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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-specif

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 dedicated CUDA machine / OS" 2. At least in Arch, the Linux side of this is literally as simple as `yay -Sy python-tensorflow-cuda`, that's it. Can't get any easier. 3. VS Code's WSL integration means you can use a real editor, with real linting / auto-complete, but without the technical issues of Desktop Linux (aka the Wayland Nightmare and DPI issues everywhere)

pantalaimon 6y ago
> without the technical issues of Desktop Linux (aka the Wayland Nightmare) Nobody is forced to use Wayland. It’s still quite experimental, I think only Gnome enables it by default.
- cbhl 6y ago
  Xming on Windows isn't exactly a walk in the park either -- I'd still rather use the native, proprietary build of VSCode on a proprietary OS with the SSH extension if I'm on a high-DPI screen.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    https://x410.dev/ 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.
    - apazzolini 6y ago
      What's the performance like on this? Does it feel native or does it feel more like a VM?
      - int_19h 6y ago
        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.
    - marmaduke 6y ago
      I bought x410 but gave up later since I needed OpenGL3 among other things. It is nicely done, worth the 10$.
  - xfer 6y ago
    Microsoft has also planned to provide a remoting tool based on RDP: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-build-2020-summary/#wsl-gui https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/the-windows-subsy....
  - deno 6y ago
    VSCode works just fine with hidpi on Linux. It’s just an Electron app after all, and Chromium has had hidpi support since forever.
    - anaisbetts 6y ago
      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 extremely huge text
      - deno 6y ago
        Using mixed-blurriness environment sounds like a nightmare to me, even if everything should work correctly.
        nxc18 6y ago
        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.
        gwillz 6y ago
        Wayland+Intel is working quite well in my mixed 4K+1080p setup. Qt apps are handling like a champion. Gtk seems okay too. Obviously it's not so great with Xwayland, definite blurriness there. But to compare, the only workable X11 setup was one that ignored my 4K screen entirely and the whole thing was blurry.
      - diffeomorphism 6y ago
- VMG 6y ago
  I've been using Gnome+Wayland for over a year and been quite happy with it
epmaybe 6y ago
> for someone just starting out I'd hope that the barrier to entry for starting ML practitioners isn't easy environment setup, as Google cloud, AWS, even colab exist with easy to use environments.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Anyone recommend a good guide for quick setup and noodling on one of these platforms? I tried a Digital Ocean machine learning droplet awhile back with one of their guides and nothing on it worked.
  - epmaybe 6y ago
    I liked using colab to test certain things out, but it depends on whether or not you enjoy using tensorflow. Edit: I should also add that if you enjoyed the colab experience but want to scale up, you can attach the same notebooks to a Google cloud compute VM and run them on that.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      Thanks! I'll check it out.
    - kirill5pol 6y ago
      In case you don’t know, Colab also supports other platforms, you can use PyTorch, Jax, Flux, and likely some others.
      - epmaybe 6y ago
        Oh cool! Honestly must have slipped my mind, but it makes sense since you can install some if not all packages via pip
modeless 6y ago
Installing CUDA specific drivers was always optional, in case you wanted to be sure of being on a tested configuration. The runtime parts of CUDA have always been included with the gaming drivers. The CUDA install was mainly for the development SDK, nvcc, etc.
jchw 6y ago
> (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 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-awareness-context 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 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.
toadi 6y ago
I scanned through the comments. There is no editor war anymore these days ;) For development I wouldn't have issues as I just use VIM and CLI. Neovim currently has linting and auto-complete and works so much better then before. Actually also using the language server protocol same like vscode. So no issues on DPI. The other tool used is chrome and that handles DPI quite nicely on linux. But I switched to mac long time ago. Because I agree it handles text and HDPI displays much better. Maybe windows improved on this but reading text on it was such a downgrade to a mac. If windows would have as nice text rendering as mac I would switch instantly. Cheaper hardware for better price and all. No have best of both worlds windows and linux all in one.
- int_19h 6y ago
  The only time I see any HDPI issues on Win10 is when running ancient apps. It certainly works great in VSCode. I'm not sure what you mean by "nice text rendering" - are you referring to ClearType vs macOS anti-aliasing? If so, that doesn't really come up for HDPI, because you can't see the artifacts either way.
noir_lord 6y ago
> (aka the Wayland Nightmare and DPI issues everywhere) The picture is more mixed than you present. I use Fedora at 2560x1440@14" and 2 by 3840x2160@27 and the dpi thing isn't an issue, set your font scaling to 1.5 and that's about all you need to do. I dual boot windows and fedora (for gaming in the former and dev in the latter) and Windows 10 is by far more unpleasant to deal with, updates that tie your machine up for significant time, drivers are still "track down random binary from random vendor site and hope it works" vs "sudo dnf update" is (for me) no comparison at all. Into the territory of personal preference, Cinnamon is a better desktop on than Windows - it's more responsive, more cohesive, closer to the classic WIMP interfaces I prefer. As for wayland, I don't use it yet, I will when it's been stable for a year or two.
- calaphos 6y ago
  In my experience high DPI actually works somewhat decently and those fractional stuff can be fixed with don't scaling. At least if you only use one monitor. I personally have two I would use with 1.25x and no scaling which is just not possible with the x11 model. Additionally having two monitors completely breaks vsync with very ugly tearing lines. And Wayland on Nvidia has been very unsuccessful for me. Even when I got it to run the performance in e.g. firefox was absolutely terrible. Sadly Wayland is necessary if you want hardware video decoding.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    In Firefox you can force hardware acceleration in about config which resolves tearing for me on scroll, it's off by default for conservative reasons.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    Never had tearing issues on dual display Linux setup (currently using one, no tearing).

