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A Third-Party Installer Allows Clear Linux To Run On Microsoft Windows WSL

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  • #11
    Originally posted by rene View Post
    actually Intel implemented this with igvt-g, and you probably could implement such context switching and state tracking in any GPU driver. Just that those modern GPUs are so horrendously over complex that it is not fun to write driver, and even less so to write a a secure virtualisation and context switching state tracker, ...
    Yes, Intel's igvt-g is the only one available in consumer hardware, but passing through an intel iGPU does not provide that much of a gain over the current 3D emulation drivers.

    Amd has MxGPU and NVIDIA has vGPU but both are limited to workstation/server cards only.

    And yes, none asked this but I'm going to predict that once we get GPU virtualization in consumer hardware Wine will fuck off and die as now the only reason to not use a VM (hardware access to a GPU) will cease to be exclusive to it and you can just game from a Windows VM.

    you probably could implement such context switching and state tracking in any GPU driver
    Is that what they are trying to do with VirGL? https://virgil3d.github.io/

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    • #12
      Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
      Yes, Intel's igvt-g is the only one available in consumer hardware, but passing through an intel iGPU does not provide that much of a gain over the current 3D emulation drivers.

      Amd has MxGPU and NVIDIA has vGPU but both are limited to workstation/server cards only.

      And yes, none asked this but I'm going to predict that once we get GPU virtualization in consumer hardware Wine will fuck off and die as now the only reason to not use a VM (hardware access to a GPU) will cease to be exclusive to it and you can just game from a Windows VM.

      Is that what they are trying to do with VirGL? https://virgil3d.github.io/
      No, this is high level, driver agnostic level. I meant implementing i in the open source AMD (or Nouveau) drivers just like Intel did. I also do no think that Wine will go away, because running a whole Windows needs way more resources, a Windows license, and is an update and maintenance nightmare; while Wine is way more lightweight, one package to manage, and the apps run much more integrated in your desktop. I would take the open Wine implementation over Windows each day. Beside preferring native applications, obviously.

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      • #13
        The idea of running Clear in WSL makes my head hurt. There's a joke I recently heard about one young programmer asking another how to fit a square peg into a round hole. The second programmer said "can't we do what we always do?". First one says: " I already yelled "docker docker docker!" at it from a few directions. It didn't work."

        I kinda see the same whiffs of zealotry in the Clear Linux and Silverblue projects (EDIT: communities, NOT from devs!), given that they are container-focused and stateless. I've already received flack from Silverblue loyalists for expressing the opinion that stateless isn't a general-purpose OS, but perfect for oft-replicated container images. Apparently, this notion doesn't compute when you've been raised on "docker docker docker!" solving the world's woes.

        Also, as someone else raised, I'm sure this is WSL1, no? Given that Clear's performance gains involve kernel patches, how does that work without a kernel in WSL?

        Perhaps I'll give Clear a spin again today, as I haven't run it in several weeks, after living in their forums the past two years. I've noticed that lately there is less of the "shiny fast thing" awe whenever Michael posts Clear Linux results. So a lot of the initial influx of people looking at Clear for performance gains might have gone elsewhere, especially if they were raised on Arch or Gentoo. I don't blame the Clear devs at all - they are a good bunch and hard working. But they aren't going to turn away free beta testers by answering the "general desktop?" question with an emphatic "NO!". But their affirmative should be taken as a "er, yeah?"

        I swear, the funniest thing I ever saw was the Clear Linux github page full of "WEZ WANTS OUR STEEEEM!!!!1!" posts. There's a good use of dev time on a performance-based infrastructure OS - freaking Steam!! And don't get me started on Steam being the #1 concern for Ubuntu users when losing 32 bit libraries. LOL!

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        • #14
          Originally posted by Chaython View Post
          Windows is slow; why not run Linux with windows in a VM instead?
          Not sure about anyone else, but I have tried Windows 10 Guest in VBox and KVM on Linux and everytime MSFT pushes a major update out, it refuses to boot back in.

          I just wrote it off as typical MSFT hijinks.

          The last release actually hung my Linux box hard at Windows login and had to power cycle. After a few tries I parked the idea. Another day perhaps.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by rene View Post
            No, this is high level, driver agnostic level. I meant implementing i in the open source AMD (or Nouveau) drivers just like Intel did.
            Intel's virtual GPU stuff relies on hardware features afaik.

            I mean ok you need to have software support just like you need the kernel to support CPU virtualization (and KVM/QEMU whatever), but it's not a software-only thing.

            I also do no think that Wine will go away, because running a whole Windows needs way more resources, a Windows license, and is an update and maintenance nightmare; while Wine is way more lightweight, one package to manage, and the apps run much more integrated in your desktop. I would take the open Wine implementation over Windows each day. Beside preferring native applications, obviously.
            This is assuming Wine works with most Windows applications, and that it won't suddenly stop working because of bugs, which is far from the truth. Currently only a few hand-picked applications work at the level they work on Windows, and most of them are games, not productivity.

            Windows running in a VM can just suck it and never be updated unless required (which is what many already do for large IDE applications for industrial automation development).
            VMs can already seamlessly show windows of the guest in the host https://www.howtogeek.com/171145/use...rtual-machine/ although I don't know if KVM can do the same

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            • #16
              Originally posted by edwaleni View Post

              Not sure about anyone else, but I have tried Windows 10 Guest in VBox and KVM on Linux and everytime MSFT pushes a major update out, it refuses to boot back in.

              I just wrote it off as typical MSFT hijinks.

              The last release actually hung my Linux box hard at Windows login and had to power cycle. After a few tries I parked the idea. Another day perhaps.
              That happened to me only once, with a specific Windows release (180X something) and KVM, and it never hung the Linux host with either KVM and VMWare Workstation.

              Never happened with Virtualbox but I only used it with Windows 7.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                Intel's virtual GPU stuff relies on hardware features afaik.

                I mean ok you need to have software support just like you need the kernel to support CPU virtualization (and KVM/QEMU whatever), but it's not a software-only thing.
                I looked at their source some years ago when it was new, and it looked like a software only thing. It should be possible to virtualize any GPU by verifying the guest command stream and doing some address space remapping and state tracking for the context switching. Intel initially also supported much holder GPUs; and I would be surprised if they designed the GPUs a decade ago with virtualisation in mind. Additional hardware glue can of course make virtualization more efficient, by assisting with multiple hardware states, or address translation and details like that.

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post

                  That happened to me only once, with a specific Windows release (180X something) and KVM, and it never hung the Linux host with either KVM and VMWare Workstation.

                  Never happened with Virtualbox but I only used it with Windows 7.
                  Windows 7 runs just fine in any Linux VM as a guest. I will checkout the later Windows 10 releases and see what happens.

                  I had a similar issue on multi-boot devices of Windows 10 and Linux, where a major version update in Windows used to hose the boot order. Since then I learned that Linux gets installed last and everyone plays together.

                  However I would rather VM them than multi-boot.

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