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> but unless Nvidia is planning on forking the kernel and fully maintaining their own version of Linux https://docs.nvidia.com/dgx/dgx-os-6-user-guide/introduc

• tw04 3y ago
  That isn't a permanent fork away from the Linux kernel. It's basically them repackaging Ubuntu LTS, customized with some of the binaries packaged in. Permanently forking the Linux kernel us a VERY different beast then taking Ubuntu, pre-installing Nvidia drivers, and then re-baselining everytime Ubuntu releases a new LTS.
  • lamontcg 3y ago
    Entirely depends on how extensive the patches are. FAANGS will all have their own kernels with custom patches, some of which will find their way back into the distros, and some which are kept in-house for custom reasons. It isn't necessarily that burdensome. And I was involved in doing this at Amazon (although a long time ago now). NVidia also doesn't really need to fundamentally fork the linux kernel to do this since drivers are already a pretty hard API boundary layer. They won't need to touch the TCP/IP stack, scheduler, etc. Their version of a "fork" would be "add back the API which is being removed here".