Linus Torvalds to Nvidia: "F*** You"

bleedlikeme · 06-17-12 at 01:45 PM

How does Linux creator Linus Torvalds feel about NVIDIA? He's not shy about giving his opinion about the graphics chip maker, who has so far not released any official Optimus support for the Linux platform. In a recently posted video on YouTube, Torvalds talks to a group of students in at Aalto University in Finland. Responding to a student's question about trying to get Linux running on her Optimus laptop with a NVIDIA-based graphics chip, Torvalds turns directly to the camera and says, "NVIDIA, F*** you", while also giving the camera a well known gesture with his middle finger.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShbP3OpASA

The Q&A exchange, which starts at the 48:10 mark in the video, has Torvalds state that NVIDIA is "the single worst company we've ever dealt with". He also says that NVIDIA's attitude toward Linux is odd since it sells its Tegra mobile chips in a lot of Android-based smartphones and tablets; Android has some of its roots in the Linux OS. However, he seems to also understand that NVIDIA isn't going to change its position toward Linux, saying, "We can't do anything about it, but it's life."

While he's not saying that "other companies are perfect either", Torvalds does say that NVIDIA has turned out to be "the exception rather than the rule" when it comes to Linux support from other businesses.

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http://www.neowin.net/news/linus-torvalds-on-nvidias-non-linux-support-f-you

**blaxroze** · 06-17-12 at 01:51 PM

I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology

**wtfjack** · 06-17-12 at 03:14 PM

Good to see a highly recognized member of the computing community tells it like it is to Nvidia.
Wish more companies were dealt with in the same way.

**darklightv2** · 06-17-12 at 04:57 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by blaxroze

I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology

This thread is about NVIDIA not providing support for Linux, which is why you have not seen a laptop running Linux with optimus technology.

**PhenomIIX4** · 06-17-12 at 05:51 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by blaxroze

I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology

It's now on the newest Apple Macbook Pro.

Vulgrim · 06-17-12 at 07:34 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4

It's now on the newest Apple Macbook Pro.

I doubt it's the actual optimus technology. Apple usually develops their own interfaces which communicate with their operating system.

**PhenomIIX4** · 06-17-12 at 07:35 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Vulgrim

I doubt it's the actual optimus technology. Apple usually develops their own interfaces which communicate with their operating system.

They list both GPU's on the Apple store page, so I mostly think it's optimus.

Vulgrim · 06-18-12 at 12:19 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4

They list both GPU's on the Apple store page, so I mostly think it's optimus.

Like I stated earlier... they use their own implementation of the GPU switching because in their 2010s Macbook Pros apple used their own system of handling a discrete and integrated GPU. And as an earlier poster said Optimus was made for "Windows" they hadn't designed it for the Mac OSX.

As stated in the 2010 article.

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http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/13/nvidia_says_new_macbook_pro_graphics_switching_isnt_optimus.html

EDIT: Just wanted to add that just because it lists 2 GPU doesn't mean it uses Optimus technology. There are many other ways of implementing GPU switching.

**PhenomIIX4** · 06-18-12 at 01:44 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Vulgrim

Like I stated earlier... they use their own implementation of the GPU switching because in their 2010s Macbook Pros apple used their own system of handling a discrete and integrated GPU. And as an earlier poster said Optimus was made for "Windows" they hadn't designed it for the Mac OSX.

As stated in the 2010 article.

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http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/13/nvidia_says_new_macbook_pro_graphics_switching_isnt_optimus.html

EDIT: Just wanted to add that just because it lists 2 GPU doesn't mean it uses Optimus technology. There are many other ways of implementing GPU switching.

That's from 2010. I'm talking about 2012. I have a laptop with a GeForce GT 330m, and it has a button similar to one in the article where I can push it to switch GPU's between the Intel and Nvidia. Now with the latest driver, that button on my laptop doesn't do the manually switching anymore but just disable Nvidia Optimus completely and in order for me to turn Optimus back on, I would have to do that in the BIOS.

Now for laptops with current generation of Nvidia Optimus (500m & 600m series) don't include a button to switch GPU's manually. It's all done by software efficiently.

I doubt that Apple is going to add a button to switch graphics manually because the first generation required the user to reboot after the GPU's switches with the screen flashing on and off multiple times. Imagine doing that on battery.

