Comparing GPU performance for Deep Learning between Linux, and Windows.
Does it matter?
Introduction
As a deep learning enthusiast, I always find myself stuck with the same question. Which OS should I choose for Deep Learning? The questions that follow are: Should I go for Windows, or should I go for Linux? If Linux, then what distro?
Some people think that today, in 2020, it doesn’t really matter whether you go for Windows or Linux; if you decide to go with Linux, it doesn’t really matter which distro (distribution) of Linux you choose. If you search for what OS should I choose for ML/DL, below are some of the answers you get:
- IT DOESN’T MATTER.
- Linux, because most libraries and tools make their way to Linux first.
- It is a hassle to get CUDA and CuDNN working with Windows.
Now with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), it is possible to run any Linux distro directly in Windows 10 without needing a dedicated Virtual Machine (Virtual Box, etc.). Microsoft is working closely with NVIDIA to bring GPU computing to WSL2. It is already available for preview in Windows Insider Program. I am really looking forward to it. You can read more about this here.
Since I did not find any answers that helped me compare performance, I decided to do it myself. Hence, I am writing this post. With the recent popularity with Pop!_OS, I have selected it as my Linux-distro for comparison. In this post, I will be running the same model on Pop!_OS, and Windows 10. The performance will also vary from one PC to another depending on the configuration.
My system configuration (Alienware Aurora R9):
- Processor: Intel ® Core ™ i7–9700 @ 3.00 GHz (Cores: 8, Threads: 8)
- RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (8x2)
- Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB)
I know people will say RTX 2060 is not meant for machine learning, try 2070, 2080, or 2080 Ti, but I do not have enough money to invest in a new rig.
I am not going to get into detail in setting up the environment and downloading the libraries because if you are reading this article, I am sure you are way ahead on that.
Note: I am most comfortable using Anaconda as my main Python distribution. Hence, setting up Tensorflow with cuda-toolkit and cudnn takes only a single line of code: conda install tensorflow-gpu=(*version*). This works on any OS.
Previously, using **conda install** used to work flawlessly. Recently, I am having problems and had to install everything separately. I will post a new article on installing TensorFlow, cuda-toolkit and cudnn (with multiple versions) on Windows 10 soon.
Datasets and Model summary
Since this is just a performance comparison, I will not focus on the model and how good it is. However, I am planning to post an article on image classification with Tensorflow 2.x soon. The test comparison is based on two image datasets, i.e., cats-dogs-pandas and ASL (American Sign Language).
Cats-dogs-pandas have a 1000 images each. I divided this data to distribute 2400 images for training, 525 for validation, and 75 for testing (predictions). ASL, on the other hand, has 3000 images (each) for 29 different classes for training, of which I took 450 for validation. Testing contains 29 images, one for each category.
I decided to test three different models and use the same models for both the datasets, starting from a shallow convolutional network to a deep network.
Here is a summary of the models used:
Results
I trained the models for a hundred epochs, and the table below shows the performance comparison of time taken by the GPU to train the models on both operating systems.
Conclusion
If we consider the results above, there does not seem to be much of a difference between the time taken by the model to train on the operating systems. Yes, the models were trained on Pop!_OS quicker as compared to Windows 10. But, for small datasets and models, I don’t think it matters a lot.
In my opinion, if you are comfortable using Linux as your daily driver, it would help you save some time, and also you will have the added bonus of early updates on packages and drivers. On the other hand, for people who are not comfortable with Linux, Windows 10 is not far behind. Besides, as mentioned earlier, with WSL2 (and soon GPU Computing with WSL2), I would personally stay with Windows as it makes me feel more comfortable, and I can have the perks of both Operating Systems simultaneously.
References for cover image:
Windows 10 wallpaper: https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/16/microsoft-releases-new-windows-10-preview-with-task-manager-virtual-desktop-and-mouse-cursor-improvements/
Pop!_OS: https://github.com/pop-os/system76-wallpapers/issues/1
