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Chromium blacklists Nouveau

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Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#281

Post by pard68 »

gmueckl wrote: post #229
bhaak wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "perfectly working". If I download the Linux sources, compile the kernel and install it, there is no official Nvidia driver to be seen. I didn't say that Nvidia is at fault for the state of the nouveau driver. I said they are at fault for not providing OSS drivers. Nvidia doesn't want to play by the rules of Linux development but they still want to be on Linux. That's legally possible but why should the user o…

If you download the current Windows ISO image and install that offline, you won't get a proper driver for your nVidia card either. Yet, this is accepted as normal. Some Linux distributions that do not hamper themselves artificially on philosophical grounds offer nvidia binary drivers in their package repositories like they do with every other driver they contain. Your focus on the kernel sources is too narrow. There…

Parent is referring to the fact the Linux drivers are meant to be baked into the kernel and Nvidia doesn't wish to play ball.

You can't compare Linux and Windows when it comes to drivers, they have different methods of providing those drivers.

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#282

Post by JoshTriplett »

ryacko wrote: post #266
vetinari wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the wifi routers are shipping with binary kernel modules, then yes, it they are breaking GPL. This problem is actually common with embedded devices.

I never understood why NanoBSD didn't take off after the Software Freedom Conservancy lawsuits.

First, if you're talking about the lawsuits over wireless routers, that wasn't Conservancy, that was the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) working with the FSF. (And some feel those lawsuits were poorly timed, preempting active negotiations in progress and being largely responsible for Cisco ceasing large Linux-based projects in progress.)

And second, to answer your question, partly because Linux is sufficiently good and has wide enough hardware support that it's still easier to use Linux legally under the GPL than to use another operating system, and partly because if you're going to use another operating system with narrower hardware support you might as well use a tinier embedded one and ship cheaper hardware (which is what Linksys/Cisco did with the WRT54G, shipping VxWorks and less RAM, and then selling the more-Linux-capable WRT54GL as a higher-end product).

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#283

Post by angry_octet »

yogthos wrote: post #270
mkoryak wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works on my machine, ship it!

Uh no, means that you can make it work and some people are willing to spend the time to do it right. You'd think that if Mozilla can afford to do this so could Google. The only way the problems in the drivers can get fixed is through usage, if Chrome flat out refuses to work with the driver then the issues can't be fixed. This also illustrates why it's important to have alternatives to Chrome for anybody who cares ab…

I assess with high confidence that that was a satirical comment.

It could be working on FF only through a quirk in their rendering, rather than a testing. Chrome certainly has a test suite -- did anyone run it with nouveau and turn bugs into PRs? And arguably, that job belongs to the desktop owners, as well as the nouveau and chromium teams. Browsers are insanely complicated, and who is paying for this work?

If I could make my employer pay for a meaningful number of Ubuntu desktop licences I would, but TBH I need it to work with the nVidia driver not nouveau.

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#284

Post by pard68 »

yogthos wrote: post #270
mkoryak wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works on my machine, ship it!

Uh no, means that you can make it work and some people are willing to spend the time to do it right. You'd think that if Mozilla can afford to do this so could Google. The only way the problems in the drivers can get fixed is through usage, if Chrome flat out refuses to work with the driver then the issues can't be fixed. This also illustrates why it's important to have alternatives to Chrome for anybody who cares ab…

Pretty sure that was sarcasm, just fyi

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#285

Post by tntn »

zanny wrote: post #161
bhaak wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, that's mean. IMHO the only way to react to that is to close down shop. Ideally including Linux throwing out support for Nvidia cards. I have a strong opinion on this as I was involved a few years ago in the Kindle homebrew community. After a while I decided that my time could be used better than on a product by a company that tries to prevent us from making his product better and more interesting to its users.…

I've personally actively avoided buying anything with Nvidia hardware in it for 8 years now because of how awful their software business is. That has meant I've even skipped over tablets and phones using their chips and will never buy a Nintendo Switch because... well... firstly consoles are bullshit crippling perfectly good computers with proprietary OSes but secondly because it has an Nvidia chip in it. I tell ever…

Would you mind giving an overview of their reprehensible business practices for those of us who just buy GPUs without following the companies?

