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What I find depressing is because of idiotic Linux policies, it turns out nvidia hardware is easier to run on a 3rd party OS than hardware with otherwise fully

What I find depressing is because of idiotic Linux policies, it turns out nvidia hardware is easier to run on a 3rd party OS than hardware with otherwise fully open source drivers like Radeon. This is just yet another example that you may think things in the hardware world have changed now that Linux "rules", but they have not.

tadfisher 2mo ago
Are you talking about driver ABIs or something else?
Quitschquat 2mo ago
What makes it easier?
- AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
  See the first message of TFA. The author complains that amdgpu has way too many linuxisms that make it impractical to port it to non-Linux ( unless you are already emulating Linux). On the other hand, the nv kernel driver is portable, up to the point that it is easier to port that to Haiku and then change the entire Mesa to use it than it is to port amdgpu (which wouldn't need Mesa changes).
  - hnlmorg 2mo ago
    Of course a Linux driver is going to make use of Linuxims. That’s literally the point of a Linux device driver. Given how performance-sensitive device like a graphics card is, you’d naturally want as few abstractions between your OS and your hardware as possible.
    - AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
      But there is no evidence whatsoever for what you are saying (in fact the nvidia drivers are portable and may perform comparably or even better than the free ones). On the other hand here we have evidence of how this has made it impossible for any OS other than Linux to provide support for amdgpu (except if you rip a huge chunk of Linux code, which only works if your OS is extremely UNIX-like to begin with), while other OSes support NVidia cards just fine (which do not really have a complete free driver to begin with!).
      - hnlmorg 2mo ago
        > But there is no evidence whatsoever No evidence that a Linux driver targets Linux? Isn’t that what you’re moan about?
cherryteastain 2mo ago
What do you mean? BSDs have tons of code lifted from the Linux amdgpu driver.
- AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
  They are literally the only one who has managed to do it,, and they do so by having a huge layer of compatibility that takes years to update to new versions and support newer generations. We do not know if it would be easier for BSD to support nvidia either ... because they already have nvidia drivers (released by nvidia itself). On the other hand here we have a random guy that adds support for nvidia gpus, by himself, on a non-linux, non-bsd kernel. And specifically claims he will not do the radeon one because he finds it too much work.
  - cherryteastain 2mo ago
    Right, I thought you meant there was some GPL-caused license issue.
GreenVulpine 2mo ago
Nvidia drivers being crap has nothing to do with Linux policies. It's entirely up to Nvidia to invest and improve their drivers but it's clearly not a priority. Their focus is AI. If you need a CUDA accelerator, they're great. Graphics or even display output? Better have a second AMD or Intel card for that.

tadfisher 2mo ago

Are you talking about driver ABIs or something else?

Quitschquat 2mo ago

What makes it easier?

AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
See the first message of TFA. The author complains that amdgpu has way too many linuxisms that make it impractical to port it to non-Linux ( unless you are already emulating Linux). On the other hand, the nv kernel driver is portable, up to the point that it is easier to port that to Haiku and then change the entire Mesa to use it than it is to port amdgpu (which wouldn't need Mesa changes).
- hnlmorg 2mo ago
  Of course a Linux driver is going to make use of Linuxims. That’s literally the point of a Linux device driver. Given how performance-sensitive device like a graphics card is, you’d naturally want as few abstractions between your OS and your hardware as possible.
  - AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
    But there is no evidence whatsoever for what you are saying (in fact the nvidia drivers are portable and may perform comparably or even better than the free ones). On the other hand here we have evidence of how this has made it impossible for any OS other than Linux to provide support for amdgpu (except if you rip a huge chunk of Linux code, which only works if your OS is extremely UNIX-like to begin with), while other OSes support NVidia cards just fine (which do not really have a complete free driver to begin with!).
    - hnlmorg 2mo ago
      > But there is no evidence whatsoever No evidence that a Linux driver targets Linux? Isn’t that what you’re moan about?

cherryteastain 2mo ago

What do you mean? BSDs have tons of code lifted from the Linux amdgpu driver.

AshamedCaptain 2mo ago
They are literally the only one who has managed to do it,, and they do so by having a huge layer of compatibility that takes years to update to new versions and support newer generations. We do not know if it would be easier for BSD to support nvidia either ... because they already have nvidia drivers (released by nvidia itself). On the other hand here we have a random guy that adds support for nvidia gpus, by himself, on a non-linux, non-bsd kernel. And specifically claims he will not do the radeon one because he finds it too much work.
- cherryteastain 2mo ago
  Right, I thought you meant there was some GPL-caused license issue.

GreenVulpine 2mo ago

Nvidia drivers being crap has nothing to do with Linux policies. It's entirely up to Nvidia to invest and improve their drivers but it's clearly not a priority. Their focus is AI. If you need a CUDA accelerator, they're great. Graphics or even display output? Better have a second AMD or Intel card for that.