The Updated AMD Polaris Firmware Blobs Needed For RX 480 Support Land

[boltronics]

One idea that had been discussed recently was having AMD host packages with just the microcode required for our GPUs so that (a) users could pick up the smallest possible set of microcode rather than bringing in a lot of files for purposes unknown, and (b) they would have some confidence they were getting uncorrupted copies from the vendor. In the case of GuixSD I guess these would need to be signed substitutes ?

Yes! Yes please!

Ultimately we want Mesa to be the default, and lots of distros won't go near the microcode, so allowing the user to download just the microcode amd.com would potentially be very handy. At the very least, it means users won't have to download it from the git repository with tons of other firmware they don't want to look at. It would also improve usability (in the case that someone would otherwise need to hit the linux-firmware git repo).

It also means that we don't need to wait for the blobs to hit the repo to know we have the latest AMD-recommended microcode (ie. in the case of the RX 480 where it sounds like a microcode change may be required for safe reference model overclocking).

Obviously I'm not saying I like the microcode having to be proprietary, but allowing the user to download the bare minimum proprietary code to get their hardware functioning correctly is definitely an improvement.

[starshipeleven]

AFAIK it's just GNU Shepherd that was originally intended for GNU/Hurd. Not sure if there's anything else.

All GNU stuff was intended to run on Hurd, but they aren't stupid enough to develop on hurd directly as that would basically reduce its userbase to GNU devs.

In any case, it's neat that it's not just doing the systemd thing like everyone else.

Not adopting (-_^sY_st€m-D_-) per-se means nothing, is their init better in any way or is yet another idiological (pun intended) project about Unix phylosophy and other nonsense?

More importantly, where I can find its feature list?

For example OpenWRT/LEDE don't use Systemd either, but they do it mostly for space reasons, and because routers and embedded aren't usually running more than 5-6 programs at a time anyway.

[boltronics]

All GNU stuff was intended to run on Hurd, but they aren't stupid enough to develop on hurd directly as that would basically reduce its userbase to GNU devs.

Sure, compatibility with GNU/Hurd has always been kept in mind, and sure some components such as Shepherd were written specifically for GNU/Hurd in mind, but to imply the GNU Guix package manager and even GuixSD was developed primarily for GNU/Hurd and only secondly for GNU/Linux seems a bit of a stretch, given how young the distribution is.

Not that any of this really matters.

[starshipeleven]

Sure, compatibility with GNU/Hurd has always been kept in mind, and sure some components such as Shepherd were written specifically for GNU/Hurd in mind, but to imply the GNU Guix package manager and even GuixSD was developed primarily for GNU/Hurd and only secondly for GNU/Linux seems a bit of a stretch, given how young the distribution is.

No, I meant that while most of that stuff was developed on and for Linux first and foremost, and is ported to Hurd later mostly as an afterhtought to please someone, the Original Plan^TM was making them on/for Hurd first.

[chithanh]

kernel 4.7-rc6 is out, which contains the new Polaris code.
Still missing: mesa and xf86-video-amdgpu (pre-)releases.