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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

#201

Post by stragies »

p_l wrote: post #178
stragies wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, the magical IOMMU controller, that everybody just assumes to be implemented perfectly across the board. I'm expecting this to be like Hyperthreading, where we find out 20 years later, that the feature was faulty/maybe_bugdoored since inception in many/most/all implementations. Same thing with USB3/TB-controllers, NPUs, etc that everybody just expects to be perfectly implemented to spec, with flawless firmwar…

It's not perfect or anything, but it's usually a step up[1], and the funniest thing is that GPUs generally had less of ... "interesting" compute facilities to jump over from, just easier to access usually . My first 64 bit laptop, my first android smartphone, first few iPhones, had more MIPS32le cores with possible DMA access to memory than the main CPU cores, and that was just counting one component of many (the wif…

All fine and well, but I always come back to "If I were a manufacturer/creator of some work/device/software, that does something in the plausible realm of 'telecommunication', how do make sure, that my product can always comply with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception requests? Allow for ingress/egress of data/commands at as low a level as possible!"

So as a chipset creator company director it would seem like a no-brainer to me to have to tell my engineers unfortunately to not fix some exploitable bug in the IOMMU/Chipset. Unless I want to never sell devices that could potentially be used to move citizens internet packets around in a large scale deployment.

And implement/not_fix something similar in other layers as well, e.g. ME.

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

#202

Post by nailer »

josefx wrote: post #140
nailer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having products that require a bunch of extra work due to proprietary drivers, especially when their competitors don't require that work, is not good.

The biggest chunk of that "extra work" would be installing Linux in the first place, given that almost everything comes with Windows out of the box. An additional "sudo apt install nvidia-drivers" isn't going to stop anyone who already got that far.

Most cloud instances come with Linux out of the box.

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

#203

Post by vetinari »

bornfreddy wrote: post #148
hulitu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always use X11. /s

I know that was a joke, but - as someone who is still on X, what am I missing? Any practical advantages to using Wayland when using a single monitor on desktop computer?

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

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

#204

Post by vetinari »

lyu07282 wrote: post #70
Workaccount2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends heavily on the user. A mechanic might say "This car has never given me a problem" because the mechanic doesn't consider cleaning an idle bypass circuit or adjusting valve clearances to be a "problem". To 99% percent of the population though, those are expensive and annoying problems because they have no idea what those words even mean, much less the ability to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair.

a lot has probably to do with not really understanding their distributions package manager and lkms specifically, I also always suspected that most Linux users don't know if they are using Wayland or X11 and the issues they had were actually Wayland specific ones they wouldn't have with Nvidia/x11 and come to think of it, how would they even know if it's a GPU driver issue in the first place? Guess I'm the mechanic i…

If there's an issue with Nvidia/Wayland and there isn't with AMD/Wayland or Intel/Wayland, it is Nvidia issue then, not Wayland one.

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

#205

Post by sqeaky »

lmm wrote: post #107
sqeaky wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

What kind of flakiness? The only AMD GPU problem I have had involved a lightning strike killing a card while I was gaming.

My nvidia problems are generally software and update related. The NVidia stuff usually works on popular distros, but as soon anything custom or a surprise update happens then there is a chance things break.

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

#207

Post by gorkish »

This is great. I've been having to build my own .debs of the OSS driver for some time because of the crapola NVIDIA puts in their proprietary driver that prevents it from working in a VM as a passthrough device. (just a regular whole-card passthru, not trying to use GRID/vGPU on a consumer card or anything)

NVIDIA can no longer get away with that nonsense when they have to show their code.

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

#208

Post by dahart »

chasil wrote: post #53
Workaccount2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends heavily on the user. A mechanic might say "This car has never given me a problem" because the mechanic doesn't consider cleaning an idle bypass circuit or adjusting valve clearances to be a "problem". To 99% percent of the population though, those are expensive and annoying problems because they have no idea what those words even mean, much less the ability to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair.

If you use a search engine for "Torvalds Nvidia" you will discern a certain attitude towards Nvidia as a corporation and its products. This might provide you a suggestion that alternate manufacturers should be considered. I have confirmed this to be the case on Google and Bing, so DuckDuckGo and Startpage will also exhibit this phenomena.

Torvalds has said nasty mean things to a lot of people in the past, and expressed regret over his temper & hyperbole. Try searching for something more recent https://youtu.be/wvQ0N56pW74

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

#209

Post by bayindirh »

gpderetta wrote: post #185
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…

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 GLX libraries are the elephant(s) in the room. Open source kernel modules mean nothing without these libraries. On the other hand AMD and Intel uses "pltform GLX" natively, and with great success.

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

#210

Post by bryanlarsen »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #77
bryanlarsen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

True, although note that the Linux market itself is increasing in size due to ML. Maybe "increasingly dominant market" is a better phrase here.

Hah, good point. The OP was pedantically correct. The implication in "growing market share" is that "market share" is small, but that's definitely reading between the lines!
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