back to article HP's solution to running GPU-accelerated Linux apps on high-end Z workstations: Rely on Microsoft's WSL2

Facing rising demand for high-end Linux boxes but also issues supporting the software on its high-end kit, HP is trying solve the problem for customers by using Windows as a universal shim. That is, it enables Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) out of the box on some of its own high-end Z workstations, boosted by …

  1. Tom7

    Hardly only their high-end kit

    HP consumer kit is also notorious for crap Linux support. (eg I own an HP 2-in-1 that I still can't put to sleep and wake up again).

    HP's approach to ACPI appears to be to throw any old junk in because it's too hard to get right, then sort it out in Windows chipset drivers.

    1. Probie

      Re: Hardly only their high-end kit

      FIFY

      HP consumer kit is also notorious for crap.

      1. davidp231

        Re: Hardly only their high-end kit

        "HP consumer kit is also notorious for crap."

        So.... Hewlet Crappard? (see also: Crappard Bell)

  2. vekkq

    didn't microsoft disable gpu passthrough on hyper-v for security reasons?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes they did, but only the shared gpu pass through. You can still use the DDA (Discrete Device Assignment) so you give the GPU to the VM, so nothing else can use it. So, if you want to be able to use that GPU in the VM and on your desktop, you are out of luck.

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    How the mighty have fallen.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      They didn't fall, they were pushed off the cliff. By every CEO and BOD since Bill and Dave retired.

  4. nematoad Silver badge
    Joke

    Ha!

    "...by using Windows as a universal shim."

    At least it will be useful for something then.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The latest in the Enterprise we don't give an arse, just give us yer money

    WTF, really, sounds like a cross between driver installation as a service and what's the easiest way we can do something to get enterprise's pay us for doing nothing. What could go wrong with introducing all the vulns from one OS to another, 2 for 1 special offers. Sitting here in hospital waiting for discharge after mild heart attack on Saturday. Thank fcuk I'm getting out of the shit show, it's embarrassing to admit you're in IT these days. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: The latest in the Enterprise we don't give an arse, just give us yer money

      It's not just I.T.

  6. Roland6 Silver badge

    "HP also killed off OpenVMS, although it changed its mind and sold it off instead"

    Interesting to see that VMS Software are still a going concern and according to their roadmap are due (H2 2021) to release a production version of VMS for x86-64.

    It is also good to see that they seem to have rights over the Digital Technical Journal and so are enabling free access to this resource.

    " as it earlier had sold licences to OpenMail."

    It seems Samsung Contact died in 2007

    [source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Contact ]

    1. Liam Proven Silver badge

      Re: "HP also killed off OpenVMS, although it changed its mind and sold it off instead"

      A licence also went to Scalix, who are nominally still trading, I believe.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The industry has a long list of "embrace and extinguish" mergers and acquisitions over the decade since I started working in 1987. An incredible amount of promising technology and good ideas have been lost that HP had, even little things like the early layout managers that Sun acquired limited rights to for Java, before HP eventually seems to have abandoned the IP.

    That is really the biggest downside to closed-source solutions. If the vendor who built it can't or won't release it "to the wild" when they no longer have a commercial interest in it, the idea and concept just wanders off to the great bit bucket in /dev/null. :(

  8. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

    Brings me back to the first days when I tried out Linux on my machine. Poking through various MAN pages, very alert to warnings about how trying the wrong settings could fry either my graphics card, my VGA screen, or both.

    I still managed to find settings that worked. Then I discovered the wonder of having seven different environments available at the touch of an F key.

    Heady days.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

      It's what happens when some people put ideology (and for some, religion) ahead of common sense. nVidia is not going to release its drivers as open source. As more devices with powerful local processing will come, it will become a bigger issue. It also happens with some devices like high-end printers, where the driver may contain a lot of IP about processing images to take advantage fully of the printer capabilities.

      The same happened with ZFS, the license was not "pure" enough.

