this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
97 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

9156 readers
187 users here now

Welcome to c/linux!

Welcome to our thriving Linux community! Whether you're a seasoned Linux enthusiast or just starting your journey, we're excited to have you here. Explore, learn, and collaborate with like-minded individuals who share a passion for open-source software and the endless possibilities it offers. Together, let's dive into the world of Linux and embrace the power of freedom, customization, and innovation. Enjoy your stay and feel free to join the vibrant discussions that await you!

Rules:

  1. Stay on topic: Posts and discussions should be related to Linux, open source software, and related technologies.

  2. Be respectful: Treat fellow community members with respect and courtesy.

  3. Quality over quantity: Share informative and thought-provoking content.

  4. No spam or self-promotion: Avoid excessive self-promotion or spamming.

  5. No NSFW adult content

  6. Follow general lemmy guidelines.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
97
The New Rust-Written NVIDIA "NOVA" Driver Submitted Ahead Of Linux 6.15 (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 15 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

It’s too bad that there’s still a proprietary binary layer that this driver will talk to. (I’m assuming right/wrong that it’s not open source, since it’s binary.)

I must’ve missed that from in the post. Do you have more information on that?

The article mentions the following ...

the NOVA driver is intentionally limited to the RTX 20 "Turing" GPUs and newer where there is the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) with the firmware support to leverage for an easier driver-writing experience.

Also in the same article, there's a link to another article that mentions it a little bit more ...

"... serving as a hard- and firmware abstraction layer for GSP-based NVIDIA GPUs."

I've also read something about it from other places, other articles as well ...

The GSP is binary-only firmware loaded at run-time. The open-source kernel driver explicitly depends upon the GSP-supported graphics processors.

Basically, some/allot of the Nvidia "magic" is in their hardware/firmware, and that they are not open source.

Feel free to double check me on this though, that's just my interpretation based on quickly reading some articles over the last six months or so.

~This~ ~comment~ ~is~ ~licensed~ ~under~ ~CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0~