal with the sucky drivers because, where else am I going to go? For some silly reason, AMD still has a reputation of "sub-par" to some science circles, and to this day I have no idea why that is the case. I suppose it's hard to market "OpenCL", which is why Khronos is rolling it into Vulkan very soon. NVidia showed up with just as much marketing as they did a useful product. And (please correct me if I'm wrong) OpenCL support in NVidia drivers is still in the "consideration" phases as far as I understand it.
- mort96 7y ago
  Yeah, it's certainly an issue, because people do have nvidia cards and they don't work as well as they should have on Linux. I'm just pointing out that it's in large part nvidia's fault, not really Linux' graphics stack's. I myself have an nvidia card in my desktop, and while it's _mostly_ fine with the proprietary drivers, there are occasional graphical glitches which just don't happen with other cards. (The nouveau drivers just don't work at all, which is also largely nvidia's fault from what I understand, due to not providing many docs and forcing the nouveau folks to reverse engineer everything.) Coincidentally, I decided to try getting into OpenCL a couple days ago. I've just used the Intel OpenCL runtime, but Arch Wiki's GPGPU page mentions opencl-nvidia: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU#NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GPGPU#NVIDIA I don't understand why CUDA is that big, when it's locked down and supported by only one vendor, and OpenCL exists and is open and supported by all vendors. But then again, there are probably some market forces I don't understand; I also can't really grasp why Direct3D is that big when it's locked down and supported by only one OS vendor and OpenGL exists.