      And the problem is not open source per se, it's the religion Stalmann founded and its Taliban followers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

        The ZFS license was explicitly written by Sun to not be included in Linux. In those days, Solaris and Linux were competing. Nothing has been changed since then.

        Software is proprietary unless explicitly licensed as such. It's got nothing to do with religion, just lawyers.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "The ZFS license was explicitly written by Sun to not be included in Linux."

          Exactly. Taking advantage of the zealotism of Linux.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

          Ah, this old canard.

          The CDDL is a barely modified MPL. So no, it wasn't written by Sun, but by Mozilla, and not designed to annoy Linux zealots, who believe everything that happen in the world revolves around their favorite kernel.

          The fact is that Sun had to deal with proprietary software in Solaris, particularly with some old kernel drivers, that did not belong to them, and could not be re-licensed. So the GNU GPLv2 simply would not have been possible, as per the very definition of it that Linux zealots want.

          There was some talk that if the GPLv3 had come earlier, they might have used it. And I wish they had, really, because it would still have been incompatible with Linux, and made more nonsensical the evilness claims of zealots.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

            WRONG (not that it even matters) - the question was explicitly asked of Sun at the time, and the response was: the license was deliberately chosen to exclude Linux. They did not put in an exception for Linux (they could have). They did not license as Apache or MIT (they did with other many other things). They could have had multiple licenses for it CDDL/GPL/MIT (which, by the way, makes most of your post about other Solaris device drivers not being licensed as GPL2 irrelevant).

            Jeez: some people just go off the scale... Why do you think they used CDDL? Do you think their lawyers made a mistake in choosing a license that wasn't GPL compatible? Do you think it is beyond Oracle's capabilities to also license ZFS as BSD, or even just to ever have said the phrase "this is ok to use in Linux"?

            No-one said that it is evil. ZFS was built by Sun. It was their right to chose the license. They chose (and Oracle continue to choose) a license that means that Solaris has a technical advantage over Linux. The only bad people are the people trying to steal the code to put it into Linux, where the license (and Sun and Oracle's explicit intent) are opposed to it.

    2. unimaginative

      Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

      Yes and no. It depends on your distro and, sometimes on what software you are using.

      On the machine I am typing this on, the noveau open source drivers caused freezes with KDE.

      Its fairly easy to swtich - uninstall the noveau drivers, and the nvidia repo, and install the proprietary ones. It took a while, but all done in a GUI and following step by step instructions from a web page.

      This was with OpenSuse. Its easier on Ubuntu (which has a GUI that lets you just choose to use a proprietary drivers and it does the rest for you.

      1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

        Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

        The big problem is not the drivers - it would be nice if Nvidia open-sourced their drivers, but they are welcome to keep the code they paid for. The problem is that they won't release the full data sheet, so the open-source driver will always be deficient and flakey. This is why Linus has made the gesture he has.

        1. Aitor 1

          Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

          They don't respect the standards, that is the main issue, and of course, they do things their way.. so another problem. The blob is AN issue, but not the worst possible.

          Of course, it is also a serious security risk, as they could be doing nasty stuff in their blob.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

          Well the big one is actually that they require signed firmware that can't be redistributed... so it isn't possible to have a sane driver in Linux. Not providing a data sheet is annoying, but at least the nouveau driver can start up the card...

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: So, video drivers under Linux still haven't gotten out of hell

      What actually ever works easily on the bleeding edge?

  9. LeoP

    It's just "apt install" on Ubuntu

    One can think so or so of Ubuntu, but the Nvidia stuff is just an "apt install" away.

    We do lots of work for the broadcast industry, that includes lots of NVDEC and NVENC accelerated de- and encoding and lots of CUDA-based image filtering.

    The combination of Ubuntu Server, the in-repository nvidia drivers (and even the out-of-the-box NVxxx-enabled ffmpeg) make this really pain-free. Definitly less painfull than a Windows 10 (or worse: Weindows 11) installtion.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's just "apt install" on Ubuntu

      Try it with server class networking configured instead of desktop networking. Go ahead, I dare you to watch Ubuntu flail and fail as it claims it can't load the driver due to "networking issues" that have NOTHING to do with video drivers, but to do with really, REALLY crappy installers.

