Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

NVIDIA Wants To Be A Better Linux Patron

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #41
    Originally posted by patrik View Post
    Not exactly. What he suggests is that Nouveau and Nvidia share the Nouveau code. If they don't share it, it wont get into mainline because the kernel doesn't accept shim drivers.
    There might also be a few trick in the command submission code of the blob that they don't like to reveal (fencing, reordering, priorities). Also, I think they would have a hard time keeping their "one driver core for all platforms" intact.
    Thanks for clarifying this. I wasn't that sure as my post might imply.

    I'm not sure what a 'shim driver' is, though. If someone creates a new closed-source DDX for radeon that
    interacts with the existing libdrm kernel implementation - would that be a 'shim driver'?
    If so, how would the kernel devs be able to reject them? It's userspace like the mesa bits.
    And they surely had to stick to the kernel drm part if there is at least one OSS userspace driver that needs it, right?

    Originally posted by patrik View Post
    It's still a good idea but would require efforts from both Nouveau and Nvidia.
    It sounds like a major overhaul of both pieces of code.

    Comment


    • #42
      Upper-management is still Nvidia no matter how you slice it. Then Nvidia should fire those guys, and get management that will allow to have open source drivers. Unless Nvidia plans to support even Legacy products, there will always be a need for open source drivers.

      Comment


      • #43
        Nvidia is still double standard guys, right?

        The best way to help to Linux is obviously to publish datasheets for their GPUs and possibly help those who already working on nouveau. Same goes for SoC's as well. However as for me it looks like if nVIDIA hasn't got it right and rather cares about "restoring their good image" than about actual cooperation, getting things running and doing it in ways convenient for devs, maintainers and (as the result) users as well.

        Hey Nvidia. Just take a look how AMD and Intel are doing it for Linux. Unfortunately this implies working on opensource drivers and publishing PDFs.
        Last edited by 0xBADCODE; 24 June 2012, 09:54 PM.

        Comment


        • #44
          Originally posted by Dukenukemx View Post
          Upper-management is still Nvidia no matter how you slice it. Then Nvidia should fire those guys, and get management that will allow to have open source drivers. Unless Nvidia plans to support even Legacy products, there will always be a need for open source drivers.
          They already support legacy products.

          Comment


          • #45
            I sure hope they don't spend a dime or an ounce of effort on anything that doesn't in the end make for a better end-user experience for those of us who actually buy their products.

            Comment


            • #46
              Originally posted by asdx
              How exactly secure boot is going to break blobs like nvidia? If so, we should really take advantage of things like this to incentive Nvidia to improve the current situation and be more helpful to the Linux community.
              To make kernel mode locked down you have to prohibit loading of unsigned kernel code. By default only kernel code signed by Fedora people would be able to load. That's where Nvidia could hit yet another wall with their binary crap. They seems to compile kernel module on the go. However, there is no private key to sign it. So it looks like if there is some trouble on the way: the module would not load. The driver would not work. Allow unsigned module load and whole secure- thing vanishes as nothing would prevent anyone (including rootkit authors) to load their own modules in this way. Basically neutralizing all effects of "secure" thing. Sure, this "secure"-boot is just a big fake to transfer control over computer from user to hardware & software manufacturers. However getting so many job on securing thing just to fail it in such a stupid way is just very dumb. And it's proprietary drivers who are getting in the way again...

              P.S. also signing code you've never seen is like blindly signing contract you've never read.

              Comment


              • #47
                Originally posted by 0xBADCODE View Post
                To make kernel mode locked down you have to prohibit loading of unsigned kernel code. By default only kernel code signed by Fedora people would be able to load. That's where Nvidia could hit yet another wall with their binary crap. They seems to compile kernel module on the go. However, there is no private key to sign it. So it looks like if there is some trouble on the way: the module would not load. The driver would not work. Allow unsigned module load and whole secure- thing vanishes as nothing would prevent anyone (including rootkit authors) to load their own modules in this way. Basically neutralizing all effects of "secure" thing. Sure, this "secure"-boot is just a big fake to transfer control over computer from user to hardware & software manufacturers. However getting so many job on securing thing just to fail it in such a stupid way is just very dumb. And it's proprietary drivers who are getting in the way again...

                P.S. also signing code you've never seen is like blindly signing contract you've never read.
                If Red Hat/Ubuntu have signed kernels what does "technically" hinders them to load whatever kernel modules?
                Of course this fundamentally questions the chain of trust, but serious question, is a signed kernel only able to load signed modules?
                If so, how is that done "technically"?

                Edit: Note to myself: RTFM - Matthew's blog comes with a roundup: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html
                Last edited by entropy; 24 June 2012, 10:22 PM.

                Comment


                • #48
                  If Matthew Garrett's solution is implemented, would that make NVIDIA's proprietary drivers compatable with Wayland?

                  Comment


                  • #49
                    Originally posted by FuturePilot View Post
                    Thank you. Finally some logic around here. Reading through the other threads about this topic I'm just shocked at some of the knee-jerk immature comments like "LOL FUK U 2 NVIDIA". I've been thinking of this same scenario of what if Nvidia just said "fine here's the code, good luck" or just completely drop Linux support without releasing any code or specs. There goes a very large chuck of Linux users. Linux isn't going to go anywhere on the desktop without a good graphics stack. Oh and Steam? Yeah you can probably forget about that too. You FOSS zealots are going to have to realize that there's going to have to be compromises if you want Linux to go anywhere. Only in a perfect world would everything be open source. And IMO this type of fanaticism is just going to drive hardware manufacturers away from Linux. Are you people going to jump all over Valve because they won't release the source of their client or the Source engine? Nobody is going to want to touch Linux because of the outrageous reactions from its user base if something isn't open source. All these FOSS fanatics are going to drive Linux on the desktop straight into the ground all in the sake of demanding the source code for everything.

                    Does anyone remember what happened with Creative and the X-Fi driver? They eventually thew their hands up and said here's the specs, you write the code. And the last time I checked X-Fi support was still shoddy on Linux. And that was how many years ago? Anyway, I'm sure I just poked a hornet's nest now. Go on and flame away.
                    (Emphasis mine)

                    You may want to read this.

                    Comment


                    • #50
                      Originally posted by allquixotic View Post
                      (Emphasis mine)

                      You may want to read this.
                      BSD freedom, on the other hand, is ?lossy?. If I get BSD code I have a lot of freedom, but the next guy doesn?t. It?s fairly well known that there is BSD code in Windows. And obviously, whatever Microsoft did with that code, they have no obligation to release their changes. So the code *was* free at one point, but it didn?t *remain* free. Furthermore, even if they didn?t change it one bit, if the original author is no longer around, Microsoft is still sitting on BSD code that is free for *them*, but it?s no longer free for anyone else.
                      That is complete BS. The original code remains free, that does not change. What BSD allows is the option of any one that copies the code and modify the code for their uses with the option placed with them if they want to release their changes or not.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X