General Discussions

[Zenja]

Hi everyone.  

I'm a software architect for an embedded system (mostly graphics related/Vulkan), and I've chosen Team Red for all our hardware platforms (embedded AMD, from the original Fusion API, Southern Islands,  to the latest Ryzen V1000 series Ryzen/Vega 8).  The developer workstations and laptops I've chosed for my team are always team Red.  The workstations from last year are Zen2, with Navi GPU.  The latest laptop I got for my team are all HP Omen 16 Advantage Editions (5800H and RX6600M).  We're team red to the core.

Until now, all our embedded software was 100% Linux.  Thank you AMD for supporting open source communities, and for publishing GPU specifications for all your hardware.  Our Vulkan renderer under Linux would not have the performance / stability if it were not for the AMDGPU and RADV Vulkan drivers.

We've been keeping an eye out for Haiku OS as a potential replacement for Linux, and recently there has been a Haiku developer who has managed to create a Radeon GPU driver for Haiku, and is working on porting Vulkan lavapipe driver to Haiku.  He's having a fair bit of success, and his work has encouraged many to consider team RED for their next hardware purchases.  Once the Haiku driver is completed, every Haiku user will naturally migrate towards AMD solutions since it will have proper hardware support.

However, the developer is not receiving any support from AMD at all.  He is doing all development in his own free time.  He is reverse engineering the Linux drivers, and can only test on his personal hardware (a really old HD7000 GPU).  X512 (the developer) has even ported Haiku to the Risc-V SiFi embedded hardware. 

As this developer is helping expand the AMD market and can potentially bring a lot more customers to AMD (essentially, the entire Haiku community), I think it would be appropriate for AMD to reach out to the developer writing the Haiku drivers and see if they can, as a bare minimum, give him some newer AMD video hardware to test his drivers.  Can I ask AMD to get in touch with X512 and offer him as much hardware support as he needs?  This will create enormous good will in the Haiku community, and showcase the advantages of AMD hardware and their support of open source operating systems.  

For my embedded hardware projects which are using v1807 processors (embedded vega), we would consider switching to Haiku (from Linux) if the driver developed by X512 reaches performance parity and stability as with Linux.

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rendering-is-working-on-haiku/11363

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/u/x512/summary

[elstaci]

Thanks for the information on a new Operating System. Never heard of Haiku OS before you opened this thread.

I imagine once Haiku OS becomes official (Non-BETA) and more Users, especially OEM companies, start using that OS, AMD might start developing drivers for their hardware using Haiku OS.

The developer using a HD 74xx series GPU card is using old technology. Surprised he can't locate a more modern used GPU card to test his drivers or just purchase a OEM $600-$800 PC with a budget AMD GPU card installed and use that as his test PC for Haiku OS.

Unless Haiku OS doesn't sufficient compatible drivers to support the Motherboard and its hardware enough to install the OS in the new PC.

But he is on the right path but eventually he and his fellow developers will need to start a company and go full time, 100%, on the development of Haiku OS and its marketing like Microsoft did with Windows when they first started.

If you ever watch the Reality show Shark Tank any time one of the entrepreneurs mentions that they are just working on their product on their spare time, most of the time, none of the Sharks will invest in their product because they are not putting their 100% effort to make the product a success.

Anyways, Good luck and once Haiku becomes official and not a BETA version I will check it out to see how secure and easy it will be to use compared to windows.