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Running an ARC 770 Gpu on my linux workstation. After Nvidia messed up wayland support so badly, the switch is easy. Fully open source drivers. Everything is sm

Running an ARC 770 Gpu on my linux workstation. After Nvidia messed up wayland support so badly, the switch is easy. Fully open source drivers. Everything is smooth as butter and event Pytorch, Blender etc are (experimentally) supported. Pretty great if you ask me.

jacooper 4y ago
> even Pytorch, Blender etc are (experimentally) supported. Certainly better than the joke that is ROCM support for AMD GPUs.
- halotrope 4y ago
  Yes I mean everything beta and such. But fully open source and what I saw from oneAPI they are doing all the right things recently. Let's hope that Gelsinger is to Intel what Nadella is to Microsoft.
  - bogwog 4y ago
    Let’s not.
- iod 4y ago
  What specifically is your issue with ROCm & HIP that makes it a joke? It has actually worked great for me on both Blender and Pytorch (Stable-Diffusion) with Debian on my 6700XT. More details in a prior comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32908918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32908918
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Extremely limited support for one. Why is it locked behind the 6000 series cards? The project has been around since the 500 series cards days and they utterly ignored the entire market for years.
    - iod 4y ago
      What exactly is locked to 6000 series cards? I can't speak specifically to having had any old 500 series, but I was using even more ancient 400 series cards (rx480 from 2016) with ROCm for years up until recently. So I am not sure what what issue you would have with 500 series other than probably being old slow hardware, but I don't see why they wouldn't work otherwise¹. ¹ https://community.amd.com/t5/knowledge-base/amd-rocm-hardware-and-software-support-document/ta-p/489937 https://community.amd.com/t5/knowledge-base/amd-rocm-hardwar...
      - AaronFriel 4y ago
        AMD doesn't support any recent consumer GPUs, and they have long-standing support issues failing to build which are sometimes only resolved a year or more after launch. Just see this thread for an example of the frustration people feel: https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/887 https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/887 This hasn't been an issue with day one CUDA and ML functionality on any recent Nvidia GPUs.
        iod 4y ago
        While AMD might not have "official" support for their consumer hardware lineup on offerings that have traditionally been a non-consumer area of GPGPU, there is plenty of evidence that it will indeed still work just fine on most of them (once compiled properly and sometimes with the right environment flags); as witnessed by me and even people in the link you reference. I agree that "official" support would be great eventually, but for me as long as it works, that's adequate enough for me on consumer hardware.
        AaronFriel 4y ago
        I think the thread I linked shows there is substantial frustration here, and the reason I didn't purchase a Navi card was in part due to widespread reports that ROCm was untenable on the platform. > once compiled properly and sometimes with the right environment flags Not interested in apologism for the corporation. If AMD wants to compete with CUDA, they have to support the consumer GPUs that are accessible to hobbyists and non-experts. This is user hostile support.
hanafudafan 4y ago
- mijoharas 4y ago
  Chrome, Firefox, Emacs. (And because of Chrome you get the long tail of electron apps.) It's quite rare that I use an xwayland applications anymore. Getting multiple monitors of different resolutions to display content nicely is literally impossible on X, so I've been very happy with the improvements since moving to Wayland.
  - Zardoz84 4y ago
    I have a dual monitor setup, with one 1440 and a ultra wide 2560x1080, and I don't have any issues with X11. It just works out of box. Something that I can't say of Wayland crashing every time that I try it.
    - gavinsyancey 4y ago
      I think what's really meant here is different pixel densities -- e.g. a high-dpi laptop screen and a low-resolution external monitor. I'm not sure exactly how Wayland handles this, but X doesn't do a very good job.
      - mijoharas 4y ago
        Correct, I should have said a mixture of HighDPI screens, and non high-dpi screens rather than mentioning resolution. Thanks for the clarification. What I used to have on X was one model with 2x the pixel density as another. You either have things being tiny on one, and massive on the other or vice versa. What I did for a while was configure everything to be halfway between them so everything would be just _slightly_ off on both, but it was kind of horrible (and made the fonts look terrible).
    - horsawlarway 4y ago
      The crashing is almost certainly a "you" issue. Different scaling ratios in X11 do not work - period. You can define different ratios per monitor, but application windows will take the scale of the monitor they open on and never change. Most distros are now on Wayland by default for a reason. Gnome support is excellent. Sway support is excellent. KDE support is... not as excellent, but still pretty good at this point. Ubuntu 21.04+ is on Wayland by default. Fedora 35+ is running Wayland by default (minus KDE, where they default to x11 still, but ship a plasma-wayland session). OpenSUSE Leap 15+ is running Wayland by default. Debian Buster+ is running Wayland by default. Garuda is running Wayland by default. Manjaro Sway & Gnome are Wayland by default (again KDE is not - but the plasma-wayland session is included). Basically - Wayland is not "the future" anymore. It's the "Right fucking now" across basically every major distro. Even KDE based distros are discussing moving to plasma-wayland by default at this point, since it's improved a lot in the last two years.
_fjb4 4y ago
Historically Intel has the best Linux open-source drivers, with OpenCL and OpenGL support (unlike AMD ROCM which requires a custom kernel and closed-source components, and the fully closed Nvidia stack). Unfortunately for ARC they pretty much marketed it solely for gaming applications, where the chip and drivers don't really excel in. Linux support, AV1 encoding, and so on are its strong points, not raw performance. You can argue that those things don't make as much money as the gaming market, but if Intel's beaten by the competition on the performance side they'll need to find another route to sell this.
- halotrope 4y ago
  Raw performance is not there yet but the "Max" gpus seem to be quite powerful and on par with Nvidia (on paper). Blender and also gaming (via Proton) works quite well under Linux too already which is great considering the drivers are not even fully merged into mainline yet.
- iod 4y ago
  Not sure what you are talking about as far as AMD? This statement in particular: > "unlike AMD ROCM which requires a custom kernel and closed-source components" As far as my experience, ROCm does not require a custom kernel nor special kernel modules as it works just fine for me with stock distro kernels, nor does it require closed-source components. OpenCL and OpenGL have pretty much always worked fine for a long time now. I think that AMD drivers are just as good as Intel ones especially when it comes to how open-source they are. While it's cool that Intel already has AV1 encoding on their new cards, I fully expect AMD will have just as good AV1 encoding on their next gen RDNA 3 cards too when they come out soon.
  - digitallyfree 4y ago
    Did some research into this and it looks like ROCM is much easier to set up now as you mention. I remember in the past it required a lot of changes to the stock system to get working, but I haven't touched ROCM in a long time.
  - vetinari 4y ago
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
I've been waiting so see a Arc GPU usage experience on Linux in HN so thank you for sharing. Due to the first class Linux support on even Intel's IGPU, I was expecting Arc to be a great fit. More over I don't have to sell my Kidney to buy Intel products in my country, Unlike the Red team & Green team products.

