Microsoft Has Another Go At Their DirectX Linux Kernel Driver

[Quackdoc]

This part is key. All of Microsoft's FOSS contributions. All of it. 100%. Is for the express purpose of driving customers towards Microsoft products and services. They like to play the warm n fuzzy FOSS community card, but make no mistake, they are doing nothing, zero, in the name of fostering Linux community. They are leveraging Linux to drive Microsoft ecosystem growth. For example, more than half of all Azure instances are Linux. I don't blame them, after all, Linux is a direct competitor to their core products in the internet servers, embedded market, and in mobile. But lets not pretend Microsoft is a friend.

I think both reasons heavily factor into it. It's easy to say microsoft bad, but in the end microsoft is still made of people. the technical benefits of doing it their way are undeniable (when done right anyways). the geeks working at microsoft probably pitched it to the assholes, then the assholes took it from there, and made it into a useable product.

[torsionbar28]

2. that would require them supporting something open source that other people besides Microsoft could benefit from.

This part is key. All of Microsoft's FOSS contributions. All of it. 100%. Is for the express purpose of driving customers towards Microsoft products and services. They like to play the warm n fuzzy FOSS community card, but make no mistake, they are doing nothing, zero, in the name of fostering Linux community. They are leveraging Linux to drive Microsoft ecosystem growth. For example, more than half of all Azure instances are Linux. I don't blame them, after all, Linux is a direct competitor to their core products in the internet servers, embedded market, and in mobile. But lets not pretend Microsoft is a friend.

[Quackdoc]

This makes me wonder why microsoft doesn't just emulate an existing virtual GPU implementation. We now have existing mainline drivers for both opengl and vulkan ones. Then all the nastiness for converting to directx can just live in windows-land where nobody has to deal with it.

2 possible answers, I think both are accurate

1. better integration. since WDDM 1.3 or so, all gpu drivers have support for para-virtualization at the driver level. theoretically this should mean near native preformance across all kinds of scenarios. as long as it can utilize the API, it should be near native. (this technically includes vulkan should microsoft ever choose to support it but... doubt)

2. that would require them supporting something open source that other people besides Microsoft could benefit from.

[Developer12]

This makes me wonder why microsoft doesn't just emulate an existing virtual GPU implementation. We now have existing mainline drivers for both opengl and vulkan ones. Then all the nastiness for converting to directx can just live in windows-land where nobody has to deal with it.

[Amaranth]

It sounds like Christoph Hellwig is saying that MS has to make DirectX operate under native Linux or it's a non-starter for mainline inclusion. And that seems reasonable to me. I'd prefer an all-Vulkan world but it's not going to happen overnight, so if MS wants to make DirectX work under native Linux that's fine.

They did make it work under Linux (when using Hyper-V) but only with a closed source driver. That's why it gets shut down. If this still only worked with Hyper-V but libd3d12.so was open source it would be acceptable, that's the same setup as VMWare's GPU driver.

[muncrief]

It sounds like Christoph Hellwig is saying that MS has to make DirectX operate under native Linux or it's a non-starter for mainline inclusion. And that seems reasonable to me. I'd prefer an all-Vulkan world but it's not going to happen overnight, so if MS wants to make DirectX work under native Linux that's fine.

[Quackdoc]

Agree 100%, where is the Linus middle finger gif when you need it? We should all be giving a collective "FU" to Microsoft for trying to create Linux features that ONLY work under WSL. This has a foul EEE odor coming off it.

this is for hyper-v too. Linux has historically not cared what it runs on. proprietary stuff is fine. userspace however does matter to them. there is kernel code that is only useful when run on proprietary vmware too. but no one cries about that. Linus has made it clear that linux is for everyone, people who use linux on a VM are included.

Looks that are working on some sort of provision for non-DX paravirtualization/VAIL support

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...9-23ea6538ceb4

how well it actually works is another question.

More on VAIL - http://lpc.events/event/9/contribut...ons_in_WSL.pdf

Haven't read it yet, but vail is just a generic term for virtualized apps. similar to seemless Win7 virtualization, or steam on chromeOS

last I checked the vulkan stuff hasn't gone anywhere and microsoft has instead opted for VK -> D3D12 solution.

Isn't the userspace open though? IIRC libd3d12 is out there..

edit: apparently it isn't; that was the source of my confusion.

there is an open source stripped libd3d for the opensource APIs like intel's oneapi (I think that was it?). this is why they are going ahead with the patches now. because there is now an opensource userland

[torsionbar28]

DirectX sucks, kill it with fire.

Ig they contribute developers to DXVK and Wine's one to the point of extremely high compatibility, then I'm OK with it.

Otherwise, this Linux kidnapping inside Windows ecosystem is shameful.

Agree 100%, where is the Linus middle finger gif when you need it? We should all be giving a collective "FU" to Microsoft for trying to create Linux features that ONLY work under WSL. This has a foul EEE odor coming off it.

[WorBlux]

Pretty excited for this to get mainlined, can't wait to finally get a decent VM under windows when I need to use it. can't wait to test this 10 years from now when Microsoft decides to make a semi decent patch series.



actually this could be used for vulkan support. but that would require supporting open technologies, so its an intentional choice to work on d3d12 instead of vulkan because fuck us.

Looks that are working on some sort of provision for non-DX paravirtualization/VAIL support

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...9-23ea6538ceb4

how well it actually works is another question.

More on VAIL - http://lpc.events/event/9/contribut...ons_in_WSL.pdf

[microcode]

not sure what is being referred to for the first part lol.

the linux kernel generally doesn't accept stuff with only closed source uses.

Isn't the userspace open though? IIRC libd3d12 is out there..

edit: apparently it isn't; that was the source of my confusion.