| 21 Dec 2025 |
 connor (he/him) | A lot of the functionality gated behind datacenter-grade GPUs or multi-GPU setups is out of the reach of the maintainers at the moment as we’ve just recently been able to get a Hydra set up to build packages and run a few GPU checks. Part of the quick iteration time I’ve had in the past is because I own a 4090 and so can benchmark and test quickly. But for bigger stuff, the only approach I’ve had any luck with is using Lambda Labs to rent multi-GPU instances for fairly cheap and try Nix-built binaries on them. But that doesn’t test using NixOS as the host system or any other number of features unique to the hardware (or even specific code paths).
If you have such hardware or have access to it, please don’t hesitate to open PRs. Access to hardware (among other things like time and burnout) are big blockers for us supporting more stuff. We can always coach or provide feedback on packaging! And we can certainly use such an opportunity to update (or make) contributing documents. | 19:01:11 |
| 4 Aug 2022 |
|  Winter (she/her) joined the room. | 03:26:42 |
| Winter (she/her) | (hi, just came here to read + respond to this.) | 03:28:52 |
 tpw_rules | hey. i had previously sympathzied with samuela and like i said before had some of the same frustrations. i just edited my github comment to add "[CUDA] packages are universally complicated, fragile to package, and critical to daily operations. Nix being able to manage them is unbelievably helpful to those of us who work with them regularly, even if support is downgraded to only having an expectation of function on stable branches." | 03:29:14 |
| Winter (she/her) | In reply to @tpw_rules:matrix.org
i'm mildly peeved about a recent merging of something i maintain where i'm pretty sure the merger does not own the expensive hardware required to properly test the package. i don't think it broke anything but i was given precisely 45 minutes to see the notification before somebody merged it ugh, 45 minutes? that's... not great. not to air dirty laundry but did you do what samuela did in the wandb PR and at least say that that wasn't a great thing to do? (not sure how else to word that, you get what i mean) | 03:30:23 |
| tpw_rules | no, i haven't yet, but i probably will | 03:31:03 |
| Winter (she/her) | i admittedly did that with a PR once, i forget how long the maintainer was requested for but i merged it because multiple people reported it fixed the issue. the maintainer said "hey, don't do that" after and now i do think twice before merging. so it could help, is what i'm saying. | 03:31:50 |
| tpw_rules | i'm not sure what went wrong with the wandb PR anyway, i think it was just a boneheaded move on the maintainer's part | 03:32:10 |
| Winter (she/her) | (it was also simple enough that it was fine and the maintainer said it looked good after) | 03:32:15 |
| tpw_rules | * i'm not sure what went wrong with the wandb PR anyway, i think it was just a boneheaded move on the merger's part | 03:32:19 |
| tpw_rules | but i thought most of the frustration was around packages which don't really involve CUDA breaking the fragile CUDA packages, and i'm not sure how the warning helps in this case. it's not like nixpkgs-review prints out the comments. maybe i'm wrong. but it is a legitimate problem | 03:34:19 |
| Winter (she/her) | the frustration that i see is that people are touching packages that he maintains, am i missing further context here? | 03:35:09 |
| tpw_rules | did you ever see this? https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixpkgss-current-development-workflow-is-not-sustainable/18741 | 03:35:43 |
| Winter (she/her) | oh yes i did | 03:35:49 |
| Winter (she/her) | but that's not what the topic of this PR/the notice is, though? | 03:36:11 |
| Winter (she/her) | this wouldn't help that | 03:36:14 |
| Winter (she/her) | ~~is that what you're saying and i'm just lagging behind~~ | 03:36:27 |
| tpw_rules | no it wouldn't, but it reads to me like that's the underlying problem and this is a manifestation which can be controlled more easily. not to put thoughts in people's head | 03:37:07 |
| Winter (she/her) | right
(what do you mean by that last sentence, you don't want to influence anyone's opinion on the matter by saying that?) | 03:38:29 |
| tpw_rules | i guess? it's my personal opinion and thought and i'd appreciate comment from the man himself | 03:39:28 |
| tpw_rules | i think i mixed my metaphors slightly. i don't intend to put words in his mouth | 03:40:00 |
| tpw_rules | there's also this: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/185078 | 03:42:14 |
| tpw_rules | it's not really fair to characterize python general package updates as "breaking everything all over again" and the notice wouldn't have prevented it. it's just sort of life as being the center of a tangled web of dependencies | 03:43:13 |
| Winter (she/her) | that should be something brought up with the python folks tbh | 03:43:18 |
| Winter (she/her) | exactly | 03:43:20 |
| Winter (she/her) | i'm sure it can be worked around somehow, or things can be put in place | 03:43:31 |
| Winter (she/her) | the python folks are trying to keep up with something so fast moving and prone to breakage, there's only so much they can do without communication | 03:44:00 |
| tpw_rules | like sandro said in the issue, it feels more like there's a disconnect (which i don't know about) between the general python maintainers and cuda maintainers, and the best and most prompt solution might be to downgrade the service level | 03:44:06 |
| Winter (she/her) | * the python folks are trying to keep up with something so fast moving and prone to breakage, there's only so much they can do | 03:44:09 |
| Winter (she/her) | precisely yeah | 03:44:21 |
