[kwlug-disc] NVIDIA open sources driver

[Chris Irwin]

On Thu, May 12, 2022, at 11:25, L.D. Paniak wrote:
> On a bright, warm spring day, hell froze over:
> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia-open-kernel&num=1
> https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/blob/main/COPYING
> 
> You can even compile it for yourself:
> https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
> 
> This driver is only good for newer NVIDIA GPUs (Turing+).
> Nouveau or proprietary driver will have to be used for older GPUs 
> (pre-RTX 20)

Reading the announcement throws some cold water on the situation:

* Currently only beta support for consumer cards (geforce, etc) and workloads (like "displaying output")
* Still requires closed-source user-space drivers
* Requires matched-version of said closed user-space drivers
* Also doesn't include firmware, and that is something is something holding back nouveau, for example.

Basically, it appears that nvidia simply took their kernel module blob from proprietary + open glue to fully open. I expect the real reason behind this is to allow them to start using the GPL-only functionality in the kernel, which they were not allowed to before.

It's an improvement, but just barely.

We'll see in time whether nvidia will accept patches to support open userspace (mesa, etc) or whether code can be adapted to improve nouveau.

-- 
*Chris Irwin*

email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
  web: https://chrisirwin.ca
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