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Thanks to Nvidia, there's a new generation of PCs coming, and they'll be running Linux (www.zdnet.com)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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OK, maybe you wouldn't pay three grand for a Project DIGITS PC. But what about a $1,000 Blackwell PC from Acer, Asus, or Lenovo?

Besides, why not use native Linux as the primary operating system on this new chip family? Linux, after all, already runs on the Grace Blackwell Superchip. Windows doesn't. It's that simple.

Nowadays, Linux runs well with Nvidia chips. Recent benchmarks show that open-source Linux graphic drivers work with Nvidia GPUs as well as its proprietary drivers.

Even Linus Torvalds thinks Nvidia has gotten its open-source and Linux act together. In August 2023, Torvalds said, "Nvidia got much more involved in the kernel. Nvidia went from being on my list of companies who are not good to my list of companies who are doing really good work."

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[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 87 points 4 days ago

Nowadays, Linux runs well with Nvidia chips. Recent benchmarks show that open-source Linux graphic drivers work with Nvidia GPUs as well as its proprietary drivers.

No, they're not, and I wish people would stop repeating this. If you want to do anything in userspace, it's still proprietary, Nouveau, or NVK, the second of which has never been comparable and the third of which is still in development (though showing a lot of promise). What is basically at feature parity is the kernel drivers, which if the author had read their source, they'd already know. Kernelspace ≠ Userspace.

However, I will agree that even with the proprietary driver, most people will have a comparable experience to anyone with an AMD card. Hell, I can even use my old laptop with an integrated 960M to play the same games it has always been able to play. Linux has become more available to more people than ever, and it's only going to continue to get better.

[-] verdare@beehaw.org 23 points 4 days ago

I can only speak from personal experience, but NVIDIA with Wayland has been an absolute mess. My system seems to be stable right now, but there are still weird graphical glitches and artifacts when running games through WINE. Every third or fourth driver update seems to break something.

Also, I’d generally be skeptical of claims that the drivers work well due to “benchmarks.” A benchmark isn’t going to tell you that, for example, certain window elements fail to render entirely until you drag the mouse over them, at which point they suddenly flicker in.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 4 points 4 days ago

As with anything, YMMV. I'm curious why you're running games through Wine though. Proton seems to be the better option for gaming.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

I'm pretty sure the "correct" way to say it is "WINE with Proton." You can't run Proton alone. It's an addition to WINE. Some people will just leave off either, and we all generally know what they mean, but if you're being pedantic you need to say both, not just Proton.

[-] verdare@beehaw.org 1 points 27 minutes ago

I’m using Proton/WINE/GNU/Linux.

[-] verdare@beehaw.org 7 points 4 days ago

I use Proton for Steam and Bottles for everything else. I was using WINE as a catchall term, since all of these technologies are fundamentally built on top of it.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

Odds are you're using Proton in Bottles too, or Heroic/Lutris. You're using WINE for both though, including when using Proton.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 4 days ago

Gotcha. I figured that was the case, but I didn't want to assume, since they're not technically synonymous.

[-] SitD@lemy.lol 2 points 4 days ago

i had a terrible experience too but this is with laptop mind you.

since people are often saying nvidia is just fine I'm starting to believe my problem is the mux switching and not even the gpu itself... but since I'm not an expert i can't be sure...

[-] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago

As someone who doesn't follow this stuff closely, I appreciate the clarification!

Its nice to hear from someone with more hands on experience. Hope you have a good one :)

[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 48 points 4 days ago

Thanks to Nvidia, we have more tech waste than we're supposed to.

[-] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 4 days ago

This is dedicate to some specific tasks, we'll all probably continue to use online chat bots

[-] xavier666@lemm.ee 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

> Checks title > Checks community name

We just had a flashpoint, right?

[-] shekau@lemmy.today 5 points 3 days ago

Ahh yes, nvidia... the biggest enemy of linux community

[-] hallettj@leminal.space 20 points 4 days ago

Yes, Microsoft now offers Windows on ARM (WoA). However, WoA is not a first-class citizen in the Windows world. Many Windows programs won't run natively on WoA [...]. In particular, Windows games run poorly on ARM.

Interesting news! Sadly I imagine Windows games on Linux on ARM won't perform any better than on WoA. But maybe this will be more incentive for game developers to ship ARM builds.

