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Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

developer.nvidia.com

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Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#301

Post by hda2 »

parasense wrote: post #294
mort96 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it's also not the actual GPU driver, just the kernel part; you still need their massive closed blob in userspace. Almost had me excited there for a moment.

That's a bit of a tired and somewhat misleading argument. Take a look into the kernel-firmware repo, and you will see a tremendous amount of binary firmware blobs. For example the Intel micro-code blobs are protected by ~7 layers deep of encryption, wifi drivers may have government regulatory issues with sharing firmwares in anything but binary form. So let's please drop the evil binary blob nonesense... The kernel d…

This small tirade of yours is arguing against a strawman.

GP is likely referring to the userspace component of nvidia's driver, not the actual blob that gets loaded onto the gpu. If it is indeed true that you need to run proprietary userland code, then this open-source release is nothing but a way to circumvent the GPL issues that lead to nvidia's driver partially breaking in Linux 5.??.

While not ideal, I like many don't have a hard stance against loading proprietary hardware firmware blobs. I, however, absolutely take issue with running opaque user-space programs.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#302

Post by Out_of_Characte »

parasense wrote: post #294
mort96 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it's also not the actual GPU driver, just the kernel part; you still need their massive closed blob in userspace. Almost had me excited there for a moment.

That's a bit of a tired and somewhat misleading argument. Take a look into the kernel-firmware repo, and you will see a tremendous amount of binary firmware blobs. For example the Intel micro-code blobs are protected by ~7 layers deep of encryption, wifi drivers may have government regulatory issues with sharing firmwares in anything but binary form. So let's please drop the evil binary blob nonesense... The kernel d…

No law or regulation that I know of specifies binary format.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#303

Post by nimish »

greggsy wrote: post #266
mort96 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it's also not the actual GPU driver, just the kernel part; you still need their massive closed blob in userspace. Almost had me excited there for a moment.

Has any rationale been provided around the blob being closed? Is it licensed, or simply too too complicated to pick apart? Graphics is a complicated field, but the techniques could still be patented - surely their market status isn’t dependent on trade secrets?

It's pretty common to license peripheral bits of an ASIC from other companies. You don't even get to look at their blobs or much else.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#304

Post by jabl »

bcatanzaro wrote: post #169
exikyut wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be quite interesting to outline just how far back in time this started (with lots of details), considering those demands to open-source certain code that were apparently made around March 3rd this year. My own motivation is to believe that NVidia isn't as broken as everyone insists it is, I guess :) and more broadly speaking it honestly seems like a Good And Interesting Idea to make the situation more clear…

This functionality has been rolled out (shipping) for the past year. From the blog post: "This was made possible by the phased rollout of the GSP driver architecture over the past year, designed to make the transition easy for NVIDIA customers. https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/510.39.01/R... "

And further, the GSP driver arch depends on the GSP controller available on Turing and later GPU's. Per wikipedia Turing was unveiled in 2018, so I guess design work was started several years prior to that unveiling. Not saying the decision to open source the driver was made back in 2015(?) or so, but the wheels were set in motion that eventually enabled the open source decision a long time ago.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#305

Post by pjmlp »

hda2 wrote: post #301
parasense wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a tired and somewhat misleading argument. Take a look into the kernel-firmware repo, and you will see a tremendous amount of binary firmware blobs. For example the Intel micro-code blobs are protected by ~7 layers deep of encryption, wifi drivers may have government regulatory issues with sharing firmwares in anything but binary form. So let's please drop the evil binary blob nonesense... The kernel d…

This small tirade of yours is arguing against a strawman. GP is likely referring to the userspace component of nvidia's driver, not the actual blob that gets loaded onto the gpu. If it is indeed true that you need to run proprietary userland code, then this open-source release is nothing but a way to circumvent the GPL issues that lead to nvidia's driver partially breaking in Linux 5.??. While not ideal, I like many…

Interesting, so they can do whatever they want, provided it runs as firmware.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#307

Post by pjmlp »

marcodiego wrote: post #95
alksjdalkj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, the open source ATI drivers were always a bit buggy and it wasn't that easy getting them installed either. The tradeoff was always Nvidia: proprietary but works well, ATI: open but buggy.

> the open source ATI drivers were always a bit buggy and it wasn't that easy getting them installed either. No. Once mainlined, you had to do absolutely nothing to get the hardware working.

Except having been downgraded from OpenGL 4.1 to OpenGL 3.3, because the GPU wasn't interesting enough, well done AMD open source drivers.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#309

Post by lstamour »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #282
eek2121 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say that. This isn't an NVIDIA commitment to open source; it is a slap in the face. Rather than open sourcing the drivers, they are patching the kernel to fit the needs of their proprietary driver. Note that I'm not against proprietary software, however, title of this post was super misleading and NVIDIA needs to grow up and work on an open-source driver. The world will NOT change for them.

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2022/03/23/how-... What is this effort?

It’s not actually a driver. Note comments like “Initialize driver-specific stuff” in the code.

Mesa refers to https://docs.mesa3d.org/systems.html and Vulkan refers to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan

To quote the linked blog post:

> This blog post will be a tutorial of sorts (we won't have a functioning Vulkan driver in the end, sorry)

> First off, every driver needs a name. We're not actually writing one here but it'll make the examples easier if we pretend we are. Just for the sake of example, I'm going to pick on NVIDIA because... Why not? Such a driver is clearly missing and really should happen soon. (Hint! Hint!) We're going to call this hypothetical new Vulkan driver NVK.

That said… NVIDIA did release a Vulkan driver in January 2022 which supports Vulkan 1.3 so… this blog post is slightly outdated. But it certainly does not include or reference work on an actual NVIDIA driver.

Re: Nvidia releases open-source GPU kernel modules

#310

Post by ZiiS »

Out_of_Characte wrote: post #302
parasense wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a tired and somewhat misleading argument. Take a look into the kernel-firmware repo, and you will see a tremendous amount of binary firmware blobs. For example the Intel micro-code blobs are protected by ~7 layers deep of encryption, wifi drivers may have government regulatory issues with sharing firmwares in anything but binary form. So let's please drop the evil binary blob nonesense... The kernel d…

No law or regulation that I know of specifies binary format.

The regulations specify they should not be easily changed. Distributing source makes it easier to change.
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