      Why WOULDN'T you want to install a CUDA accelerator on a server, hmm?

      1. DevOpsTimothyC

        Re: It's just "apt install" on Ubuntu

        What is "server class networking"?

        Are you meaning policy routing where you use fwmark to tag the packet, then place use alternate route tables? Or are you referring to dot1q sub interfaces possibly on bonded interfaces?

  10. Blackjack Silver badge

    I use Linux Mint and Puppy Linux Fatdog, I keep Windows 7 on a machine mostly to run games but otherwise do everything that I don't do in my Smartphone on Linux.

    I have never used Windows 10 or 11 and if the Steam Deck sales go well, I may be able to run most of my Videogames on Linux in the not so distant future so bye bye Windows.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What?

    So because it's hard to support the Linux driver it's done under Windows.

    Which then passes through the hardware and leaves you installing Linux drivers?

  12. HAL-9000
    Unhappy

    Where's Linus

    "If you want to build or run complex GPU-accelerated computational applications on Linux, using high-end workstations and high-end graphics cards, it can be tricky."

    - That's deliberately made tricky, Linux love from Nvidia extends to supercomputers only. For a brief history, and in case anyone has forgotten: Hello Nvidia from Linus

    It's a little better now, but not much, in fact I just moved to AMD GPU because of the years of frustration (15 specifically) caused by the B$ of closed source drivers.

  13. Doug 3

    HP is a Microsoft shill, solution is moronic

    So put Windows on the machine for the NVidia drivers and then run Linux in a VM to access the GPU?

    That is so freak'n moronic I can't believe anyone is buying into this.

    Why not put a version of Linux on it with the latest supported NVidia driver supported and then let the user run things like Docker, VMs, etc with GPU passthru.

    Oh right, HP is a Microsoft shill. They really should have lead with that instead of putting it all the way at the end of the very long windowed artcle.

  14. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Time to not go for HP

    Time to not go for HP! I would not pay a Microsoft license just to use it as a hypervisor to run Linux. I don't want the support issues of supporting a whole copy of Windows, just to have it running as a hypervisor that I'm running Linux on. I don't want the slowdowns of having network and disk I/O go through 2 sets of drivers and 2 disk caches for such an unncessary reason. I don't want the support headache of making sure a copy of Windows is fully patched, updated, and secured, to have it phone home, to have it decide on it's own schedule that it's going to reboot or do background tasks and on and on. Finally, it's pretty inefficient to have Windows using all that disk space, generating all that disk I/O (you know it won't resist indexing and whatever the hell else in the background), and using all those GBs of RAM, (plus the inefficiency of having to statically allocate some fixed amount to the Linux VM) when you JUST want to run Linux on it.

    And, really, the NVidia driver situation is pretty easy. It sounds bad when summed up like in the article but it's not bad at all. If your distro has it, then install the nvidia package. If your distro doesn't have it (or you want to download it directly from NVidia instead of your distro's packaged version), then download the one from NVidia and run the installer. If it complains, quit running a bleeding edge kernel. Most distros DO NOT run a bleeding edge kernel unless you install one manually (right now that's 5.15.2), they run one that's had a few months for bugs to be worked out, and those few months give nvidia time to get their driver up and running too (for example the "edge" kernel in Ubuntu is 5.13.0-21, 2 series behind the bleeding edge and "regular" kernel's a bit older (with bug fixes backported from newer series).). It's true that older drivers for old cards do not support new kernels, but those drivers are for like Geforce 4 series and older; anything that supports CUDA will work on the current driver. As far as I know noveau is actually feature-complete on these old cards. the support missing from noveau for CUDA, Vulkan, and newer OpenGL features are not supported by these older cards anyway.

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