Vulgrim · 06-18-12 at 08:19 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4

That's from 2010. I'm talking about 2012. I have a laptop with a GeForce GT 330m, and it has a button similar to one in the article where I can push it to switch GPU's between the Intel and Nvidia. Now with the latest driver, that button on my laptop doesn't do the manually switching anymore but just disable Nvidia Optimus completely and in order for me to turn Optimus back on, I would have to do that in the BIOS.

Now for laptops with current generation of Nvidia Optimus (500m & 600m series) don't include a button to switch GPU's manually. It's all done by software efficiently.

I doubt that Apple is going to add a button to switch graphics manually because the first generation required the user to reboot after the GPU's switches with the screen flashing on and off multiple times. Imagine doing that on battery.

I don't know how what you are saying has anything to do with proving that Apple uses Optimus technology in the new macbook pros. Anyhow they didn't use it back then, they probably don't use it now since they already implemented the way for on the fly graphic switching back then so they wouldn't need to do much more programming with whats already there. With Optimus technology however you'd have to translate the programming language into Mac OSX from the Windows programming. We can see which one is more likely to be used here.

If you want a newer link heres one.

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http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/06/new-apple-macbook-pros-feature-kepler-class-geforce-gpus/

Heres the actual question: "Do the new Macs use the Optimus Technology?"

Rene Haas: "Hi Sebastian. That's a good question. Apple actually uses their own set of battery saving technologies. Unfortunately, we will have to ask that you go to Apple for further details."

vp10120 · 06-21-12 at 07:58 AM

There's that "fcuk you" moment on a separate clip, taken from that OP's 1 hr+ interview vid. Epic indeed.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jUboon5gI&feature=related

However it was rather user's end. I just look up on Tesla the hardcore supercomputer system does support linux.

**FirtY** · 06-22-12 at 04:52 PM

After years of focusing on building infrastructure, one of priorities for the Chinese government is focusing on building the knowledge infrastructure as well. In terms of computers, this is a real battlefield. While the western media tends to go by Blue's company line about GPUs being a "thing of the past" and frantically releasing the Larrabee 2 as Knights' Corner (and pricing it to fight NVIDIA Tesla), China has a GPU attach rate of over 80%, and the amount of PC gamers in the country is beyond that of all other continents... combined.

Thus, being in the Chinese market is a paramount. Keep in mind that the craziest GPU designs now come from Chinese Colorful and Zotac, with models that are not available on the global market. On the homefront, China is not looking bad either. The country is advancing its own high end CPU agenda at a rapid pace, a pace unseen in recent history. Just like they have the world's fastest commercial trains, with the 430 km/h, 267 mph Shanghai Maglev, China may - in a year or two - have world's fastest general purpose CPUs, whether their semiconductor process matches that of the West or not.

The Chinese have their own Alpha, MIPS, Sparc and many ARM multi-core implementations, covering everything from smartphone to supercomputer. The Loongson MIPS-based team from Beijing, supported by the Chinese Academy of Science and the Central Government, leads in commercial acceptance and has a multi-million user base. China even has their own instruction set architectures e.g. ISA, like the Icube from Shenzhen, the fully fused CPU and GPU on the register and core level, named UPU (Unified Processor Unit), a complete fusion. The architects of this little wonder are some of the creators of high-end MIPS R12K/R14K 64-bit CPUs, the PowerPC 620 (the only 64-bit PowerPC). More importantly, the chief architects of UPU are former NVIDIA employees. They created the very first NVIDIA GPU compute shader, an architecture we know today as the G80. As you can imagine, there is a lot of positive sentiment for the green-chrome company since they do produce world's most complex silicon.

What Went Wrong?
Recently, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux went on a tangent during a talk, gave NVIDIA the middle finger and said "**** You, NVIDIA." While NVIDIA attempted to mitigate the damage by releasing a story, there was a 'behind the curtain' reason why Linus was so frustrated with the company. It did not have to do with open source as much as it did with China.

A rumor appeared from the heart of Beijing that due to the performance of its GPU architecture and its Linux drivers, NVIDIA was approached by one of the leading Chinese CPU teams to use an NV GPU in a pilot school PC project. The Linux would run on the Chinese CPU, while GeForce GPU would provide the graphics power. 'Pilot project' in this case means over 10 million PCs in one order, broken down - 100,000 schools with 100-150 PCs each. The problem was two-fold; NVIDIA never releases source code for its Linux drivers, and the binaries are only X86. Incentivized by the Chinese government, the Chinese CPU team called NVIDIA to come to China and work with them.

