SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP4 Released - Switches To NVIDIA's Open Kernel Driver, Adds AMD SEV-ES

[phoronix]

Phoronix: SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP4 Released - Switches To NVIDIA's Open Kernel Driver, Adds AMD SEV-ES

In kicking off SUSECON, SUSE has announced the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 Service Pack 4. Notable with SLE 15 SP4, SUSE is already switching to using NVIDIA's open-source GPU kernel-mode driver that NVIDIA open-sourced last month and is under active development and has a long road ahead before it's even feasible for upstreaming into the mainline kernel...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP4

[Vistaus]

People: “nVidia's open kernel driver is a joke and should not be taken seriously!!!”
SUSE, a very, very well respected enterprise distro: “Let's switch to nVidia's open kernel driver!”

Funny how things work out sometimes.

[Awesomeness]

People: “nVidia's open kernel driver is a joke and should not be taken seriously!!!”
SUSE, a very, very well respected enterprise distro: “Let's switch to nVidia's open kernel driver!”

Funny how things work out sometimes.

I think you're confused. The kernel module is not to be mistaken for a serious effort to open source the actual driver that sits in user space and the SUSE move did not change anything about that.

[erniv2]

I think you're confused. The kernel module is not to be mistaken for a serious effort to open source the actual driver that sits in user space and the SUSE move did not change anything about that.

NVIDIA will probably never opensource their userspace because their unified driver architecture uses the same code for windows so nope.

But maybe someone will start building mesa drivers for the nvidia kernel driver instead of the sick attempts to get your stuff running with nouveau.

Then two problems are solved at once the unuseable nouveau crap, and mainlining the nvidia driver to the kernel

EDIT: also it´s still much better if SuSE takes over part of the maintanence of the driver code it´s win win for linux users and nvidia, to get a better user expierence instead of kernel > closed kernel userspace wrapper > closed userspace, it goes kernel > opensource kernel userspace wrapper(less bugs in the kernelspace probably better memory mapping etc. translating to better performance less crashes no tainted kernel) > closed userspace. I can see why Redhats and SuSE probably want to adopt it as qiuck as possible to better support systems with nvidia GPUs.

[CommunityMember]

People: “nVidia's open kernel driver is a joke and should not be taken seriously!!!”
SUSE, a very, very well respected enterprise distro: “Let's switch to nVidia's open kernel driver!”

Funny how things work out sometimes.

Remember that the enterprise vendors care about their large revenue producing customers, not "the people" (nor the mythical year of linux desktop and gaming). And those customers want a signed kernel to support their cuda and related nvidia GPU apps. The open nvidia driver may not be good enough (from the linux drm subsystem maintainers point of view) to make it to mainline any time soon, but it is good enough for the enterprise vendors to start to integrate for their customers ("Follow the money").

[Slartifartblast]

Don't forget folks, 15.4 Leap should be released tomorrow, hurrah KDE 5.24 LTS.

[karolherbst]

Then two problems are solved at once the unuseable nouveau crap, and mainlining the nvidia driver to the kernel

that's incorrect. this nvidia driver won't become mainline. There are only two paths: improving Nouveau or writing a new driver. And I am not saying that because I work on Nouveau, but because Nvidia says the same (heck, it was even written inside their announcement)

[erniv2]

that's incorrect. this nvidia driver won't become mainline. There are only two paths: improving Nouveau or writing a new driver. And I am not saying that because I work on Nouveau, but because Nvidia says the same (heck, it was even written inside their announcement)

Ah so the usual Linux path i dont like that driver 1 does not work on modern hardware driver 2 has closed userspace, ok lets code driver 3 and hope it takes flight in 3 years where people instead of running RTX 30 cards run RTX 40 or 50 makes complete sense yes.

[piotrj3]

that's incorrect. this nvidia driver won't become mainline. There are only two paths: improving Nouveau or writing a new driver. And I am not saying that because I work on Nouveau, but because Nvidia says the same (heck, it was even written inside their announcement)

It is not possible for now (for many reasons, one of them is that they lack any open source userspace use).

If Nouveau however used directly Nvidia's open source kernel driver I believe they could, unless nouveau and nvidia's kernel driver have too many incompabilities between each other.

[acobar]

Don't forget folks, 15.4 Leap should be released tomorrow, hurrah KDE 5.24 LTS.

Will upgrade my machines as soon as it happens. Only one of my computers run Tumbleweed, it is great for development, but for other needs, a stable system is preferred.