Re: nouveau question -follow up

Don Wilburn wrote:
> >I don't know how video cards are masked.  I'm sure someone could tell 
> me quicker than I can figure it out myself.
>
> I was looking in the wrong use.mask file.  I found it.
> Nouveau was masked 4 years ago because it needs testing.  So, I'll 
> just unmask it and see what happens.
>
> One more question...  for newer cards than mine, nouveau requires 
> firmware blobs for some acceleration.  Are those blobs independent of 
> the computer, or do they require an intel/amd cpu?  The Gentoo nvidia 
> firmware package only shows amd64 and i386, I think.
>
> Adios,  DW
>
>

The firmware should be independent of the architecture.  Looking at the 
ebuild, it looks like it downloads the x86 driver from nvidia, extracts 
the files and then runs a python script to pull the firmware blob from 
the driver. Eventually, it ends up in /lib/firmware/nouveau. Worst case 
scenario you'll have to extract it on a x86 box (or maybe under qemu 
running linux...) and copy the resulting file manually back to the Alpha.

Alan