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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

#241

Post by noch »

paulmd wrote: post #234
noch wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I see no indications either that either nvidia nor any of the rest of the manufacturers has moved any respectable amount of functionality to the firmware. Someone who believes this could easily prove that they are correct by "simply" taking their 4090 and documenting all its functionality, as was done with the [7900 xtx]( https://github.com/geohot/7900xtx ). You can't say "I see no indications/evidence" unless you…

so basically “if you really think there’s no proof of a positive claim, then you won’t mind conclusively proving the negation”? no, that’s not how either logical propositions or burden of proof works

> no, that’s not how either logical propositions or burden of proof works

I think you're missing the point, perhaps intentionally to make a smart-sounding point?

We're programmers, working on _specific physical things_. If I claim that my CPU's branch predictor is not doing something, it is only prudent to find out what it is doing, and enumerate the finite set of what it contains.

Does that make sense? The goal is to figure out _how things actually work_ rather than making claims and arguing past each other until the end of time.

Perhaps you don't care about what the firmware blobs contain, and so you'd rather have an academic debate about logical propositions, but I care about the damn blobs, because it matters for my present and future work.

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

#243

Post by guilhas »

Arch-TK wrote: post #217
vetinari wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that single monitor can be hidpi, vrr or hdr (this one is still wip).

I have a 165 DPI monitor. This honestly just works with far less hassle on X. I don't have to listen to anyone try to explain to me how fractional scaling doesn't make sense (real explanation for why it wasn't supported). I don't have to deal with some silly explanation for why XWayland applications just can't be non-blurry with a fractional or non-1 scaling factor. I can just set the DPI to the value I calculated an…

Same, can't understand people evangelizing Wayland

I have a laptop 10.1 2560x1600 with a 32' monitor, and another 27', never had any problem

Wayland has practically no advantages, you have to spend hours configuring, and still have apps working badly... they are always just a month away from having "everything" fixed

Maybe Wayland is the future but I'll keep using Xorg distros for the foreseeable future

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

#244

Post by riehwvfbk »

justinclift wrote: post #239
foresto wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not solvable using an IOMMU (assuming hardware that has one)?

No idea personally. :)

An IOMMU does solve it, at the cost of some performance. The GPU can only access memory that the IOMMU allows, and the part that programs the IOMMU is open source.

RDMA requires a special network card and is opt-in - an RDMA NIC cannot access any random memory, only specially registered regions. One could argue that a NIC FW bug could cause arbitrary memory accesses, but that's another place where an IOMMU would help.

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

#245

Post by exe34 »

paulmd wrote: post #234
noch wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I see no indications either that either nvidia nor any of the rest of the manufacturers has moved any respectable amount of functionality to the firmware. Someone who believes this could easily prove that they are correct by "simply" taking their 4090 and documenting all its functionality, as was done with the [7900 xtx]( https://github.com/geohot/7900xtx ). You can't say "I see no indications/evidence" unless you…

so basically “if you really think there’s no proof of a positive claim, then you won’t mind conclusively proving the negation”? no, that’s not how either logical propositions or burden of proof works

He has already told you how to prove it: enumerate the functionality of the driver - the GPU and the code are finite, bounded environments. You can absolutely prove that there is no tea in a cup, that there are no coins in a purse, that there is no cat in a box, etc.

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

#246

Post by Zambyte »

paulmd wrote: post #237
gpderetta wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is meaningful because, as you note, it enables a fully opensource userspace driver. Of course the firmware is still proprietary and it increasingly contains more and more logic.

the open kernel driver also fundamentally breaks the limitation about geforce gpus not being licensed for use in the datacenter. that provision is a driver provision and CUDA does not follow the same license as the driver... really the only significant limitation is that you aren't allowed to use the CUDA toolkit to develop for non-NVIDIA hardware, and some license notice requirements if you redistribute the sample p…

Can you link the source code for CUDA please? Thanks.

Edit since I'm being downvoted: I did search for it and could not find it.

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

#247

Post by justinclift »

riehwvfbk wrote: post #244
justinclift wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea personally. :)

An IOMMU does solve it, at the cost of some performance. The GPU can only access memory that the IOMMU allows, and the part that programs the IOMMU is open source. RDMA requires a special network card and is opt-in - an RDMA NIC cannot access any random memory, only specially registered regions. One could argue that a NIC FW bug could cause arbitrary memory accesses, but that's another place where an IOMMU would help…

Awesome, thanks. :)

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

#248

Post by phendrenad2 »

shanoaice wrote: post #171

There is little meaning for NVIDIA to open-source only the driver portion of their cards, since they heavily rely on proprietary firmware and userspace lib (most important!) to do the real job. Firmware is a relatively small issue - this is mostly same for AMD and Intel, since encapsulation reduces work done on driver side and open-sourcing firmware could allow people to do some really unanticipated modification whic…

There IS meaning because this makes it easier to install Nvidia drivers. At least, it reduces the number of failure modes. Now the open-source component can be managed by the kernel team, while the closed-source portion can be changed as needed, not dictated by kernel API changes.

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

#249

Post by vetinari »

guilhas wrote: post #243
Arch-TK wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 165 DPI monitor. This honestly just works with far less hassle on X. I don't have to listen to anyone try to explain to me how fractional scaling doesn't make sense (real explanation for why it wasn't supported). I don't have to deal with some silly explanation for why XWayland applications just can't be non-blurry with a fractional or non-1 scaling factor. I can just set the DPI to the value I calculated an…

Same, can't understand people evangelizing Wayland I have a laptop 10.1 2560x1600 with a 32' monitor, and another 27', never had any problem Wayland has practically no advantages, you have to spend hours configuring, and still have apps working badly... they are always just a month away from having "everything" fixed Maybe Wayland is the future but I'll keep using Xorg distros for the foreseeable future

You guys must be using some different X11 than the rest of us.

Basically, with X11 and hidpi, all you can do is to set up the system to announce dpi with certain value and hope, that the clients will cope. Some can (I know of exactly two of them: Chrome and Firefox), others will up bump up the font size and hopefully are using a layout, so the window sizes will adjust to accommodate the textboxes, but all the non-text assets will stay low-res how they were, because they do not have any other. Apps for remote desktop access or vm console won't be able to display remote/vm correctly. And the rest will just ignore that and you get tiny stuff on the display.

And this is just the hidpi issue with single display. Won't go into the problems when running with multiple displays, with different dpi.

I also do not have a faintest idea of what "setting up Wayland" might mean. What did you set up? How? The only thing that needs to "set up" is to pick a wayland session in the display manager. There's no xorg.conf for wayland, setting up drivers, etc. What did you configure "for hours"?

I've been using 4K 27" for over a decade, and Wayland, since Fedora made it default. Since I have no 20-year old xdotool scripts, or others that inject events or try to grab pixmaps, I've had no problem.

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

#250

Post by CodesInChaos »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #149

Transition is not done until their drivers are upstreamed into the mainline kernel and ALL features work out of the box, especially power management and hybrid graphics.

I thought power management was moved to the GPU firmware in the 20 series, which is why the new driver only supports those?
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