> So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not.
What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers?
> If you are doing server product
That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS.
> You can install Linux very easily
"For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem"
> It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem.
Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE.
> What if I want to use GPGPU in Photoshop, or a game with more than two users? Or really anything aimed at consumers?
Then use API supported on your target platform. It's not ROCm then. Maybe Vulcan Compute/DirectCompute/Metal Compute?
> That's irrelevant, server products can choose their own hardware and OS.
It is relevant for ROCm.
> > You can install Linux very easily
> "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem"
I'm quite surprised to see comparisons ad absurdum after suggesting to use proper tool for a job. Installing a suitable operating system - for a supposed hacker - is a convoluted, nonsensical action nowadays?
> Only on old hardware, and you can't expect users' computers to be compatible. In fact, you should expect users' copmuters to be incompatible. That's like saying consumer hardware support GLIDE.
Vega is not that old; the problem is that is not not procurable anymore, which, if you read my comment again, I agreed that it is a problem.
> Then use API supported on your target platform. It's not ROCm then.
That's the point, ROCm isn't suitable for things outside datacenters or maybe some workstations. Cuda is however, and that's what AMD should be aiming for. Their best bet is SYCL, but that uses ROCm as backend...
> Installing a suitable operating system - for a supposed hacker - is a convoluted, nonsensical action nowadays?
Again, if all you need is to run ROCm on your own computer Linux isn't a hurdle. If you want to ship software to customers you can't just say "switch OS", they're probably already using their computers for other things.
> Vega is not that old; the problem is that is not not procurable anymore, which, if you read my comment again, I agreed that it is a problem.
The fact that they used to support something isn't a relevant argument and I just don't see the point in bringing it up, other than to underline the fact that AMD doesn't care about compute support for the mass market anymore. At least we agree on one thing.
The splitting between graphics specific and compute specific hardware is an even bigger issue than Linux only. ROCm stands for RadeonOpenCompute, and their Radeon DNA hardware can't run it, so streamers can't use AMD hardware to play games and improve their mic sound, while it's trivial to do with Nvidias OptiX. And what good are all the ML models if you can't ship them to customers?
GPGPU with the graphics APIs isn’t a comparable developer experience at all, and comes with quite some major limitations.
About DirectCompute, C++ AMP is in practice dead on Windows, stuck at a DX11 feature level with no significant updates since 2012-13, staying present just for backwards compatibility.
We all started as noobs once. A sizeable market of GPGPU is academics who don't yet have their nix chops. Had to walk an undergrad through basic git branching the other day.
I understand, but look at from another POV: ROCm is an USP of the Linux platform. Windows has its own USPs (DirectX or Office, for example), MacOS the same (iOS development, for example).
Why should Linux platform give up its competitive advantages against others? It would only diminish the reasons for running it. The other platforms won't do the same -- and nobody is bothered by that. In fact, it is generally considered to be an advantage of platform and reasons for getting it.
And it's not like getting Linux to run could be a significant expense (like purchasing an Apple computer is for many) or you need to get a license (like getting Windows). You can do it for free, and you will only learn something from it.
I've got my nix chops in the early '90 exactly this way: I wanted 32-bit flat-memory C compiler, didn't have the money for Watcom and associated DOS-extenders and djgpp wasn't a thing yet (or I didn't know about it yet). So I've got Slackware at home, as well as access to DG-UX at uni. It was different, I had to learn something, but ultimately, I'm glad I did.
ROCm isn’t a USP of the Linux platform it’s vendor locked.
It provides no competitive advantage to Linux, not to mention that that entire concept is a bitty laughable as far as FOSS/OS goes.
I don’t understand why AMD seems adamant at not wanting to be a player in the GPU compute market.
Close to Metal was aborted.
OpenCL was abandoned.
HSA never got off the ground.
ROCm made every technical decision possible to ensure it won’t be adopted.
Can’t get GPUs that could run it, can’t ship a product to customers because good luck buying the datacenter GPUs from AMD the MI100 is unavailable for purchase unless you make a special order and even then apparently AMD doesn’t want anyone to actually buy it, can’t really find GPU cloud instances that run it on any of the major providers.
So what exactly is it? It’s been 5 years and if you want today to develop anything on the platform you have to build a desktop computer, find overpriced hardware on the second hand market pay a premium for it, hope that AMD won’t deprecate it within months like they did with GCN 2/3 without even a heads up notice all so you can develop something that only you can run with no future compatibility or interoperability.
If this is the right tool for the job then the job is wrong.
So ship linux version and let the customers decide whether they want it or not.
If you are doing server product, it is even handy; just ship docker image or docker-compose/set of k8s pods, if it needs them.
> or if you want to do some GPU programming on your own computer in your free time.
You can install Linux very easily; it's not that it is some huge expense.
> it doesn't work on consumer hardware either.
It does, just not on the current gen one or even currently purchasable one. I agree, this is a problem.