jacooper 4y ago

> even Pytorch, Blender etc are (experimentally) supported. Certainly better than the joke that is ROCM support for AMD GPUs.

halotrope 4y ago
Yes I mean everything beta and such. But fully open source and what I saw from oneAPI they are doing all the right things recently. Let's hope that Gelsinger is to Intel what Nadella is to Microsoft.
- bogwog 4y ago
  Let’s not.
iod 4y ago
What specifically is your issue with ROCm & HIP that makes it a joke? It has actually worked great for me on both Blender and Pytorch (Stable-Diffusion) with Debian on my 6700XT. More details in a prior comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32908918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32908918
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Extremely limited support for one. Why is it locked behind the 6000 series cards? The project has been around since the 500 series cards days and they utterly ignored the entire market for years.
  - iod 4y ago
    What exactly is locked to 6000 series cards? I can't speak specifically to having had any old 500 series, but I was using even more ancient 400 series cards (rx480 from 2016) with ROCm for years up until recently. So I am not sure what what issue you would have with 500 series other than probably being old slow hardware, but I don't see why they wouldn't work otherwise¹. ¹ https://community.amd.com/t5/knowledge-base/amd-rocm-hardware-and-software-support-document/ta-p/489937 https://community.amd.com/t5/knowledge-base/amd-rocm-hardwar...
    - AaronFriel 4y ago
      AMD doesn't support any recent consumer GPUs, and they have long-standing support issues failing to build which are sometimes only resolved a year or more after launch. Just see this thread for an example of the frustration people feel: https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/887 https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/ROCm/issues/887 This hasn't been an issue with day one CUDA and ML functionality on any recent Nvidia GPUs.
      - iod 4y ago
        While AMD might not have "official" support for their consumer hardware lineup on offerings that have traditionally been a non-consumer area of GPGPU, there is plenty of evidence that it will indeed still work just fine on most of them (once compiled properly and sometimes with the right environment flags); as witnessed by me and even people in the link you reference. I agree that "official" support would be great eventually, but for me as long as it works, that's adequate enough for me on consumer hardware.
        AaronFriel 4y ago
        I think the thread I linked shows there is substantial frustration here, and the reason I didn't purchase a Navi card was in part due to widespread reports that ROCm was untenable on the platform. > once compiled properly and sometimes with the right environment flags Not interested in apologism for the corporation. If AMD wants to compete with CUDA, they have to support the consumer GPUs that are accessible to hobbyists and non-experts. This is user hostile support.

