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NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

developer.nvidia.com

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Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#101

Post by p_l »

knotimpressed wrote: post #85
p_l wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's mainly the reduced maintenance and reduction of workload needed to support, especially with more platforms coming to be supported (not so long ago there was no ARM64 nvidia support, now they are shipping their own ARM64 servers!) What really changed the situation is that Turing architecture GPUs bring new, more powerful management CPU, which has enough capacity to essentially run the OS-agnostic parts…

Am I correct in reading that as Turing architecture cards include a small CPU on the GPU board, running parts of the driver/other code?

In Turing microarchitecture, nVidia replaced their old "falcon" cpu with NV-RISCV RV64 chip, running various internal tasks.

"Open Drivers" from nVidia include different firmware that utilizes the new-found performance.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#102

Post by p_l »

knotimpressed wrote: post #91
p_l wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what happened - Turing microarchitecture brought in new[1] "GSP" which is capable enough to run the task. Similar architecture happens AFAIK on Apple M-series where the GPU runs its own instance of RTOS talking with "application OS" over RPC. [1] Turing GSP is not the first "classical serial CPU" in nvidia chips, it's just first that has enough juice to do the task. Unfortunately without recalling the…

Would you happen to have a source or any further readings about Apple M-series GPUs running their own RTOS instance?

Asahi Linux documentation has pretty good writeup.

The GPU is described here[1] and the mailbox interface used generally between various components is described here [2]

[1] https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW%3AAGX#overview

[2] https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW%3AASC

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#103

Post by p_l »

vlovich123 wrote: post #12
enoeht wrote: post #7

didn't they say that many times before?

Not sure but with the Turing series they support having a cryptographically signed binary blob that they load on the GPU. So before where their kernel driver was a thin shim for the user space driver, now it’s a thin shim for the black box firmware loaded on the GPU

the scope of what the kernel interface provides didn't change, but what was previously a blob wrapped by source-provided "os interface layer" is now moved to run on GSP (RISC-V based) inside the GPU.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#104

Post by senectus1 »

drdaeman wrote: post #99
hypeatei wrote: post #2

How is the NVIDIA driver situation on Linux these days? I built a new desktop with an AMD GPU since I didn't want to deal with all the weirdness of closed source or lacking/obsolete open source drivers.

3090 owner here. Wayland is even worse mess than it normally is. Used to flicker real bad before 555.58.02, less so with the latest driver - but still has some glitches with games. A bunch of older Electron apps still fail to render anything and require hardware acceleration disabled. I gave up trying to make it all work - can't get rid of all the flicker and drawing issues, plus Wayland seems to be a real pain in th…

4070ti super here, X11 is fine, i have zero issues.

Wayland is mostly fine, though i get some windowframe glitches when maxing them to the monitor and a another issue that i'm pretty sure is wayland but it has obnly happened a couple of times and it locks the whole device up. I cant prove it yet.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#105

Post by JasonSage »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #97
JasonSage wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of the parent, upcoming can still be a relative term, albeit a bit misleading. For example: I'm running the 550 drivers still because my upstream nixos-unstable doesn't have 555 for me yet.

> nixos-unstable doesn't have 555 Version 555.58.02 is under “latest” in nixos-unstable as of about three weeks ago[1]. (Somebody should check with qyliss if she knows the PR tracker is dead... But the last nixos-unstable bump was two days ago, so it’s there.) [1] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/4e15c4a8ad30c02d6c26...

`nvidia-smi` shows that my driver version is 550.78. I ran `nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade` yesterday. My nixos channel is `nixos-unstable`.

Do you know something I don't? I'd love to be on the latest version.

I should have written my post better, it implies that 555 does not exist in nixpkgs, which I never meant. There's certainly a phrasing that captures what I'm seeing more accurately.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#106

Post by lmm »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #74
commodoreboxer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They care when it affects their bottom line, and customers leaving for the competition does that. I don't know if that's what's happening here, honestly, but you're right that they don't care about being shamed, but building a reputation of being hard to work with and target, especially in a growing market like Linux (still tiny, but growing nonetheless, and becoming significantly more important in the areas where no…

> in a growing market like Linux Isn't Linux 80% of their market? ML et al is 80% of their sales, and ~99% of that is Linux.

Right, and that's where most of their growth is.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#107

Post by lmm »

sqeaky wrote: post #24
anon291 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've literally never had an issue in decades of using NVIDIA and linux. They're closed source, but the drivers work very consistently for me. NVIDIA's just the only option if you want something actually good and to run ML workloads as well.

> but the drivers work very consistently for me The problem with comments like this is that you never know if you will be me or you on your graphics card or laptop. I have tried nvidia a few times and kept getting burnt. AMD just works. I don't get the fastest ML machine, but I am just a tinkerer there and OpenCL works fine for my little toy apps and my 7900XTX blazes through every wine game. If you need it professio…

> AMD just works. I don't get the fastest ML machine, but I am just a tinkerer there and OpenCL works fine for my little toy apps and my 7900XTX blazes through every wine game.

That's the opposite of my experience. I'd love to support open-source. But the AMD experience is just too flaky, too card-dependent. NVidia is rock-solid (maybe not for Wayland, but I never wanted Wayland in the first place).

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#108

Post by resoluteteeth »

anon291 wrote: post #20
hypeatei wrote: post #2

How is the NVIDIA driver situation on Linux these days? I built a new desktop with an AMD GPU since I didn't want to deal with all the weirdness of closed source or lacking/obsolete open source drivers.

I've literally never had an issue in decades of using NVIDIA and linux. They're closed source, but the drivers work very consistently for me. NVIDIA's just the only option if you want something actually good and to run ML workloads as well.

Are you using wayland or are you still on x11? My experience was that the closed source drivers were fine with x11 but a nightmare with wayland.

Re: NVIDIA Transitions Fully Towards Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Modules

#110

Post by ZeroCool2u »

kabes wrote: post #59
dralley wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. It's probably a matter of constantly being prodded by their industry partners (i.e. Red Hat), constantly being shamed by the community, and reducing the amount of maintenance they need to do to keep their driver stack updated and working on new kernels. The meat of the drivers is still proprietary, this just allows them to be loaded without a proprietary kernel module.

It's hard to believe one of the highest valued companies in the world cares about being shamed for not having open source drivers.

I mean I've personally given our Nvidia rep some light hearted shit for it. Told him I'd appreciate if he passed the feedback up the chain. Can't hurt to provide feedback!
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