Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:53:10 +0200 From: "O. Hartmann" <ohartman@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: FreeBSD, GPGPU and OpenCL/CUDA Message-ID: <4C666786.6000205@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de>
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Hello. The problem behind the subject is a little bit frustrating, so I do not know were to start. I use FreeBSD at my lab and private for scientific stuff. In most cases, FreeBSD performed sufficiently for tasks we/I had to do. But this picture has changed. Modelling atsrodynamical problems I need to order and setup new multicore computer boxes and the preferred OS in mind was still FreeBSD (even 9.0-CURRENT). We use a highly parallelized and CUDA supported modellig software solving symplectic integrational problems (moving stars and planets and even lost of particles in ring systems like saturn). Getting involved with CUDA, I was looking for solutions and tools for usage with FreeBSD (priority is: we need 64 Bit and due to several issues I had with the main infrastructure, like OpenLDAP, Linuxulator isn't a way to go). Since most of my colleagues overseas now use CUDA-supported GPGPU software with Linux, I was looking for some solutions using this software (written in C++ and Fortran 95) with FreeBSD. First, and this hasn't changed since the last 15 years, FreeBSD lack in support of professional Compiler vendors. Pprtland Group offers only Linux compilers, as far as I know Intel does not offer a native FreeBSD 64 Bit compiler. So we are stuck with gcc and gfortran, but this isn't an matter, if OpenCL/CUDA stuff could be used. But there is then the next problem. It seems that there is no real chance getting support for executing high performance code portions of our software in any way on a graphics card (gpu). Most FreeBSD driver doesn't support any 3D acceleration and as far as I know, the driver's support of 3D is essential for GPGPU usage. I looked for nVidia's native 64 Bit driver for FreeBSD, I found it, was happy having it, but then I realised that obviously CUDA isn't usable with this driver, since the CUDA SDK is not to be ported to FreeBSD and not even to 64 Bit FreeBSDs. Well, FreeBSD doesn't support 64 Bit Linuxulator as far as I know, so there is no chance getting software run in 64 bit environments using OpenCL/CUDA with nVidia GPUs, neither natively under FreeBSD nor with a 64Bit Linuxulator, is this right? I havn't looked deeper into AMDs offerings, but I guess since it's silent around OpenCL and AMD-based GPGPU, even with Linux there isn't much. I'm not very close to the GPGPU scene, we even start thinking about porting and developing some mathematical stuff into libraries and thought about OpenCL. Unluckily, in my team I'm the only one utilizing FreeBSD. Maybe someone out here has solved some problems and could email me. Even AMD seems to be a white spot in the subject of GPGPU and FreeBSD for me, maybe someone could shed some light on this. Thanks in advance, Oliver
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