3 ms·

Working with Nvidia (vendor lock-in) always fills me with fear.

amelius 3y ago
Yet choosing between the two is not difficult: Nvidia provides me with real performance (stuff I gladly pay for), whereas NixOS provides me with "just" some convenience during installation. NixOS is a cool idea that might have worked incredibly well until about a decade ago, but the world has moved on and we have GPUs now which bring new headaches.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  I use NixOS with my 3070 and it seems to be working fine. What's wrong with it?
  - amelius 3y ago
    You probably have a mainstream system. I'm talking about: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-sy...
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      You can load that support through a NixOS module, though. That's the case for every ARM-based NixOS system to my knowledge, from Apple Silicon to my Rockchip home server.
      - amelius 3y ago
        I think that's going to be very painful though, because Nvidia provides binaries for cuda, cudnn, etc. that depend on one version of libc, whereas NixOS depends on another version of libc.
        viraptor 3y ago
        There's a maintained module for some of those platforms (as long as they're still supported by jetpack 5) https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos
- anotherhue 3y ago
  It's more doable on NixOS than on most distros, but the real problem is you're trying to run out-of-tree code. The world isn't going to stop for you (or for all the android devices) so it becomes mainline or GTFO. On reflection I think this is a good thing, despite it meaning I can't play with nvidia things. AMD APUs are good enough these days. https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    It's an inflexibility. The other systems can use the blob or not. Nixos can only not. Saying "well the blob sux anyway" is not much of a rebuttal even if it's true.
    - anotherhue 3y ago
      I think it's perfectly possible to use it, you'll just have to do some of the work yourself. The linked jetpack module seems to demonstrate that. Of course, if it's just a few utilities you need you might be able to `patchelf` most of them yourself. According to the link Nvidia themselves have left the jetson behind, and from memory and a quick search it doesn't look like any other distros support it either. The road not travelled has a cost.

Yet choosing between the two is not difficult: Nvidia provides me with real performance (stuff I gladly pay for), whereas NixOS provides me with "just" some convenience during installation. NixOS is a cool idea that might have worked incredibly well until about a decade ago, but the world has moved on and we have GPUs now which bring new headaches.

smoldesu 3y ago
I use NixOS with my 3070 and it seems to be working fine. What's wrong with it?
- amelius 3y ago
  You probably have a mainstream system. I'm talking about: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-sy...
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    You can load that support through a NixOS module, though. That's the case for every ARM-based NixOS system to my knowledge, from Apple Silicon to my Rockchip home server.
    - amelius 3y ago
      I think that's going to be very painful though, because Nvidia provides binaries for cuda, cudnn, etc. that depend on one version of libc, whereas NixOS depends on another version of libc.
      - viraptor 3y ago
        There's a maintained module for some of those platforms (as long as they're still supported by jetpack 5) https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos
anotherhue 3y ago
It's more doable on NixOS than on most distros, but the real problem is you're trying to run out-of-tree code. The world isn't going to stop for you (or for all the android devices) so it becomes mainline or GTFO. On reflection I think this is a good thing, despite it meaning I can't play with nvidia things. AMD APUs are good enough these days. https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos https://github.com/anduril/jetpack-nixos
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  It's an inflexibility. The other systems can use the blob or not. Nixos can only not. Saying "well the blob sux anyway" is not much of a rebuttal even if it's true.
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    I think it's perfectly possible to use it, you'll just have to do some of the work yourself. The linked jetpack module seems to demonstrate that. Of course, if it's just a few utilities you need you might be able to `patchelf` most of them yourself. According to the link Nvidia themselves have left the jetson behind, and from memory and a quick search it doesn't look like any other distros support it either. The road not travelled has a cost.