161–170 of 259 posts
Huh. Sway and Wayland was such a nightmare on Nvidia that it convinced me to switch to AMD. I wonder if it's better now. (IIRC the main issue was https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/issues/1317 , which is now complete.)
why switch to amd and not just switch to X? :D
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having as open-source all the kernel, more precisely all the privileged code, is much more important for security than having as open-source all the firmware of the peripheral devices. Any closed-source privileged code cannot be audited and it may contain either intentional backdoors, or, more likely, bugs that can cause various undesirable effects, like crashes or privilege escalation. On the other hand, in a proper…
Did you run this through a LLM? I'm not sure what the point is of arguing with yourself and bringing up points that seem tangential to what you started off talking about (…security of GPUs?)
I have argued with "I don’t believe that much has really changed here", which is the text to which I have replied.
As I have explained, an open-source kernel module, even together with closed-source device firmware, is much more secure than a closed-source kernel module.
Therefore the truth is that a lot has changed here, contrary to the statement to which I have replied, as this change makes the OS kernel much more secure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK I believe all they did was move the closed source user space driver code to their opaque firmware blob leaving a thin shim in the kernel. In essence I don’t believe that much has really changed here.
Having as open-source all the kernel, more precisely all the privileged code, is much more important for security than having as open-source all the firmware of the peripheral devices. Any closed-source privileged code cannot be audited and it may contain either intentional backdoors, or, more likely, bugs that can cause various undesirable effects, like crashes or privilege escalation. On the other hand, in a proper…
People used to believe similar things about Hyperthreading, glitchability, ME, Cisco, boot-loaders, ... the list goes on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How well isolated is this secondary computer? Do we have reason to fear the proprietary software running on it?
As well isolated as anything else on the bus. So you better actually use IOMMU
Same thing with USB3/TB-controllers, NPUs, etc that everybody just expects to be perfectly implemented to spec, with flawless firmwares.
I remember Nvidia getting hacked pretty bad a few years ago. IIRC, the hackers threatened to release everything they had unless they open sourced their drivers. Maybe they got what they wanted. [0] https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/nvidia-hackers-allegedly-...