pantalaimon 6y ago

> without the technical issues of Desktop Linux (aka the Wayland Nightmare) Nobody is forced to use Wayland. It’s still quite experimental, I think only Gnome enables it by default.

cbhl 6y ago
Xming on Windows isn't exactly a walk in the park either -- I'd still rather use the native, proprietary build of VSCode on a proprietary OS with the SSH extension if I'm on a high-DPI screen.
- int_19h 6y ago
  https://x410.dev/ 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.
  - apazzolini 6y ago
    What's the performance like on this? Does it feel native or does it feel more like a VM?
    - int_19h 6y ago
      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.
  - marmaduke 6y ago
    I bought x410 but gave up later since I needed OpenGL3 among other things. It is nicely done, worth the 10$.
- xfer 6y ago
  Microsoft has also planned to provide a remoting tool based on RDP: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-build-2020-summary/#wsl-gui https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/the-windows-subsy....
- deno 6y ago
  VSCode works just fine with hidpi on Linux. It’s just an Electron app after all, and Chromium has had hidpi support since forever.
  - anaisbetts 6y ago
    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 extremely huge text
    - deno 6y ago
      Using mixed-blurriness environment sounds like a nightmare to me, even if everything should work correctly.
      - nxc18 6y ago
        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.
        gwillz 6y ago
        Wayland+Intel is working quite well in my mixed 4K+1080p setup. Qt apps are handling like a champion. Gtk seems okay too. Obviously it's not so great with Xwayland, definite blurriness there. But to compare, the only workable X11 setup was one that ignored my 4K screen entirely and the whole thing was blurry.
    - diffeomorphism 6y ago
VMG 6y ago
I've been using Gnome+Wayland for over a year and been quite happy with it

epmaybe 6y ago

> for someone just starting out I'd hope that the barrier to entry for starting ML practitioners isn't easy environment setup, as Google cloud, AWS, even colab exist with easy to use environments.

claudeganon 6y ago
Anyone recommend a good guide for quick setup and noodling on one of these platforms? I tried a Digital Ocean machine learning droplet awhile back with one of their guides and nothing on it worked.
- epmaybe 6y ago
  I liked using colab to test certain things out, but it depends on whether or not you enjoy using tensorflow. Edit: I should also add that if you enjoyed the colab experience but want to scale up, you can attach the same notebooks to a Google cloud compute VM and run them on that.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Thanks! I'll check it out.
  - kirill5pol 6y ago
    In case you don’t know, Colab also supports other platforms, you can use PyTorch, Jax, Flux, and likely some others.
    - epmaybe 6y ago
      Oh cool! Honestly must have slipped my mind, but it makes sense since you can install some if not all packages via pip

modeless 6y ago

Installing CUDA specific drivers was always optional, in case you wanted to be sure of being on a tested configuration. The runtime parts of CUDA have always been included with the gaming drivers. The CUDA install was mainly for the development SDK, nvcc, etc.

jchw 6y ago

> (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 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-awareness-context 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 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.

toadi 6y ago

I scanned through the comments. There is no editor war anymore these days ;) For development I wouldn't have issues as I just use VIM and CLI. Neovim currently has linting and auto-complete and works so much better then before. Actually also using the language server protocol same like vscode. So no issues on DPI. The other tool used is chrome and that handles DPI quite nicely on linux. But I switched to mac long time ago. Because I agree it handles text and HDPI displays much better. Maybe windows improved on this but reading text on it was such a downgrade to a mac. If windows would have as nice text rendering as mac I would switch instantly. Cheaper hardware for better price and all. No have best of both worlds windows and linux all in one.

int_19h 6y ago
The only time I see any HDPI issues on Win10 is when running ancient apps. It certainly works great in VSCode. I'm not sure what you mean by "nice text rendering" - are you referring to ClearType vs macOS anti-aliasing? If so, that doesn't really come up for HDPI, because you can't see the artifacts either way.

noir_lord 6y ago

> (aka the Wayland Nightmare and DPI issues everywhere) The picture is more mixed than you present. I use Fedora at 2560x1440@14" and 2 by 3840x2160@27 and the dpi thing isn't an issue, set your font scaling to 1.5 and that's about all you need to do. I dual boot windows and fedora (for gaming in the former and dev in the latter) and Windows 10 is by far more unpleasant to deal with, updates that tie your machine up for significant time, drivers are still "track down random binary from random vendor site and hope it works" vs "sudo dnf update" is (for me) no comparison at all. Into the territory of personal preference, Cinnamon is a better desktop on than Windows - it's more responsive, more cohesive, closer to the classic WIMP interfaces I prefer. As for wayland, I don't use it yet, I will when it's been stable for a year or two.

calaphos 6y ago
In my experience high DPI actually works somewhat decently and those fractional stuff can be fixed with don't scaling. At least if you only use one monitor. I personally have two I would use with 1.25x and no scaling which is just not possible with the x11 model. Additionally having two monitors completely breaks vsync with very ugly tearing lines. And Wayland on Nvidia has been very unsuccessful for me. Even when I got it to run the performance in e.g. firefox was absolutely terrible. Sadly Wayland is necessary if you want hardware video decoding.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  In Firefox you can force hardware acceleration in about config which resolves tearing for me on scroll, it's off by default for conservative reasons.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Never had tearing issues on dual display Linux setup (currently using one, no tearing).