[Thinlinc-technical] VirtualGL experience?

[Carsten Rose]

Dear Rob

> which GPUs are you using for your tests with GNOME-3 ?
We've cancel'd the project at the moment :-(

The test evironment (Ubuntu 16.04) has been configured with a low cost 
Nvidia GeForce 210 (MSI N210) - but we can't recommend that card, cause 
sometimes we saw pixel garbage (BUT: not sure if the card was the 
problem). We ran three sessions on that host for roughly two weeks. 
Beside the pixel garbage, all other run's smoothly (fantastic feeling).

FYI: Another department runs a small 'red had' based thinlinc setup. 
They also used a standard low cost Nvidia GPU without any hassle and 
expecially without any complicated configuration - they just installed 
the virtual-gl package, granted access to all users, and voila, the 
Thinlinc  Gnome session run's hardware accelerated. They didn't reported 
any pixel garbage so far. But that is a test setup with only one session 
on a standard PC.

The reason for us to cancel the project:
- Mate on Ubuntu 16.04 still run's smoothly (even without HW accelleration)
- At the moment we run 18 VMs as vsmagent's on KVM, for our thinlinc 
setup (200 Sessions). We have no experience (even it is possible in 
general) to assign GPUs on the bare metal to a VM. If GPU/VM assignment 
is not possible in KVM, this means we loose our cloud for thinlinc.
- Our baremetals do not have PCI slots for GPUs - this means we need new 
hardware for this setup (that's no option for us in 2016/2017)
- No idea about stability of Ubuntu 16.04 with VirtualGL - we won't buy 
new hardware just to realize that something will crash all the time - we 
have to test it deeply.

> How many such sessions do you feel can be supported by a single GPU ?
- No idea
- We've found no monitoring tools for the Nvidia GPU to meassure the 
load - probably there is nothing like 'top' for Nvidia GPUs.
- At least the three sessions over the two weeks never lacked!!!

Sorry for no better answers.

CU
Carsten

-- 
Carsten Rose
IT Koordinator / Institut für Mathematik

*****
Universität Zürich
Carsten Rose
Institut für Mathematik, Y27-J40
Winterthurerstrasse 190
CH-8057 Zürich

+41 44 635 58 47 Telefon
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www.math.uzh.ch
carsten.rose at math.uzh.ch

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