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For some people, it's not just about getting results or "get shit done" but about the journey and learning on the way there. Also, AMDs approach to openness ten

For some people, it's not just about getting results or "get shit done" but about the journey and learning on the way there. Also, AMDs approach to openness tends to be a bit better than NVIDIA, so there's that too. And since we're on HackerNews after all, an AMD GPU for the hacker betting on the future seems pretty fitting.

bravetraveler 3y ago
For someone using Linux, an AMD card may be even better suited for 'getting things done' Wayland and many things outside of GPGPU are much better; ie: power control/gating/monitoring are all available over sysfs. You can over/underclock a fleet of systems with traditional config management. GPGPU surely deserves some weight given the context of the thread, but let's not ignore the warts Nvidia shows elsewhere.
- TimeBearingDown 3y ago
  Agreed, AMD and Intel are much easier to rely on. I’ve never had it nicer on Linux than I do now with a primary AMD GPU and a secondary NVIDIA that I can use for games or CUDA, or pass to a VM. It feels great finally having bleeding edge kernels and Wayland compositors, with the guarantee of a Linux or Windows VM’s stable driver if something breaks for the NVIDIA blob, and my desktop stays operational regardless.
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    That setup is really nice, I miss doing VFIO. The demarcation point is truly a delight, and with hugepages/CPU pinning, the performance cost is negligible.
- lmm 3y ago
  In principle I'm all for openness, but it doesn't mean anything if the thing doesn't work. I just haven't found AMD drivers to be reliable enough to use, on any platform, whereas with NVidia I install the proprietary drivers and then it just works, on both Linux and FreeBSD.
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    That's a shame. Do you tend towards the mobile side, by chance? The vast majority of my experience has been with discrete (desktop) cards and very new kernels/mesa. It's been great, here - on a number of hardware configs.
    - lmm 3y ago
      Mostly laptops, but generally the chunky "gaming" kind with discrete GPUs, so IDK.
      - bravetraveler 3y ago
        Ah, yea those 'dual GPU' systems have been truly awful for me; discrete + integrated. I gave Linux/the ecosystem at large a chance with a couple of those and was generally disappointed. No good way to be sure which card was used... the control mechanism was a bunch of glue/tape.
- sznio 3y ago
  Nvidia is still much more reliable than Radeon on Linux.
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    That hasn't been my experience, but like with choices - experiences vary. In my case... this has mostly been with desktop/discrete GPUs. I've been burned by enough laptops with mobile cards that I just stick with integrated; Linux does/did so poorly with Optimus or whatever dual high/low power GPU tech that I never bought another. I'm a little doubtful, largely because AMD contributes to the kernel/mesa far more than Nvidia. There's no Linux monolith to support this; not all distributions are equally current. I've had discrete cards from all of the major vendors for the last few generations for VFIO testing on Linux on mainline kernels. Intel/AMD have generally been more reliable (for me) and quicker to adopt standards. If you run an LTS or something with generally older software, Nvidia is probably fine and dandy. It's a regular routine to have to wait for them to support new kernels. Yes, I know about DKMS, no it isn't always sufficient.
- CapsAdmin 3y ago
  > For someone using Linux, an AMD card may be even better suited for 'getting things done' It seems like that on paper, but in practice I've been getting constant GPU crashes and freezes on both my personal and work pc. No one seems to know what this is about and may be multiple issues, but it's been like this for a long time now. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974#note_2102324 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974#note_21...
  - bravetraveler 3y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you've seen. I did hedge slightly with 'may' :p I've had the exact opposite experience; from way back since the 4870 series was common to now with RX6000, AMD has been great for me with Linux. More systems than I can really count, Intel/AMD have been great - while Nvidia, not so much. Most recently I've not used the 'auto' method of DPM (mentioned in that issue). I've deliberately set this to 'manual' since at least picking up RX6000 for undervolting/overclocking. Perhaps this is part of why I've been so pleased. I'm curious on the software levels you run - what distributions do you tend to prefer?

bravetraveler 3y ago

For someone using Linux, an AMD card may be even better suited for 'getting things done' Wayland and many things outside of GPGPU are much better; ie: power control/gating/monitoring are all available over sysfs. You can over/underclock a fleet of systems with traditional config management. GPGPU surely deserves some weight given the context of the thread, but let's not ignore the warts Nvidia shows elsewhere.

TimeBearingDown 3y ago
Agreed, AMD and Intel are much easier to rely on. I’ve never had it nicer on Linux than I do now with a primary AMD GPU and a secondary NVIDIA that I can use for games or CUDA, or pass to a VM. It feels great finally having bleeding edge kernels and Wayland compositors, with the guarantee of a Linux or Windows VM’s stable driver if something breaks for the NVIDIA blob, and my desktop stays operational regardless.
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  That setup is really nice, I miss doing VFIO. The demarcation point is truly a delight, and with hugepages/CPU pinning, the performance cost is negligible.
lmm 3y ago
In principle I'm all for openness, but it doesn't mean anything if the thing doesn't work. I just haven't found AMD drivers to be reliable enough to use, on any platform, whereas with NVidia I install the proprietary drivers and then it just works, on both Linux and FreeBSD.
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  That's a shame. Do you tend towards the mobile side, by chance? The vast majority of my experience has been with discrete (desktop) cards and very new kernels/mesa. It's been great, here - on a number of hardware configs.
  - lmm 3y ago
    Mostly laptops, but generally the chunky "gaming" kind with discrete GPUs, so IDK.
    - bravetraveler 3y ago
      Ah, yea those 'dual GPU' systems have been truly awful for me; discrete + integrated. I gave Linux/the ecosystem at large a chance with a couple of those and was generally disappointed. No good way to be sure which card was used... the control mechanism was a bunch of glue/tape.
sznio 3y ago
Nvidia is still much more reliable than Radeon on Linux.
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  That hasn't been my experience, but like with choices - experiences vary. In my case... this has mostly been with desktop/discrete GPUs. I've been burned by enough laptops with mobile cards that I just stick with integrated; Linux does/did so poorly with Optimus or whatever dual high/low power GPU tech that I never bought another. I'm a little doubtful, largely because AMD contributes to the kernel/mesa far more than Nvidia. There's no Linux monolith to support this; not all distributions are equally current. I've had discrete cards from all of the major vendors for the last few generations for VFIO testing on Linux on mainline kernels. Intel/AMD have generally been more reliable (for me) and quicker to adopt standards. If you run an LTS or something with generally older software, Nvidia is probably fine and dandy. It's a regular routine to have to wait for them to support new kernels. Yes, I know about DKMS, no it isn't always sufficient.
CapsAdmin 3y ago
> For someone using Linux, an AMD card may be even better suited for 'getting things done' It seems like that on paper, but in practice I've been getting constant GPU crashes and freezes on both my personal and work pc. No one seems to know what this is about and may be multiple issues, but it's been like this for a long time now. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974#note_2102324 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1974#note_21...
- bravetraveler 3y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you've seen. I did hedge slightly with 'may' :p I've had the exact opposite experience; from way back since the 4870 series was common to now with RX6000, AMD has been great for me with Linux. More systems than I can really count, Intel/AMD have been great - while Nvidia, not so much. Most recently I've not used the 'auto' method of DPM (mentioned in that issue). I've deliberately set this to 'manual' since at least picking up RX6000 for undervolting/overclocking. Perhaps this is part of why I've been so pleased. I'm curious on the software levels you run - what distributions do you tend to prefer?