FreeBSD Experimenting With A Port Of NVIDIA's Linux Open DRM Kernel Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FreeBSD Experimenting With A Port Of NVIDIA's Linux Open DRM Kernel Driver

The new nvidia-drm-kmod is a FreeBSD port of Linux's nvidia-drm.ko open-source kernel module...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Port-Linux-DRM-KO

[grahamperrin]

Thanks!

For clarity: what we have now is in-tree – the FreeBSD ports tree.

Amongst the secondary mirrors of this ports tree:

• https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports/ for the main branch, familiarly known as latest
• https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports/tree/2023Q3 (the 2023Q3 branch) is currently what's familiarly known as quarterly.

Retrospective

The mid-November 2022 call for testing was whilst the port was out of (not yet in) the FreeBSD ports tree. Linked from within the call:

• https://github.com/amshafer/nvidia-driver – not a FreeBSD repo.

Now

There was good feedback in response to Austin Shafer's call – and he works at NVIDIA on the Linux graphics driver team – so I should lean towards treating what's now in the FreeBSD ports tree as a good quality initial release, not experimental.

HTH

[JEBjames]

Michael

Wording unclear?

"NVIDIA graphics on FreeBSD in general have been the best for years due to the quality NVIDIA Linux driver stack that offers similar features and performance to the NVIDIA proprietary driver on Linux and Windows."

I think that "Linux" should be "FreeBSD"?

[toughy]

Is there any communication with nouveau kernel driver ?
Is there any chance to end up with a single module (nouveau + NVIDIA) that could be used for both the free and proprietary Mesa drivers ?
Like NVIDIA once said ?

[uid313]

I think FreeBSD should switch to the Linux kernel instead, then they can use the Linux open source graphics drivers without any porting. They can keep use their FreeBSD user-space with the Linux kernel, and then they can port FreeBSD jails, bhyve, ALTQ and their ULE scheduler to Linux.

[grahamperrin]

I think FreeBSD should switch to the Linux kernel …

Alternatively, Chimera Linux — https://chimera-linux.org/

… Chimera uses a novel combination of core tools from FreeBSD, the LLVM toolchain, and the Musl C library, …

[kpedersen]

I think FreeBSD should switch to the Linux kernel instead, then they can use the Linux open source graphics drivers without any porting.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD use different techniques. FreeBSD *does* use the Linux graphics drivers with very little porting through their Linux KMS/DRM compat stack. Similar is also done for their wifi stack, so that they can utilize the iwlwifi driver.

So really, the opposite would probably be more useful. I wish a Linux distro would appear that uses the FreeBSD userland. More clean and organised "base", whilst retaining excellent hardware support.

[danielnez1]

I think FreeBSD should switch to the Linux kernel instead, then they can use the Linux open source graphics drivers without any porting. They can keep use their FreeBSD user-space with the Linux kernel, and then they can port FreeBSD jails, bhyve, ALTQ and their ULE scheduler to Linux.

I think Linux should switch to the GNU/Hurd Kernel instead, microkernels are kool

[grahamperrin]

… I wish a Linux distro would appear that uses the FreeBSD userland. …

Does what I linked from the previous post not fit that description?