NVIDIA Sent Out Some Fresh Nouveau Patches Just Before Christmas

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Sent Out Some Fresh Nouveau Patches Just Before Christmas

Shortly before Christmas were a couple open-source Nouveau driver patches volleyed by NVIDIA. Some of that work is now queuing in the Nouveau DRM tree ahead of the Linux 5.6 merge window...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Few-More-Nouveau-Patches

[Aryma]

why did NVIDIA block Nouveau driver in the first place and what could go wrong if they open source some basic info for open source driver to work in in full speed ?

[Michael]

why did NVIDIA block Nouveau driver in the first place and what could go wrong if they open source some basic info for open source driver to work in in full speed ?

They started clamping down on the firmware / signing it due to Chinese knockoffs / cards getting flashed and rebranded as being higher-tier GPUs than they actually were in resale channels.

[oiaohm]

They started clamping down on the firmware / signing it due to Chinese knockoffs / cards getting flashed and rebranded as being higher-tier GPUs than they actually were in resale channels.

Still the fact the firmware is signed does not mean they cannot provide firmware to allow open source drivers to work.

[schmidtbag]

They started clamping down on the firmware / signing it due to Chinese knockoffs / cards getting flashed and rebranded as being higher-tier GPUs than they actually were in resale channels.

Huh... I had no idea that was the reason. Makes me wonder why Nvidia didn't just laser-cut the GPUs, but, I guess locking the firmware is an easier long-term solution.

[tildearrow]

They started clamping down on the firmware / signing it due to Chinese knockoffs / cards getting flashed and rebranded as being higher-tier GPUs than they actually were in resale channels.

I don't even know how can those cards work using a recent driver.
They should be crashing at the unsupported instructions...

[Slartifartblast]

Huh... I had no idea that was the reason. Makes me wonder why Nvidia didn't just laser-cut the GPUs, but, I guess locking the firmware is an easier long-term solution.

But if there is a firmware bug that only re-flashing will fix then it's not very helpful, such as the displayport port bug.......

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-releases-firmware-update-for-displayport-bug-which-might-cause-issues-with-pascal-and-maxwell-based-graphics-cards/

[schmidtbag]

But if there is a firmware bug that only re-flashing will fix then it's not very helpful, such as the displayport port bug.......

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-releases...raphics-cards/

Fair point, though obviously Nvidia isn't expecting there to be firmware bugs. On the other hand, to assume software can be perfect and therefore doesn't need a method to be updated is naive.

[phoenk]

I don't even know how can those cards work using a recent driver.
They should be crashing at the unsupported instructions...

My understanding is that these would be cards from within the same family, such that they used the same instruction sets.

[tildearrow]

My understanding is that these would be cards from within the same family, such that they used the same instruction sets.

What about a Kepler chip posing as a Pascal one?