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#286

Post by dazilcher »

ddevault wrote: post #179
Operyl wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get you have an axe[0] to grind with NVIDIA, but is attacking people trying to mitigate around a broken driver really the right direction? By your message, we should also be "pissed off" at you for disabling a driver that "works" in your project too. [0]: https://drewdevault.com/2017/10/26/Fuck-you-nvidia.html

The Nvidia driver does not "work" in my project. I have added no code which explicitly blacklists it, and the day Nvidia releases a driver which implements the required APIs it will work with no changes in my code.

> the day Nvidia releases a driver which implements the required APIs it will work with no changes in my code.

How about the day when Nvidia releases a buggy (system-crashing?) implementation of the required APIs? How well will your code work without changes, and which course of action will you take?

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#287

Post by Wowfunhappy »

lucb1e wrote: post #177
slacka wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hangs from the the max-texture-size-equivalent tes I reported this bug back in 2015 and they have made no progress on it. It seems Nouveau just doesn't have the resources or man power. I can't really blame Google here. You don't want the browser to be able to hard lock system(not even a Magic SysRq will reboot it) [1] https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92136

> You don't want the browser to be able to hard lock system(not even a Magic SysRq will reboot it) Wait, this isn't just rendering bugs a la "some WebGL things will show green instead of red", it kills your system entirely? I thought the only effect this blacklisting had was making WebGL unavailable for everyone instead of buggy for a small minority. This just flipped my opinion. Related, this might also explain the…

Driver crashes can easily take down a system. That's why driver quality matters so much. This is true on every OS. (Although, Windows 7+ has mechanisms to help recover from GPU driver crashes specifically, which usually work.)

Also, Chrome can render WebGL on the CPU. It's slower but will still work.

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#288

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

dazilcher wrote: post #286
ddevault wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nvidia driver does not "work" in my project. I have added no code which explicitly blacklists it, and the day Nvidia releases a driver which implements the required APIs it will work with no changes in my code.

> the day Nvidia releases a driver which implements the required APIs it will work with no changes in my code. How about the day when Nvidia releases a buggy (system-crashing?) implementation of the required APIs? How well will your code work without changes, and which course of action will you take?

I'll not change my code for their sake. I already get enough annoyed Nvidia users who think it's my fault their driver doesn't support GBM, so annoyed Nvidia users who think it's my fault their driver is buggy won't be much different. I'll do what I already tell them: it's Nvidia's problem, report it to them. Of course, if some characteristic of Nvidia's implementation demonstrates previously-unknown bugs in sway (bugs in sway, not in the driver), sway will change to accomodate that.

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#289

Post by a11595 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #257
a11595 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're the only one saying the don't. they are saying the most common linux configuration causes issues so blacklist the buggy driver in it they are also saying their that driver may work fine on some less common linux configurations, and the chrome team does not have the resources to test those. you are literally saying they are saying the opposite of what they said, then blaming them for it.

They were using "not enough resources" to support the idea of blacklisting. If they meant it as you say, that means they're blanketly blacklisting the most common config despite having the resources to test it, which is even worse.

I'm not sure what is unclear to you here. They do support the idea of blacklisting for every possible unpopular config, despite it possibly working. This is not only common sense, it is what every company does. When you write your software, do you test it on every possible distribution users could use, or just the popular ones?

The common distribution was blacklisted not because it was not tested, but because it clearly has issues observed and reported by the users.

Re: Chromium blacklists Nouveau

#290

Post by espeed »

emersion wrote: post #31

Nouveau are doing their best to reverse-engineer cards. NVIDIA doesn't help at all, not providing any docs and not interacting with the rest of the community. On the other hand, Intel and AMD have high-quality drivers and are part of the open-source community.

For those closer to the hardware with insight into the emerging architectures and market dynamics, how far away is AMD/Intel/IBM/Google from catching NVIDIA from a technology perspective, and does NVIDIA have a defensible competitive advantage now that market forces have moved well beyond gaming and shifted US strategy toward a spending spree of buying up all IP?
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