[-] warmaster@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago

Valve is developing an ARM translation layer like Wine.

[-] hallettj@leminal.space 7 points 4 days ago

It would be great if there were a way to translate x86 binaries for ARM without emulation. Has Valve found some way to do that? From a bit of searching I see they've been testing games on ARM, and that testing involves a version of Proton/Wine that runs on ARM. But it looks to me like they're testing with ARM binaries for those games?

I'm as enthusiastic as anyone about more Linux usage, and I agree that Linux support for ARM is a good selling point. But the reason Linux works so well on ARM is that we use all this open-source software that anyone can compile for ARM. I don't think it's honest to point to closed-source software that we can't recompile, and imply that it will work better on Linux because other software runs natively on ARM on Linux.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

It would be great if there were a way to translate x86 binaries for ARM without emulation

That's called "emulation".

[-] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

If it coukd be baked before rather than at run time it feels like there might be some nuance there

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

It's a very difficult problem to solve.

Different architectures are more than just translating op codes. They have different ways to address memory, different types, sizes and number of registers. Compiled binaries use offsets within the code to jump, loop, etc. which all changes when you start changing instructions. It's much easier to emulate the platform at runtime.

[-] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

No doubt. Software emulation of different arches is still magic to me. Being able to run qemu to run just one program on the CLI as an arm bin was so neat

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It requires a near obsessive understanding of the architecture being emulated, but generally the process is "relatively straightforward" (though not necessarily "easy"). A CPU is a relatively simple device compared to the software built on it. Your basic steps are:

  1. Read an instruction
  2. Perform the instruction
  3. Jump to the next instruction

Throw that in a loop and voilà! You have an emulator. Granted I've handwaved over a lot of complexity (I don't mean to trivialize the effort)...

To translate a binary is very different. Compilers optimize output to behave in a specific way for the target CPU that simply may not work on the new CPU. What do you do, for example, if the code was compiled for a platform that had 12 registers but the new one only has 6? You'd need to re-write the logic to work with fewer registers. That's difficult to do in a way that is generic for any program. An emulator can just present the program with the 12 registers it expects (emulated in memory at the expense of performance).

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

Wine Is Not an Emulator.

[-] tiddy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 days ago

Can't speak for any other distro but android's winulator (under the hood wine and box64/86) runs pretty well

[-] data1701d@startrek.website 1 points 4 days ago

From what I’ve seen of Asahi Linux’s progress on emulation, Windows games are running pretty darn well on Apple Silicon - there’s still work to be done, but a lot of recent, complicated stuff is playable.

This gives a bit of hope for gaming on other ARM platforms.

[-] sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 0 points 3 days ago

Running x86 games under Rosetta on Apple Silicon has been super playable for me, both Intel Mac binaries and Windows games under WINE. So I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible on Linux or Windows, assuming they spend enough time and care writing the translation layer.

[-] hallettj@leminal.space 3 points 3 days ago

I'm sorry, I wasn't completely clear. Yes you can run games on ARM on any OS with an emulator. When I said "won't run any better" I meant you'll get the same emulation slowdown on Linux as on Windows.

The point of the article is that stuff runs faster on Linux because you don't need an emulator, and it implies that that includes games. That's disingenuous because any games that require emulation on Windows will also require emulation on Linux. If there's no ARM build, there's no ARM build.

[-] index@sh.itjust.works 12 points 4 days ago

Top posts on this sub are currently about discord and nvidia...

[-] ahriboy@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 days ago

Linux gaming might be better, however anti-cheat measures are yet to be adjusted to support Linux.

[-] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 2 points 2 days ago

you remind me to say "fuck you EA", worst ass move to remove support for Apex after you specifically enabled it. I haven't played it in a long while, so I only discovered recently that they shut us out, I'll say thankfully I didn't, or I'd be so much more pissed

[-] ahriboy@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 days ago

And now fuck Rockstar for destroying GTA Online experience on Linux.

[-] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 1 points 2 days ago

It used to be compatible too? Damn

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[-] john89@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 days ago

Sure would be nice to not have to prepend my programs with prime-run in order to use the dedicated GPU on laptops.

[-] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

That's certainly a cool thought!

this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
155 points (91.9% liked)

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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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