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We all started as noobs once. A sizeable market of GPGPU is academics who don't yet have their nix chops. Had to walk an undergrad through basic git branching t

by kortex 6y ago

We all started as noobs once. A sizeable market of GPGPU is academics who don't yet have their nix chops. Had to walk an undergrad through basic git branching the other day.

vetinari 6y ago
I understand, but look at from another POV: ROCm is an USP of the Linux platform. Windows has its own USPs (DirectX or Office, for example), MacOS the same (iOS development, for example). Why should Linux platform give up its competitive advantages against others? It would only diminish the reasons for running it. The other platforms won't do the same -- and nobody is bothered by that. In fact, it is generally considered to be an advantage of platform and reasons for getting it. And it's not like getting Linux to run could be a significant expense (like purchasing an Apple computer is for many) or you need to get a license (like getting Windows). You can do it for free, and you will only learn something from it. I've got my nix chops in the early '90 exactly this way: I wanted 32-bit flat-memory C compiler, didn't have the money for Watcom and associated DOS-extenders and djgpp wasn't a thing yet (or I didn't know about it yet). So I've got Slackware at home, as well as access to DG-UX at uni. It was different, I had to learn something, but ultimately, I'm glad I did.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  ROCm isn’t a USP of the Linux platform it’s vendor locked. It provides no competitive advantage to Linux, not to mention that that entire concept is a bitty laughable as far as FOSS/OS goes. I don’t understand why AMD seems adamant at not wanting to be a player in the GPU compute market. Close to Metal was aborted. OpenCL was abandoned. HSA never got off the ground. ROCm made every technical decision possible to ensure it won’t be adopted. Can’t get GPUs that could run it, can’t ship a product to customers because good luck buying the datacenter GPUs from AMD the MI100 is unavailable for purchase unless you make a special order and even then apparently AMD doesn’t want anyone to actually buy it, can’t really find GPU cloud instances that run it on any of the major providers. So what exactly is it? It’s been 5 years and if you want today to develop anything on the platform you have to build a desktop computer, find overpriced hardware on the second hand market pay a premium for it, hope that AMD won’t deprecate it within months like they did with GCN 2/3 without even a heads up notice all so you can develop something that only you can run with no future compatibility or interoperability. If this is the right tool for the job then the job is wrong.

by kortex 6y ago

We all started as noobs once. A sizeable market of GPGPU is academics who don't yet have their nix chops. Had to walk an undergrad through basic git branching the other day.

vetinari 6y ago

I understand, but look at from another POV: ROCm is an USP of the Linux platform. Windows has its own USPs (DirectX or Office, for example), MacOS the same (iOS development, for example). Why should Linux platform give up its competitive advantages against others? It would only diminish the reasons for running it. The other platforms won't do the same -- and nobody is bothered by that. In fact, it is generally considered to be an advantage of platform and reasons for getting it. And it's not like getting Linux to run could be a significant expense (like purchasing an Apple computer is for many) or you need to get a license (like getting Windows). You can do it for free, and you will only learn something from it. I've got my nix chops in the early '90 exactly this way: I wanted 32-bit flat-memory C compiler, didn't have the money for Watcom and associated DOS-extenders and djgpp wasn't a thing yet (or I didn't know about it yet). So I've got Slackware at home, as well as access to DG-UX at uni. It was different, I had to learn something, but ultimately, I'm glad I did.

dogma1138 6y ago
ROCm isn’t a USP of the Linux platform it’s vendor locked. It provides no competitive advantage to Linux, not to mention that that entire concept is a bitty laughable as far as FOSS/OS goes. I don’t understand why AMD seems adamant at not wanting to be a player in the GPU compute market. Close to Metal was aborted. OpenCL was abandoned. HSA never got off the ground. ROCm made every technical decision possible to ensure it won’t be adopted. Can’t get GPUs that could run it, can’t ship a product to customers because good luck buying the datacenter GPUs from AMD the MI100 is unavailable for purchase unless you make a special order and even then apparently AMD doesn’t want anyone to actually buy it, can’t really find GPU cloud instances that run it on any of the major providers. So what exactly is it? It’s been 5 years and if you want today to develop anything on the platform you have to build a desktop computer, find overpriced hardware on the second hand market pay a premium for it, hope that AMD won’t deprecate it within months like they did with GCN 2/3 without even a heads up notice all so you can develop something that only you can run with no future compatibility or interoperability. If this is the right tool for the job then the job is wrong.