Here's An Ubuntu Kernel Build If You Want To Help Test Nouveau Boost Support

If you have a NVIDIA GeForce 600/700 "Kepler" graphics card and wish to help out the Nouveau driver developers by testing out the experimental "boost" re-clocking patches covered yesterday on Phoronix thanks to the work by Karol Herbst, here's a 4.5-based Ubuntu kernel build to try out this weekend.

This Ubuntu kernel build is the same kernel I spun and used on my test system when running this weekend's Nouveau "Boost" Patches Show Much Performance Potential.

As shown in that article, these patches have the potential to significantly enhance this open-source NVIDIA driver's performance thanks to hitting the graphics card's boost frequencies, which in some tests is enough to make this reverse-engineered driver more competitive with NVIDIA's binary blob.

Test this Ubuntu x86_64 kernel at your own risk, but in general with the Kepler cards I tried it's been a big improvement over what's offered by the current mainline kernel code. These changes are expected to be mainlined by Linux 4.7~4.8. You can share your feedback to Karol Herbst via our forums (username karolherbst) or via the same handle on #Nouveau FreeNode IRC.

You can download the kernel at Phoronix.net: linux-image-4.5.0-karolherbst-nouveau_4.5.0-karolherbst-nouveau-1_amd64.deb. Details on the Git tree and adjusting the new boost file (you still need to make sure you switch to the 0f performance state too via pstate) over here.