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Run your nix programs with your host graphics drivers.
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Félix Baylac Jacqué c7c5f08cbc Cold cache: optimize cache generation 
We manage to improve the cold cache generation from 98s to ~30s on my
desktop.

Two things have been done to improve that performance:

1. This one was stupid. I forgot a debug tracing routine that should
   have been removed in the code… This tracing routine was forcing us
   to cache the libraries… …twice. Massive facepalm. Addressing this
   reduced the cold runtime by 50%.
2. Instead of spinning up a patchelf subprocess for each library, we
   batch these operations as much as possible in a single subprocess.
   This trick shaves about 30% of the remaining runtime.
 		2022-12-14 19:20:31 +01:00
overlays Nix: add patched libglvnd overlay 2022-11-24 17:03:46 +01:00
src Cold cache: optimize cache generation 2022-12-14 19:20:31 +01:00
tests/fixtures/json_permut Hot Cache: use the DSO last write time/size instead of content hash 2022-12-14 19:20:10 +01:00
.envrc Introduce a cache system 2022-12-05 13:33:01 +01:00
INTERALS.md Update doc 2022-12-05 15:38:58 +01:00
README.md Update doc 2022-12-05 15:38:58 +01:00
default.nix Rename nixglhost_wrapper -> nixglhost 2022-12-14 19:20:31 +01:00
flake.lock Add Nix build infrastructure 2022-11-24 17:03:42 +01:00
flake.nix Nix: add patched libglvnd overlay 2022-11-24 17:03:46 +01:00
shell.nix Add Nix build infrastructure 2022-11-24 17:03:42 +01:00

README.md

NixGLHost

Running OpenGL/Cuda/OpenCL Nix-built binaries on a foreign Linux distro is quite often a challenge. These programs are relying on some host-specific graphics drivers at runtime. These drivers are host-specific, it is obviously impossible to distribute the drivers for each and every hosts setup through a pre-defined generic nix closure.

NixGLHost solves this issue by re-using your host system graphics drivers. It copies them to an isolated environment and inject the said environment to the Nix runtime closure.

Current status: experimental.

How to Use

All you have to do is to wrap your nix-built OpenGL/Cuda program with nixglhost:

For instance, let's say you want to run my-gl-program, a nix-built program on your favorite distribution. All you'll have to do is:

nixglhost my-gl-program

Example

Let's nix-build glxgears, living in the glxinfo Nixpkgs derivation then execute it with nixglhost.

cd $thisRepoCheckout
PATH=$(nix build --print-out-paths)/bin:$PATH
nixglhost $(nix build  --print-out-paths .#glxinfo)/bin/glxgears

Internals

You can read the INTERNALS.md file to learn how exactly NixGLHost works.

Support

  • [-] Proprietary Nvidia
    • GLX
    • EGL
    • Cuda
    • OpenCL
  • Mesa
    • GLX
    • EGL
    • OpenCL

Alternative Approaches

  • NixGL: tries to auto detect the host vendor driver type/version, then download/install it from its Nixpkgs derivation.

Authors/Maintainers