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LibreCUDA – Launch CUDA code on Nvidia GPUs without the proprietary runtime

github.com

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Re: LibreCUDA – Launch CUDA code on Nvidia GPUs without the proprietary runtime

#11

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

jstanley wrote: post #5

Do you still need to be running the proprietary nvidia graphics driver, or is that completely unrelated?

You will need an NVIDIA driver (the README says as much), be it the proprietary or open source modules. Looks like this is performing RM (Resource Manager, which is the low-level API that is used to communicate with the NVIDIA proprietary driver using ioctl calls) API calls. If you look in the src/nvidia directory, many of the header files are RM API call header files from the NVIDIA open source kernel module, containing various structures and RM API command numbers (not sure if this is the official term).

Fun thing, the open source modules takes some proprietary things and moves them to the GSP firmware. Incidentally, the open source modules actually communicate with the GSP firmware using the RM API as well. This understanding may be correct, but now instead of some RM calls being handled in kernel space they are forwarded to the firmware and handled there.

Re: LibreCUDA – Launch CUDA code on Nvidia GPUs without the proprietary runtime

#12

Post by shmerl »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #9
shmerl wrote: post #8

Since ZLUDA was taken down (by request from AMD of all parties), it would be better to have some ZLUDA replacement as a general purpose way of breaking CUDA lock-in. I.e. something not tied to Nvidia hardware.

That's a problem on a different level of the CUDA stack. Having a compiler that takes a special C++ or python dialect and compiles it to GPU suitable llvm-ir and then to a GPU binary is one thing (and there's progress on that side: triton, numba, soonish mojo), being able to launch that binary without going through the nvidia driver is another problem.

Yeah, the latter one is more useful for effective lock-in breaking.

Re: LibreCUDA – Launch CUDA code on Nvidia GPUs without the proprietary runtime

#16

Post by samstave »

heyoni wrote: post #4
snihalani wrote: post #3

For a non cuda n00b, what problem does this solve?

Like anything open source it allows you to know and see exactly what your machine is doing. I don’t want to speculate too much but I remember there being discussions around whether or not nvidia could embed licensing checks and such at the firmware level.

> licensing checks and such at the firmware level.

Could you imaging an age where the NVIDIA firmware does LLM/AI/GPU license checking before it does operations on your vectors? (Hello Oracle on SUN e650, My old Friend) ((Worse would be a DRM check against deep-faking or other Globalist WEF Guardrails))

((oracle had(has) an age olde function where if you bought a license for a single proc and threw it inot a dual proc sun enterprise server with an extra proc or so - it knew you have several hundred K to spend on an additional e650 so why not have an extra ~$80K for an additional oracle proc license. Rather than make the app actually USE the additional proc - as there were no changes to oracles garbage FU Maxwell))

Re: LibreCUDA – Launch CUDA code on Nvidia GPUs without the proprietary runtime

#18

Post by kkielhofner »

greenavocado wrote: post #14

The authors better start thinking about the trademark infringement notice coming their way

Naming anything is hard and I don’t have better suggestions but when you’re doing something that’s already poking at something a big corp holds dearly hitting on trademark while you’re at it makes it really easy for them.
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