To cut the story short, the NV team appeared there, and in very arrogant manner told the Chinese side that they are a large US corporation, and that recompiling the Linux drivers would cost the Chinese a lot of money. The money that Chinese CPU team and the Academy of Science were supposed to fork out was to the tune of several million dollars in incentive that are typically referred to as NRE - Non-recurring Engineering.

Our sources close to the heart of the matter said that was the end of the meeting and of the relationship. While we cannot foresee the consequences of that meeting, bear in mind that back at the day, Intel supplied Chinese government with an Itanium-based cluster that failed miserably, and the Chinese forced Intel to invest heavily in China. To this date, this was one of smartest moves Intel pulled, as they enjoy a very fruitful relationship with the Chinese government.

Epilogue - AMD Wins
With NVIDIA back in Santa Clara, California and Southern China, there was no doubt as to who the Chinese would call next. The other GPU vendor, while having mediocre Linux drivers, at least did not make any fuss over source code access. This ended up in being part of a 10-15 million PC project. Even if selling its cheapest DirectX 11 capable GPUs, this is a revenue opportunity of at least 250-350 million dollars. Thus, if the Beijing rumor turns out to be true, this means NVIDIA destroyed a relationship with a potential long term partner, which in turn began working with AMD. All of this was caused by a couple of million dollars in NRE's on GPUs which were already paid out (let's say NVIDIA would end up selling 10 million GeForce GT 520 boards), and for a project that required drivers that NVIDIA needs to develop anyways (after all, CARMA toolkit is consisted out of ARM-powered Tegra 3 processor and a 96-core Quadro GPU)?

The real question remains, though - when will the company stockholders start demanding responsibility for a lost deal of at least quarter a billion dollars, a deal that went to NVIDIA's direct competitor - which is rapidly gaining market share?

How many similar deals has the company lost by being arrogant and demanding NRE (Non-Return Engineering) from companies that would buy anywhere from tens of thousands of Tegras, GeForces, Quadros and Teslas - to tens of millions? After all, NVIDIA proudly pronounced that the company took Intel's spot with BMW Group, while the deal for next generation of embedded systems in cars went to Freescale as the SoC and Vivante as the GPU provider.

Bear in mind that this school PC project was just a pilot, while the full fledged program aims to place a computer on every desk in China's schools and replace as much paper as possible. While the kids in the West are stuck carrying their books around, the goal in China is to have children carrying no more than one or two paper notebooks, to be replaced with tablets in near future. What is considered science fiction in the West, due to numerous interest groups - is considered a plan in China.

Many high end Chinese CPUs use AMD-designed HyperTransport to connect their processors to SMP setups, which provides more opportunity for the red team, and we don't mean red as in RED 4K/5K camera, although China is very interested in that as well...

Source:

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http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/6/21/china-nvidia-loses-face-and-a-10-million-pc-order-over-linux-drivers-and-nres.aspx

06-18-12 at 12:19 PM	#8
Vulgrim Newcomer Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 32	Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4 They list both GPU's on the Apple store page, so I mostly think it's optimus. Like I stated earlier... they use their own implementation of the GPU switching because in their 2010s Macbook Pros apple used their own system of handling a discrete and integrated GPU. And as an earlier poster said Optimus was made for "Windows" they hadn't designed it for the Mac OSX. As stated in the 2010 article. Code: Select All http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/13/nvidia_says_new_macbook_pro_graphics_switching_isnt_optimus.html EDIT: Just wanted to add that just because it lists 2 GPU doesn't mean it uses Optimus technology. There are many other ways of implementing GPU switching. Last edited by Vulgrim; 06-18-12 at 12:22 PM. Reason: Just added information

