This article is from Phoronix
In Linux 6.17, in addition to Intel enabling SR-IOV for Battlemage graphics cards and several other major Intel Xe GPU features, there are also more updates to AMD graphics driver functionalities. The NOVA driver, as a modern open-source NVIDIA driver, is further developed within this kernel version.
The initial NOVA core driver code was merged in Linux 6.15, serving as the foundational framework for the modern successor to the Nouveau open-source driver. The NOVA driver is written in the Rust programming language and is designed specifically for NVIDIA Turing and newer graphics cards, as it relies on the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP). With the initial code in place, subsequent kernel versions continue to work towards implementing more features, ultimately aiming to achieve a fully functional driver for end users, similar to the Mesa NVK driver.
For Linux 6.17, the NOVA code sent to DRM-Next on Friday is not yet ready for end-user use, but it continues to add more features while simultaneously expanding Rust support for the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) infrastructure. The NOVA code prepared for integration into Linux 6.17 includes:
DMA:
- Merged topic/dma-features-2025-06-23 from the alloc tree.
- Clarified wording and ensured consistency of the term “coherent”.
- Converted
<span>read!()</span>/<span>write!()</span>macros to return<span>Result</span>. - Added
<span>as_slice()</span>/<span>write()</span>methods in<span>CoherentAllocation</span>. - Fixed documentation comments for
<span>dma_handle()</span>. - Exposed
<span>count()</span>and<span>size()</span>in<span>CoherentAllocation</span>, and added corresponding type invariants. - Implemented
<span>CoherentAllocation::dma_handle_with_offset()</span>.
nova-core:
- Made several improvements to the
<span>register!()</span>macro. - Added custom sleep/delay helpers (until actual abstraction layer integration).
- Added DMA object abstraction.
VBIOS:
- Image parser/iterator.
- PMU table lookup in FWSEC.
- FWSEC ucode extraction.
Falcon:
- Generic falcon boot code and HAL (Ampere).
- GSP/SEC2 specific code.
FWSEC-FRTS:
- Calculated layout of FRTS region (FbLayout and HAL).
- Loaded into GSP falcon and executed.
Documentation:
- Added documentation for VBIOS layout, Devinit process, FWSEC operations and layout, Falcon basics.
- Updated and commented on the TODO list.
- Added Alexandre Courbot as a co-maintainer.
Rust:
- Provided
<span>ETIMEDOUT</span>error. - Added size constants up to
<span>SZ_2G</span>.
Alexandre Courbot is now a co-maintainer of NOVA, as mentioned previously in Phoronix. The code changes involve a significant amount of Rust infrastructure work and other low-level builds to further develop the NOVA driver.
NVIDIA RTX graphics cards continue to be a key focus for the ongoing development of this driver.
For more details on the NOVA changes, you can refer to this pull request, which will include these changes into DRM-Next before the Linux 6.17 cycle.