hanafudafan 4y ago

mijoharas 4y ago
Chrome, Firefox, Emacs. (And because of Chrome you get the long tail of electron apps.) It's quite rare that I use an xwayland applications anymore. Getting multiple monitors of different resolutions to display content nicely is literally impossible on X, so I've been very happy with the improvements since moving to Wayland.
- Zardoz84 4y ago
  I have a dual monitor setup, with one 1440 and a ultra wide 2560x1080, and I don't have any issues with X11. It just works out of box. Something that I can't say of Wayland crashing every time that I try it.
  - gavinsyancey 4y ago
    I think what's really meant here is different pixel densities -- e.g. a high-dpi laptop screen and a low-resolution external monitor. I'm not sure exactly how Wayland handles this, but X doesn't do a very good job.
    - mijoharas 4y ago
      Correct, I should have said a mixture of HighDPI screens, and non high-dpi screens rather than mentioning resolution. Thanks for the clarification. What I used to have on X was one model with 2x the pixel density as another. You either have things being tiny on one, and massive on the other or vice versa. What I did for a while was configure everything to be halfway between them so everything would be just _slightly_ off on both, but it was kind of horrible (and made the fonts look terrible).
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    The crashing is almost certainly a "you" issue. Different scaling ratios in X11 do not work - period. You can define different ratios per monitor, but application windows will take the scale of the monitor they open on and never change. Most distros are now on Wayland by default for a reason. Gnome support is excellent. Sway support is excellent. KDE support is... not as excellent, but still pretty good at this point. Ubuntu 21.04+ is on Wayland by default. Fedora 35+ is running Wayland by default (minus KDE, where they default to x11 still, but ship a plasma-wayland session). OpenSUSE Leap 15+ is running Wayland by default. Debian Buster+ is running Wayland by default. Garuda is running Wayland by default. Manjaro Sway & Gnome are Wayland by default (again KDE is not - but the plasma-wayland session is included). Basically - Wayland is not "the future" anymore. It's the "Right fucking now" across basically every major distro. Even KDE based distros are discussing moving to plasma-wayland by default at this point, since it's improved a lot in the last two years.

_fjb4 4y ago

Historically Intel has the best Linux open-source drivers, with OpenCL and OpenGL support (unlike AMD ROCM which requires a custom kernel and closed-source components, and the fully closed Nvidia stack). Unfortunately for ARC they pretty much marketed it solely for gaming applications, where the chip and drivers don't really excel in. Linux support, AV1 encoding, and so on are its strong points, not raw performance. You can argue that those things don't make as much money as the gaming market, but if Intel's beaten by the competition on the performance side they'll need to find another route to sell this.

halotrope 4y ago
Raw performance is not there yet but the "Max" gpus seem to be quite powerful and on par with Nvidia (on paper). Blender and also gaming (via Proton) works quite well under Linux too already which is great considering the drivers are not even fully merged into mainline yet.
iod 4y ago
Not sure what you are talking about as far as AMD? This statement in particular: > "unlike AMD ROCM which requires a custom kernel and closed-source components" As far as my experience, ROCm does not require a custom kernel nor special kernel modules as it works just fine for me with stock distro kernels, nor does it require closed-source components. OpenCL and OpenGL have pretty much always worked fine for a long time now. I think that AMD drivers are just as good as Intel ones especially when it comes to how open-source they are. While it's cool that Intel already has AV1 encoding on their new cards, I fully expect AMD will have just as good AV1 encoding on their next gen RDNA 3 cards too when they come out soon.
- digitallyfree 4y ago
  Did some research into this and it looks like ROCM is much easier to set up now as you mention. I remember in the past it required a lot of changes to the stock system to get working, but I haven't touched ROCM in a long time.
- vetinari 4y ago

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

I've been waiting so see a Arc GPU usage experience on Linux in HN so thank you for sharing. Due to the first class Linux support on even Intel's IGPU, I was expecting Arc to be a great fit. More over I don't have to sell my Kidney to buy Intel products in my country, Unlike the Red team & Green team products.