06-18-12 at 01:44 PM	#9
PhenomIIX4 2nd Gen. of Phenom II CPU Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Socket AM2+ Posts: 3,640	Quote: Originally Posted by Vulgrim Like I stated earlier... they use their own implementation of the GPU switching because in their 2010s Macbook Pros apple used their own system of handling a discrete and integrated GPU. And as an earlier poster said Optimus was made for "Windows" they hadn't designed it for the Mac OSX. As stated in the 2010 article. Code: Select All http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/13/nvidia_says_new_macbook_pro_graphics_switching_isnt_optimus.html EDIT: Just wanted to add that just because it lists 2 GPU doesn't mean it uses Optimus technology. There are many other ways of implementing GPU switching. That's from 2010. I'm talking about 2012. I have a laptop with a GeForce GT 330m, and it has a button similar to one in the article where I can push it to switch GPU's between the Intel and Nvidia. Now with the latest driver, that button on my laptop doesn't do the manually switching anymore but just disable Nvidia Optimus completely and in order for me to turn Optimus back on, I would have to do that in the BIOS. Now for laptops with current generation of Nvidia Optimus (500m & 600m series) don't include a button to switch GPU's manually. It's all done by software efficiently. I doubt that Apple is going to add a button to switch graphics manually because the first generation required the user to reboot after the GPU's switches with the screen flashing on and off multiple times. Imagine doing that on battery. Last edited by PhenomIIX4; 06-18-12 at 01:47 PM.

06-18-12 at 08:19 PM	#10
Vulgrim Newcomer Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 32	Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4 That's from 2010. I'm talking about 2012. I have a laptop with a GeForce GT 330m, and it has a button similar to one in the article where I can push it to switch GPU's between the Intel and Nvidia. Now with the latest driver, that button on my laptop doesn't do the manually switching anymore but just disable Nvidia Optimus completely and in order for me to turn Optimus back on, I would have to do that in the BIOS. Now for laptops with current generation of Nvidia Optimus (500m & 600m series) don't include a button to switch GPU's manually. It's all done by software efficiently. I doubt that Apple is going to add a button to switch graphics manually because the first generation required the user to reboot after the GPU's switches with the screen flashing on and off multiple times. Imagine doing that on battery. I don't know how what you are saying has anything to do with proving that Apple uses Optimus technology in the new macbook pros. Anyhow they didn't use it back then, they probably don't use it now since they already implemented the way for on the fly graphic switching back then so they wouldn't need to do much more programming with whats already there. With Optimus technology however you'd have to translate the programming language into Mac OSX from the Windows programming. We can see which one is more likely to be used here. If you want a newer link heres one. Code: Select All http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/06/new-apple-macbook-pros-feature-kepler-class-geforce-gpus/ Heres the actual question: "Do the new Macs use the Optimus Technology?" Rene Haas: "Hi Sebastian. That's a good question. Apple actually uses their own set of battery saving technologies. Unfortunately, we will have to ask that you go to Apple for further details."

06-21-12 at 07:58 AM	#11
vp10120 Expert Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Need to know? Posts: 585	There's that "fcuk you" moment on a separate clip, taken from that OP's 1 hr+ interview vid. Epic indeed. Code: Select All http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jUboon5gI&feature=related However it was rather user's end. I just look up on Tesla the hardcore supercomputer system does support linux.

06-17-12 at 01:51 PM	#2
blaxroze Expert Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 959	I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology

06-17-12 at 03:14 PM	#3
wtfjack Elite Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,695	Good to see a highly recognized member of the computing community tells it like it is to Nvidia. Wish more companies were dealt with in the same way.

06-17-12 at 04:57 PM	#4
darklightv2 Lost One Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Beyond your reach. Posts: 1,483	Quote: Originally Posted by blaxroze I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology This thread is about NVIDIA not providing support for Linux, which is why you have not seen a laptop running Linux with optimus technology.

06-17-12 at 05:51 PM	#5
PhenomIIX4 2nd Gen. of Phenom II CPU Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Socket AM2+ Posts: 3,640	Quote: Originally Posted by blaxroze I think optimus is made specially for windows 7 based laptops, I cant recall seeing any other laptop other than windows with optimus technology It's now on the newest Apple Macbook Pro.

06-17-12 at 07:34 PM	#6
Vulgrim Newcomer Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 32	Quote: Originally Posted by PhenomIIX4 It's now on the newest Apple Macbook Pro. I doubt it's the actual optimus technology. Apple usually develops their own interfaces which communicate with their operating system.

06-17-12 at 07:35 PM	#7
PhenomIIX4 2nd Gen. of Phenom II CPU Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Socket AM2+ Posts: 3,640	Quote: Originally Posted by Vulgrim I doubt it's the actual optimus technology. Apple usually develops their own interfaces which communicate with their operating system. They list both GPU's on the Apple store page, so I mostly think it's optimus.