Red Hat Is Looking For Another Developer To Work On Open-Source AMD Graphics

[nomadewolf]

Valve has >20 graphics driver developers contracted?

I don't know, it's a joke...

[uid313]

Damn, gaming on Intel must be so hot.

Its actually decent. A old Haswell runs Source engine games such as Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 just fine. I would guess Counter-Strike: Global Offensive too.
With a Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake I assume it would run games even better.
Sure its not for hardcore gaming of the latest 2017 gaming in 4K but for many less demanding games it actually works great.

[SystemCrasher]

That "constant whine"-y "open source purity" is why we have things like modesetting, coreboot native display drivers, docs, open arm gpu drivers. Quite some of that is borne out of me seeing just how crap any firmware based solutions are (in whatever form),

From purely technical standpoint, firmware in small dedicated MCU could do much better compared to generic Linux running on main CPU when it comes to real time and time critical stuff. Look, ppl who want to run 1-wire devices on Allwinner using SW GPIO soon figured out it clashes with DVFS, to degree they can't go lower than like 480MHz, enjoying unreasonable system power consumption. At least linux-sunxi wiki claims so. Same crap for DHT11/22 sensors. Small dedicated MCU with own small firmware could handle it perfectly though, 1-wire timings aren't challenge at all. MCU could buffer data for slower Linux system, using something like uart, usb or i2c which aren't latency critical or backed by SoC HW so real time no longer a pressing matter. I bet similar challenges are in place when you want fast, advanced DVFS and power management, unfortunately.

This said it seems some ppl decided to abuse firmwares to impose limits, DRM, undesirable behavior and so on and unfortunately AMD appears to join these ranks and mr Bridgman's mumbling about "DRM sponsored hardware" does not really adds up, so I guess I have to admit your worries are very well backed by what's going on. Opensource has always been about ability to keep what's going on under control, being able to create more or less trusted systems. Some smartasses decided to goofy people by allowing main cpu to be open, and hiding all nasty crap in secondary CPUs and their firmwares.

But there is one catch. This way one can't really trust their system. Nor they're really in charge of what's going on. Vendor's firmware gets in the way, it is proprietary, does hell knows what and nobody could fix it. Sometimes it totally jeopardizes system security, like it recently happened with Broadcom radio firmware. Most shameful part is that most phones would never get update, so millions of devices are doomed to be overtaken and act as botnets indefinitely, thanks to this toxic approach.

and how restrictive and timewasting binaries are. Heck, even AMD is having to own up to that now, seeing as amd graphics today are (silently) not as dependent on atombios as most of the code and rhetoric was before.

Uhm, yea, recently there were some really great examples, be it low-latency wifi where firmware got on the way in most ICs (except ath9k and mtk) or broadcom radio bugs allowing to overtake whole OS. So whatever, screw mr Bridgman's views its merely extension of HW. It seems it also new way to put backdoors, bugs and restrictions and already abused way more it meant to be, to degree firmware-based systems can't really be trusted and cause quite some issues (unless there is firmware source, ofc).

(paid for by $vendor, and firmware crap is why we missed the current kernel release cycle, but more on that in the next few months).

Er, try to persuade 'em to open its code? But I could understand it could be daunting task.

And no, stoking the GPL violation fire under allwinner is also not proof of me being an FSF fanboy, it is proof of me catching a bad chinese vendor redhanded, and using the only means left to right the wrong (after we had tried all other options apart from simply giving up).

Btw, what all these toxic mumbling about ARM trustzone firmware in newer Allwinner SoCs? Are RH nuts are going to demand it? These days I'm proud I could boot my allwinners completely blob-free, also leaving all borked Wintel crap like UEFI or ACPI out of the equation. So my devices are stable, predictable, trusted and I really enjoy how it performs. But I've got impression everything good eventually ends and RH devs are going to fuck me in the mouth, for the sake of "consistent user experience" (not sure what this BS means for SBCs and embedded modules, but sounds toxic enough). I've got impression RH corporate environment becomes more and more toxic and somehow starts to resemble MS.

[PuckPoltergeist]

I don't know, it's a joke...

Sorry, didn't realized this... Seems I'm debianxfce-damaged too much...

[haagch]

Its actually decent. A old Haswell runs Source engine games such as Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 just fine. I would guess Counter-Strike: Global Offensive too.

Please try and record it with a visible fps monitor.

