Open-Source NVIDIA "Nouveau" Driver Should Trip Less Often On Some GPUs With Linux 5.7

Last week there were a bunch of new improvements and features for the open-source kernel graphics/display drivers merged for Linux 5.7. There were not any feature changes on the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" driver front while this week at least are some fixes/workarounds so it's less buggy for some hardware.

A batch of Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver fixes were sent in this week for the Linux 5.7 merge window closing in a few days. This includes a number of AMDGPU Fixes around Navi/GFX10, BACO, HDCP, and other areas plus a random assortment of other fixes. Plus this time at least there are some Nouveau fixes in tow.

Notable with the Nouveau fixes is a workaround for the run-time power management failing due to a still unknown issue between certain NVIDIA Pascal mobile GPUs paired with certain Intel chipsets. A reliable workaround is in place for this quite common "runtime PM" bug experienced by many Nouveau users. This fixes "a very annoying issue for user having to choose between a crashing kernel or higher power consumption of their Laptops."

Another workaround added to the Nouveau kernel driver is for Pascal GP107 / GP108 graphics processors. The GeForce 1030/1050 series with certain boards has a hang for unknown reasons during initialization of the GR block. The actual issue and a proper fix haven't been figured out but a reliable workaround has been determined to let these GP107 and GP108 graphics processors properly initialize without hangs.

The rest of the Nouveau fixes are fairly mundane, including a few SVM fixes contributed by NVIDIA. The complete list of fixes can be found via this pull request.