Intel's Linux GPU Driver Is Working To Move More Power Management Handling To Firmware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel's Linux GPU Driver Is Working To Move More Power Management Handling To Firmware

An Intel engineer yesterday published the initial experimental patch-set for implementing GuC-based Single Loop Power Controller (SLPC) support...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Gfx-GuC-SLPC

[zanny]

I guess the good news is nobody has an excuse to continue buying Intel CPUs if they care about freedom. I mean, you really couldn't buy them anyway with the microcode the CPU itself ingested and the proprietary chipsets (with blobs in coreboot even) they have been shoving down our throats for years, but if AMD releases Zen and does upstream coreboot support without blobs for it it could be 30% less efficient than Intel and I'd still go for it overnight for ethical reasons.

It is of course sad and worth mourning the last bastion of trustable GPUs going away, and it would be really lovely if AMD's next GPU architecture shipped without blobs. I mean, you can still have firmware, just release the source to it! We know bugs happen in those blob files that we cannot fix because you guys never publish them, because its happened multiple times before! Same with network controllers, or CPUs, or chipsets, or input hubs. Untrustable blobs that are often bug ridden nightmares. Same with SSD and HDD firmware, even if you aren't payloading it from the kernel, its still there fucking up your data.

[darkbasic]

Let's move the whole OS in your fucking closed source firmware blob.

[shmerl]

AMD also requires firmware. All of them do now.

[microcode]

From the technical perspective, this makes perfect sense. However, it would be nice if the firmware were free.

The firmware on Intel devices is now complex enough that we can worry about security and other robustness failures.

[Danny3]

WTF is going on??

In the past few years Intel is moving everything into firmware blobs to hide the code
Microsoft releases the spyware infested Window 10 and is giving it for free
Facebook and Yahoo are nagging me every day to give them my phone number
Should we be afraid of our governments?
Should we expect a war?
Skynet is coming?

Fuck, I was so happy when I was ignorant

[Passso]

Honestly Intel CPU is closed "source" hardware so power management in firmware, on chip or software basically changes nothing as long as we, Linux users have a system working better. They were and are still free to run what they want to manage the CPU itself, working on open source on the software side brings enough freedom for me.

As long as there is no certified system with 100% open hardware + software you guys are just whining for nothing.

(before getting ganged by everyone : yes I know it "may be possible" that they run "hazardous things" this way, like closed source drivers could do. But I doubt of it and do not really care)

[GreatEmerald]

Hm. Generally I'd say that this is no different from them just having the firmware in the hardware itself. But then it makes me wonder... why isn't firmware open, anyway? It is so low-level that there is nothing at all to be gained from not providing its source. Sure, it needs to be binary before uploading it, but it could also be simply generated on the fly. Or is the problem that it has to be signed?

[chuckula]

"I guess the good news is nobody has an excuse to continue buying Intel CPUs if they care about freedom. "

Says the idiot AMD troll writing from a thermally unstable heat engine that has used more binary blobs for a longer time than anything from Intel.. but it's OK because AMD == FREEDOM just like War == Peace in 1984.

Odds on favorite he's not even using Linux to write that nonsense too, but let's do something: Since you love "freedom" so much there Mr. Trollsy Wollsy, I challenge you to use your freedom under the GPL to rip out every single 100% open source contribution that Intel has ever made to an open source project, including at least the kernel, GCC, and glibc. Go ahead and do it, then report back to us how AWESOME your "free" AMD hardware runs once all that evil evil Intel code has been excised. I'm not holding my breath considering not one piece of AMD hardware in existence could even get halfway through a boot sequence without relying on Intel's open source contributions, but hey, I live in the real world and I'm not a bigoted and technically incompetent hate troll.

[chuckula]

I guess the good news is nobody has an excuse to continue buying Intel CPUs if they care about freedom. Blah blah blah I hate Intel drivel

Tell ya what sunshine, remove all that "evil" Intel code from your system then tell us how AMD hardware does without Intel's open source contributions to Linux. I dare you mr. hypocrite.

Basically what we have here is somebody who applies one standard to Intel (anything he disapproves of is EVIL) but when AMD does the EXACT SAME THING ONLY WORSE it's like he goes all Mel Gibson drunk-driving FREEDOM.