[nomadewolf]

Sorry, didn't realized this... Seems I'm debianxfce-damaged too much...

lol
no problem

[pal666]

Actually NVidia is working with us on Nouveau because they use Nouveau on their Tegra line and they are working with us to provide special firmware versions for their desktop chips that work with Nouveau.

i've heard that bullshit already. even microsoft is more (open)working with you than nvidia

And at the end of the day all the work we are doing is to help is our customers. That is why we are trying to have a constructive relationship with NVidia, because it helps our common customers

i know, you are doing it for money

we are actually capable of holding more than one thought in our head at the same time

that is dangerous symptom

try to work with NVidia and the community to make Nouveau a better alternative

to make nouveau better alternative you have to work on nouveau, not on nvidia blob.

and maybe somewhere down the road the primary solution.

somewhere where people believe in santa

[pal666]

Vendor's firmware gets in the way, it is proprietary, does hell knows what and nobody could fix it

just as vendor's hardware. so which hardware do you use?

These days I'm proud I could boot my allwinners completely blob-free

if you don't use large chunk of their transistor budget (gpu)

[aht0]

Its actually decent. A old Haswell runs Source engine games such as Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 just fine. I would guess Counter-Strike: Global Offensive too.
With a Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake I assume it would run games even better.
Sure its not for hardcore gaming of the latest 2017 gaming in 4K but for many less demanding games it actually works great.

It works. Source-engine games could run on a potato.. I tested CS:GO and CSS on my G3258. Rather ancient games and quite recent hardware tend to work just fine.

[SystemCrasher]

just as vendor's hardware. so which hardware do you use?

There're many degrees of freedom and there is always room for improvement. When it comes to PCBs, I would surely like Olimex SBCs. Just because they're open minded company, and they know what embedded is. Not to mention they've put CAD files created in opensource KiCAD and proven to be quite cooperative when it comes to changing HW bits here and there. Some of these changes are quite vital to system stability and security btw. So one could have far more trusted HW on their side. Or even bite the bullet and manufacture it yourself, with whatever changes you want. It is challenging, but far less challenging compared to creating it from scratch. Just like patching/configuring Linux kernel is far less challenging compared to rewriting it from scratch.

Then there is SoC. So far there is no appealing opensource SoC which would support Linux. But there're already some opensource SoCs appear, I guess it wouldn't take too long before SoCs capable of Linux booting would appear. Ppl already put e.g. OR32 to FPGAs and booting Linux on "software defined" CPU.

Sure, there is huge room for improvement. Do you have any better options? Or you want to tell me I should submit myself to AMD/Intel/whoever goes evil/DRMed slavery and enjoy by their untrusted, treacherous, "DRM sponsored" HW? Not a snowball chance in the hell. Whatever, when I manage to boot my things blob-free, it is really great feeling. Its nice when I could trust this HW, not because I've got no other options left, but because it going to behave the way I want it to. Without attempts to goofy me. Somehow it seems AMD, Intel and so on, decided just to give up main CPU, but not to give up overall treacherous BS. So you'll have ACPI and UEFI. Proprietary and hositle things from wintel world, bringing worst things one could think of: overcomplicated, full of bugs nobody is going to fix ever, esp. bugs related to Linux. Always trying to goofy you. And if it fails, they have "management engines" and "security processors". Really great to manage you and secure system against you. So it seems I've got idea what libv disliked in firmware based approach. Somehow, when Intel, AMD, etc doing it, it tends to follow really toxic ways here and there. Ending up with really treacherous thing where even running opensource SW does not implies fair game and trusted system.

if you don't use large chunk of their transistor budget (gpu)

I'm pretty sure I could live with it in many cases. Especially granted Mali GPUs used in many ARM SoCs are unexciting in terms of technologies anyway. Sure, there're some other GPUs, but when it comes to Broadcom... alright, you can't even buy ICs on open markets, so you have to choose from few mediocre boards plagued by long standing probs from just one MFR. Perfect vendor lock and very high associated risks. Overall it nowhere close to open ecosystem, regardless of driver source or something. Same shit for Qualcomm and to some degree Ti. Actually, large US-based IC MFRs are utter bitches and really hard to deal with. They are retarded, proprietary minded and even if three is open GPU driver, overall it would be nowhere close to open-minded ecosystem.

So, Allwinner is "GPL Violator" but you could buy their ICs, even some 5 pcs. And solder 'em to your custom revision of board, if you need that. Not to mention you do not have to sign dumbass NDA or promise to buy 100 000 ICs, etc like Qualcomm or Broadcom would demand. So there're dozens of SBC manufacturers to choose from and one could even manufacture some custom boards on their own without being intergalactic-scale corporation. Needless to say it is whole new degree of freedom and openness. Not something Qualcomm or Broadcom could afford (as well as Intel and AMD). They've always been proprietary-minded and it always strikes back here and there. Just one stinky driver is a really minor thing compared to overall company attitude, dammit.