AMD and FreeBSD Begin Collaborating over OS Improvements(phoronix.com)

74 pointsby BSDobelix2 anni fa17 comments

AMD and FreeBSD Begin Collaborating over OS Improvements

https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Q2-2024-Improvements

4 comments

> This work will allow FreeBSD to fully support greater than 256 cores with features such as CPU mapping and will also include bhyve integration.

This is the improvement the article talks about. So it's unrelated to the current AI/GPU hype.

cpach2 anni fa

This seems like good news. Does anyone know more about AMD’s incentives for participating in this collaboration? What’s in it for them? (Given that a large majority of their customers run either Linux or Windows.)

zokier2 anni fa

Notably Netflix video platform is both AMD and FreeBSD. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other similar big enough customers that throwing some spare change in FreeBSDs direction is worthwhile

> Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] (nabstreamingsummit.com)

> 590 points by ksec on Aug 19, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 394 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519881

While consoles are sizeable chunk for AMD, I don't think stuff like >256 core support or bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming.

BSDobelix2 anni fa

>bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming

Virtualization is absolutely relevant for game consoles, I think the Xbox runs 3 VM's inside (for DRM reasons). And I think Playstation does too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ps5homebrew/comments/oy60ht/do_ps5_...

nullindividual2 anni fa

Xbox uses Hyper-V on Windows. bhyve support is meaningless.

rys2 anni fa

What about the PlayStation OS, which is reportedly based on FreeBSD?

nullindividual2 anni fa

I don’t know what the PS OS uses under the hood.

BSDobelix2 anni fa

At least you wrote something...

[deleted]2 anni fa

daghamm2 anni fa

"throwing some spare change in FreeBSDs direction is worthwhile"

But that could only last for one year maximum. Because Netflix cancels anything good after a year.

JonChesterfield2 anni fa

The PS4 ran a modified freebsd on amd hardware. I'd guess games console related in some way.

layer82 anni fa

Game consoles with more than 256 cores??

anotherhue2 anni fa

Cloud gaming perhaps

BSDobelix2 anni fa

It's always good to have a second Unix'y option. Also good for customers like Netflix and companies that can't or won't use the GPL like Sony.

pjmlp2 anni fa

Maybe making Microsoft happy as well? FreeBSD is collaborating with Microsoft on Azure support.

jbjbjbjb2 anni fa

I’d guess Sony using FreeBSD and AMD in PlayStation would be a big part of it. That partnership is worth billions

jbjbjbjb2 anni fa

> AMD sold Sony some $3.776 billion worth of chips for PlayStation 5 game consoles in 2022, which accounted for 16% of the company's revenue for the year

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-becomes-largest-custo...

avhception2 anni fa

Ah, FreeBSD always felt a little more smooth in subtle ways on Intel hardware. Hopefully that will change now.

[deleted]2 anni fa