ROCm 1.9 Compute Components To Support Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ROCm 1.9 Compute Components To Support Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

For those wanting to use the open-source ROCm Radeon Open Compute stack on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, it will be supported by the next release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ROCm-1.9-Supports-Ubuntu-18.04

[pracedru]

See. This is really the nice thing about Nvidia... Everything just works.. Even OpenCL, wich is a competitor to their CUDA compute stack.

[Linuxhippy]

I really hope those pieces will be shipped soon by default with every desktop distributions.
These days OpenGL support can be taken for granted, while working OpenCL support is still the exception.

See. This is really the nice thing about Nvidia... Everything just works.. Even OpenCL, wich is a competitor to their CUDA compute stack.

OpenCL 1.2 from 2011 is supported by the nvidia driver - which lacks tons of cool features such as SVM and device enqueu.
NVidia is supporting OpenCL just enough to make it look extremly crappy compared to their CUDA support.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

Here's my question that never gets a professional answer.

Say I'm not using Ubuntu, but Debian, or any other third party distro and I need OpenCL 1.2 or newer for Blender Compute support with AMD, I want an actual affirmative answer that ROCm built packages for my distro will enable OpenCL aware third party apps, system-wide to leverage OpenCL on one's GPGPU, and depending on the application [Blender with CPU/GPGPU kernel support] including my multi-core CPU(s).

I'm not talking ``just add the following to your .profile or other CLI `tricks' to get it to work, sort of.

Specifically, install and just run your app, whether it be Natron, Blender, Darktable, Gimp, Rawtherapee, etc., and the configuration to recognize OpenCL support actually produces expected results.

No, ``broken kernel,'' ``no GPUs currently support OpenCL 1.2, etc'' crap.

As a shareholder interested in doubling down my investment I want to know this nearly 2 years of development time hasn't been a complete waste of my time. I'm spending less and less time in Linux and more back in OS X. I'll gladly drop Linux today if AMD can't commit to proper application enabled, system-wide OpenCL support that isn't CLI driven Tensor Flow crap that all but a few data scientists, or ``miners'' need.

I'd rather be building a TR2 system this August, but will wait for the new Mac Pro to get those custom AMD designs knowing it will ``just work'' on OS X. AMD get's a small fee but no CPU fees with TR2 if that is the case. I know AMD will make far more with me building an all AMD system.

Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X are two reasons Linux will only ever get me with Blender. With Substance Designer/Painter on OS X I'm willing to invest elsewhere because time is money.

Watching Michael invest his heart n' soul into his business is admirable. It serves to legitimize and bring large exposure for justifying the Linux Desktop. Not having proper desktop OpenCL support, in standard distributions only knee caps the platform.

[pracedru]

OpenCL 1.2 from 2011 is supported by the nvidia driver - which lacks tons of cool features such as SVM and device enqueu.
NVidia is supporting OpenCL just enough to make it look extremly crappy compared to their CUDA support.

Yeah... But it works.

[fuzz]

Yeah... But it works.

AMD just works too, without installing anything extra. OpenCL is the one exception but that is getting really close; the option to install just the opencl driver from the -pro stack along side the open graphics (which comes with any default install) is 100% supported and trivial.

[ThoreauHD]

They need to make this less shitty. Raven Ridge owners keep getting kicked in the dick, and there is fuck all we can do to help them. AMD needs to put the cart after the horse the next time they decide to drop a mic and walk off into another architecture sunset.

[schwarzman]

Say I'm not using Ubuntu, but Debian, or any other third party distro and I need OpenCL 1.2 or newer for Blender Compute support with AMD, I want an actual affirmative answer that ROCm built packages for my distro will enable OpenCL aware third party apps, system-wide to leverage OpenCL on one's GPGPU, and depending on the application [Blender with CPU/GPGPU kernel support] including my multi-core CPU(s).

I'm not talking ``just add the following to your .profile or other CLI `tricks' to get it to work, sort of.

Distro packaging is a big bonus for me as well. There is some work underway to get rocm into Fedora. Some parts of the stack were already reviewed but many more are missing so right now I assume the Fedora packages are not really useful on its own. However I'm pretty optimistic because the work was initiated by Tom Stellard (AMD developer previously, now Red Hat) and he did package rocm 1.7.

So all things considered I expect that it will take a while before you can take rocm/opencl support for granted on any recent Linux distro (e.g. similar to the current situation with AMD OpenGL for Polaris cards) but it seems AMD is all-in with its open source strategy so we will get there. Bleeding edge distros with domain experts will clear the way and the rest of the fold will follow.

However I would be surprised if AMD (or any other company) would actually promise to deliver a specific feature set upstream by a certain "deadline".

[sa666666]

See. This is really the nice thing about Nvidia... Everything just works.

Except of course, until it doesn't (like current drivers tearing like crazy and generally poor desktop performance). And then what is your recourse to fix this? Wait until they feel like fixing it. At least with AMD (and Intel), the source is available for people to fix it. You don't have to wait until Nvidia decides to get around to it (which they still haven't done for over 2 years now).

[pete910]

Here's my question that never gets a professional answer.

Say I'm not using Ubuntu, but Debian, or any other third party distro and I need OpenCL 1.2 or newer for Blender Compute support with AMD, I want an actual affirmative answer that ROCm built packages for my distro will enable OpenCL aware third party apps, system-wide to leverage OpenCL on one's GPGPU, and depending on the application [Blender with CPU/GPGPU kernel support] including my multi-core CPU(s).

I'm not talking ``just add the following to your .profile or other CLI `tricks' to get it to work, sort of.

Specifically, install and just run your app, whether it be Natron, Blender, Darktable, Gimp, Rawtherapee, etc., and the configuration to recognize OpenCL support actually produces expected results.

No, ``broken kernel,'' ``no GPUs currently support OpenCL 1.2, etc'' crap.

As a shareholder interested in doubling down my investment I want to know this nearly 2 years of development time hasn't been a complete waste of my time. I'm spending less and less time in Linux and more back in OS X. I'll gladly drop Linux today if AMD can't commit to proper application enabled, system-wide OpenCL support that isn't CLI driven Tensor Flow crap that all but a few data scientists, or ``miners'' need.

I'd rather be building a TR2 system this August, but will wait for the new Mac Pro to get those custom AMD designs knowing it will ``just work'' on OS X. AMD get's a small fee but no CPU fees with TR2 if that is the case. I know AMD will make far more with me building an all AMD system.

Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X are two reasons Linux will only ever get me with Blender. With Substance Designer/Painter on OS X I'm willing to invest elsewhere because time is money.

Watching Michael invest his heart n' soul into his business is admirable. It serves to legitimize and bring large exposure for justifying the Linux Desktop. Not having proper desktop OpenCL support, in standard distributions only knee caps the platform.

As an AMD oss supporter and thank AMD for their support in general I have to agree with this, Not on *buntu either or even Debian based. I've had a few goes at getting opencl to work on my RX64 and just gave up entirely.