FreeBSD-similar build-from-source Linux?

[O. Hartmann]

On 11/10/10 20:15, "C. Bergström" wrote:
> O. Hartmann wrote:
>>
>>> The NVIDIA FreeBSD driver provides the cuda libraries for linux
>>> compatibilty.
>>>
>>> So 32-bit Linux Cuda applications should work on FreeBSD.
>>
>> There are some other, very serious questions. AMD calims that they
>> made the specs of their 3D chipset internals public.
> The docs had big missing chunks which I tried to get clarification on
> and got some help and then it just one day stopped

Well, speaking of those like me, following the official statements of 
the PR units of HW venodrs like AMD and others, did not realize this. I 
never read before about this sudden stop on any list. Yes, I realize 
sometimes that things, even the great HW venodrs claim, are not that 
what they claim to be when shdding light on this. But until this second 
I believed AMD opened their specs  for the community. Well, maybe the 
trigger of opening the specs where a result of AMDs desastrous downfall 
after 2006, so today, after they got both feet on terra firma again, 
they may decide acting different ...

>> There is OpenCL as an open standard
> Try to find the validation test suite.. ($$$)

Your point, I must confess.

>> , there is the CLANG/LLVM project even for FreeBSD
> Apple licenses it and doesn't publish all opencl work. (or I think may
> not even contribute to the opencl side at all anymore.. someone correct me)

Isn't OpenCL maintained by the Khronos Group? Apple, for instance, 
develop their own stuff on the basis of OpenCL and LLVM, but they do not 
publish back to the community, that's right. But this shouldn't be an 
excuse for the lack of support.

>> to become the new standard compiler and, not at last, there is work
>> done on drivers for AMD graphics boards but there is no, not even
>> rudimentary, support for GPGPU. I preferr a clean open source
>> solution, but at the moment, it seems to be the best and easiest path
>> to switch to an operating system that is fully supported, even 64 bit.
> Side question - Why care in the least bit about AMD? Their hw sucks and
> their software is a joke.. (if you bought Evergreen I'm sorry..)

Well, look at my first statement. Until now I believe and believed AMD 
offered more than others of their 3D specs to the open source community, 
to provide support to real open source GPU drivers. Obviously this isn't 
true anymore. But why hasn't this been made public? AMD earns a lot of 
money even from those people like me which remain in the strong 
believing that they made their contribution to the open source OS community.
But at the moment, looking at my hardware running FreeBSD, I realize 
that I have more and better running hardware based on nVidia and their 
BLOB than hardware based on AMD. But this is individual.

>
> There's no such thing as a complete open source GPGPU solution as of
> today (to the best of my knowledge)

Well, not completely open source, but there is an nVidia CUDA solution 
even for 64 Bit Linux and none for FreeBSD! And as far as I know, I can 
use it for free - assuming I run a supported Linux.
>
> ./C
>

Oliver