NVIDIA Mellanox SN4800 Modular Switch Support Prepared For Linux 5.19

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Mellanox SN4800 Modular Switch Support Prepared For Linux 5.19

There are many networking changes already building up in "net-next" ahead of the Linux 5.19 kernel cycle kicking off this summer. Merged yesterday is support within the Mellanox Ethernet "mlxsw" kernel driver for supporting the NVIDIA Mellanox SN4800 modular switch...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-SN4800-Linux-5.19

[uid313]

Nvidia acquired Mellanox in 2019 so now does network switches.

[M@GOid]

I think I'm not the only one surprised to discover that Nvidia had a division that sells network equipment.

[Developer12]

It's not that surprising. Even before nvidia bought Mellanox (yeah, how's that NetGPU thing going nvidia? feel like producing an open driver yet?) they made the south bridge chip in my old K10 machine. Yes, it has a small nvidia GPU in it, but it's also got ethernet, USB, sound, sata, and a bunch of other stuff. And this was back in like 2008-2009.

[coder]

I think I'm not the only one surprised to discover that Nvidia had a division that sells network equipment.

It's part of their datacenter-oriented strategy. Check out their "Grace" CPU and their "DPU" line card series.

• https://www.anandtech.com/show/16610...-in-ai-systems
• https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/0...ocessing-unit/

[coder]

It's not that surprising. Even before nvidia bought Mellanox (yeah, how's that NetGPU thing going nvidia? feel like producing an open driver yet?) they made the south bridge chip in my old K10 machine.

I'm struggling to see what one has to do with the other. Having a mainstream motherboard chipset product was a play for a very different market.

[Developer12]

I'm struggling to see what one has to do with the other. Having a mainstream motherboard chipset product was a play for a very different market.

Maybe you should learn to read. The key word in that comment is "ethernet."

[coder]

Maybe you should learn to read. The key word in that comment is "ethernet."

Uh oh. Somebody sure is cranky.

Yes, I figured you were hyping up the Ethernet controller. Even in 2008, that was probably commodity IP they didn't even bother to design in-house. Furthermore, there's no lineage connecting that effort to anything they're selling today. It's merely an incidental similarity.

Mellanox is a company they spent $7B to acquire, which mostly wiped out their cash reserves, IIRC. They didn't decide to do that because of some nostalgia for the days when they made nForce chipsets. It was part of their play for datacenter dominance.

[coder]

So, is nobody else surprised that an Ethernet switch is running Linux? I'm sure it's just used for configuration and management, but still... you'd think there are plenty of RTOS or embedded kernels they could use that have enough functionality.

[Developer12]

So, is nobody else surprised that an Ethernet switch is running Linux? I'm sure it's just used for configuration and management, but still... you'd think there are plenty of RTOS or embedded kernels they could use that have enough functionality.

Nobody. Wifi routers run linux. All switches used to run an OS back in the day. Linux has a good network stack. Even hard drives and SSDs run linux these days.