Nouveau NVIDIA GSP Firmware Support Merged For Linux 6.7

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Nouveau NVIDIA GSP Firmware Support Merged For Linux 6.7

The first week of the Linux 6.7 merge window began with the surprise of the Bcachefs file-system being merged and now capping off the first week is another surprise... Nouveau GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware integration that allows making use of NVIDIA's binary GSP firmware on RTX 20 "Turing" and newer GPUs for having improved support. In turn this GSP route also provides initial support for GeForce RTX 40 series support...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Nouveau-GSP-Merged-Linux-6.7

[Flaburgan]

Not open source, not interested. You lost me long ago nVidia, sorry!

[Barley9432]

Not open source, not interested. You lost me long ago nVidia, sorry!

And who are you going to then exactly? AMD and Intel also depend on closed source firmware to provide a usable experience.

[billyswong]

"No ABI stability". So firmware for R535 is incompatible with firmware for R545? Driver and firmware must be paired and matched?

[Hibbelharry]

"No ABI stability". So firmware for R535 is incompatible with firmware for R545? Driver and firmware must be paired and matched?

Yip, thats the problem as far as I understand. And the nvidia binary blob firmware is HUGE compared to other vendors. So shipping some of those requires a significant amount of space.

It's a bit difficult to think we got the holy grail yet.

[bemerk]

I like that people still work on it and that NVIDIA at least doesn't block the work.
Thanks to the developers.

[shmerl]

And who are you going to then exactly? AMD and Intel also depend on closed source firmware to provide a usable experience.

It's a matter of degree also. Nvidia's firmware is basically doing a huge chunk of what AMD does in the kernel. So it's much worse in this sense.

See https://lwn.net/Articles/910343/

[avis]

It's a matter of degree also. Nvidia's firmware is basically doing a huge chunk of what AMD does in the kernel. So it's much worse in this sense.

See https://lwn.net/Articles/910343/

Different? Yes.

Requires literally tens of thousands of lines of code less in the kernel? Looks like a positive to me.

Requires a huge blob in the initrd? Well, people have hundreds of gigabytes drives. No issue whatsoever. Partition your /boot (or EFI system partition) properly and you're all set.

[erniv2]

Not open source, not interested. You lost me long ago nVidia, sorry!

U.S. bans export of more AI chips, including Nvidia H800, to China (cnbc.com)

Kukuku they cant go freeware even if they want the gpus are too powerfull the goverment forbids

Atleast they took the 4090rtx of the embargo list afterwards.

So good luck getting rid of firmware blobs

I dont understand what linux users want a working driver or just every corporate secret out there ?

Get over it Humans are monsters with monster coating and monster stuffing, my faverite dr. cox moment ~~. ( dunno if it´s translated like that )

(351) Scrubs Dr. Kelso Monster mit Monsterfüllung - YouTube

[toughy]

Like the text of the article says, this is a critical update. The lack of the power management / re-clocking firmware from NVIDIA has made the most sought-after GPUs unusable for open source, for over 8 years now (since Maxwell 2xx). And eventually got the nouveau project pretty much abandoned... Remember the NVIDIA dGPU market share of over 80% (numbers vary). This made NVIDIA the most difficult manufacturer to single-handedly hold back Linux adoption...

I mean NVIDIA surely knew about this problem and were aware of the situation ... they did provide all the other firmware (non-reclocking) after all, for several GPU generations. How was NVIDIA content to let the OSS community hanging ... is beyond my understanding. I guess some companies become big enough now, they need legislation to target them specifically, like the USB-C requirement for Apple in the EU, and like the export restrictions of AI GPUs to China, for NVIDIA.

So the GSP firmware is now in the situation that:

• on the one hand is closed and very large, which means it still keeps a lot of closed-source code inside, and only NVIIDA knows what it does with my computer and how it will work in face of new bugs, feature requests or with future kernel, desktop and 3D (Mesa) or compute software
• on the other hand the same firmware will help many more people, and bussiineses, benefit from Linux and open-source software on their machines, and avoid installing the proprietary driver from NVIDIA in order to enjoy their expensive GPU for games, compute or other work.

So I am very enthusiastic and I am sure this will help a lot of users that want, or more importantly need to use Linux, for work or other projects. Even gaming, 'though maybe not appreciated by many professionals, has been forever increasing in popularity as a form of entertainment, specially since the COVID stay-at-home restrictions affected the entire world...