Hello,
There is libre firmware being worked on, latest news say that it does
work but some features are not implemented. I have not tested that
firmware however.
There is a contest organized by RaptorCS to liberate the firmware:
https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/nic_fw_contest.php
And here's the ongoing work:
https://github.com/meklort/bcm5719-fw
https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/BCM5719
An interesting thing to note is that 10Gbit network cards from the same
vendor (Broadcom) are implemented fully with hardware ASICs and do not
require firmware at all. So that's a work around to the problem. source:
developer of the libre firmware.
dftxbs3e
On 11/29/19 1:50 PM, Marco van Hulten wrote:
Hello—
On 29 Nov 09:25 dftxbs3e wrote:
I'm really happy to hear this! I also do own a POWER9 machine.
I have a Talos II with 2x 8 SMT4 cores POWER9 DD2.2 CPUs (64 threads),
64GB of RAM and an AMD WX7100 GPU (amdgpu libre driver).
I run Fedora on it since more than a year now, it's been my main
workstation without any major issue.
It's great to hear of such an experience! I have an amd64 server at
home that makes quite a bit of noise and, standing next to the server,
an amd64 workstation that makes even more noise, both of which are over
10 years old. I am considering replacing both systems for a single
Talos II.
According to the mainboard specifications [1], Ethernet is driven by a
proprietary chip (Broadcom BCM5719). Is there libre firmware that is
shown to work reliably?
I guess it should be because it is FSF-certified to Respect Your
Freedom, but could someone confirm this specifically for the network
interface?
[1]: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II
I'm happy to provide assistance, I encourage GNU Guix developers to join
#talos-workstation on Freenode's IRC, we have a friendly active
community that is always happy to help on POWER9 matters.
Fantastic to see this work out!
The other free modern architecture, RISC-V, is that like a sort of
competitor of POWER9? Or is it more like Talos II being the obvious
choice for a server (and workstation) because it is available now/more
established?
—Marco
