NVIDIA Transitioning To Official, Open-Source Linux GPU Kernel Driver

[birdie]

Honest question:

Does anyone who posts here actually use the vanilla kernel?

I assume most of us are running some distribution and some distribution almost never uses vanilla outside of testing purposes like the newer kernels Ubuntu provides.

Let me explain myself a bit. What I meant in terms of "vanilla" or not, is that both RHEL and Android maintain API compatibility during the entirety of support period which no other Linux distro offers or does. Merely applying patches on top of vanilla doesn't make your kernel less vanilla or more API stable

You can build a kernel module for RHEL 6.0 and it will work unmodified with RHEL 6.10 which was released a decade later. Likewise with Android for your phone.

Probably Debian maintains a single kernel version throughout a single release (I don't know/remember) but Debian does not guarantee API/ABI compatibility.

BTW I've been using the vanilla kernel, e.g. the exact version offered from kernel.org on my desktop for as long as I've been using Linux. On my laptop I use what Fedora offers because of secure boot. Yeah, I can create my own certificate and sign the kernel and I even did that for a year or two but then I gave up considering the amount of work. Besides my laptop is too weak to compile kernels - takes too much time and it gets too hot. It's based on Intel Core i5 6200U which is just too bad nowadays.

[darkbasic]

Honest question:

Does anyone who posts here actually use the vanilla kernel?

I do...

[piotrj3]

This isn't a thread about AMD or intel. I'll happily curse them out elsewhere, a million times over.

Also what is a F****?

Sure go ahead and make one yourself an open source firmware.

[agd5f]

For everyone here praising AMD and (still) condemning NVIDIA:

* AMD also had a strictly closed source driver before they went open source. Everyone has to start somewhere. (However AMDs/ATIs close source driver was a bigger shit show than NVIDIAs ever was.).
* AMD also only released open source drivers for the newer card generations at the time. I still remember that, because I (also) was pissed that I still had to cling to their closed source driver back then, even though they now were praised for their opensource strategy.

Not true. We had open source drivers for every generation of radeon hardware. We supported the original radeon and r200 open source drivers, and after a brief hiatus during the r5xx days, we continued to maintain open source driver support for all generations in the open source radeon driver and released GPU documentation. During that time we also had the closed source fglrx driver to support workstation customers. With amdgpu we migrated from a dual driver solution to a unified open source driver solution to support all businesses.

[karolherbst]

The two most significant Linux kernel applications which are RHEL and Android both do not use the vanilla Linux kernel. It speaks volumes about the whole situation we are discussing here. So many people rejoice the fact that now NVIDIA has to spend maybe up to ten times more money by open sourcing the driver and working around all the patented stuff in it while maintaining two versions of the driver considering the new open source driver only covers only their last two uArchs.

just because it fits your narrative doesn't mean it's correct. And frankly, you couldn't be more wrong with your evaluation here.

[Sevard]

I checked this and it's very big news (or rather wall of text) that changes nothing for end user.
They moved everything they could to firmware and "open sourced" what left. Also some important bits are missing

Most features of the Linux GPU driver are supported with the open flavor of kernel modules, including CUDA, Vulkan, OpenGL, OptiX, and X11. However, in the current release, some display and graphics features (notably: G-SYNC, Quadro Sync, SLI, Stereo, rotation in X11, and YUV 4:2:0 on Turing), as well as power management, and NVIDIA virtual GPU (vGPU), are not yet supported. These features will be added in upcoming driver releases.

So yeah, I'll wait for proper open source support and maybe I'll change my mind. For now I'd stick with AMD and Intel.

[birdie]

just because it fits your narrative doesn't mean it's correct. And frankly, you couldn't be more wrong with your evaluation here.

My narrative of what? Of something which is actually usable and reliable? You've got an amazingly shallow and vapid reply lacking any substance. Congrats. I will do my best to ignore your comments from now on because my ignore list is full and I cannot add more people to it.

[Anux]

Not true. We had open source drivers for every generation of radeon hardware.

I do remember around 2006 there were 2 free drivers I could choose from, the normal ati and one with 2000 in its name (hd2000?). The only reason to use fglrx was its better performance and features for gaming.

Thanks for all the hard work. It was a long, bumpy road and now we are able to drive on smooth highways without speed limit.

[birdie]

I checked this and it's very big news (or rather wall of text) that changes nothing for end user.
They moved everything they could to firmware and "open sourced" what left. Also some important bits are missing

So yeah, I'll wait for proper open source support and maybe I'll change my mind. For now I'd stick with AMD and Intel.

NVIDIA is truly lamenting all the 25 people here on Phoronix who refuse to buy their products trying to game under an absolutely ill-suited OS for that. Meanwhile their tens if not hundreds of millions of actual customers enjoy gaming on Windows.

[Sevard]

NVIDIA is truly lamenting all the 25 people here on Phoronix who refuse to buy their products trying to game under an absolutely ill-suited OS for that. Meanwhile their tens if not hundreds of millions of actual customers enjoy gaming on Windows.

And I enjoy both playing on both Linux and Windows without all the mess I had with NV drivers. I also have working Android emulator that I never managed to run with NV driver on Linux, and it crashed with NV driver on Windows.