Other gpu drivers have some driver-specific documentation, so it would
nice if nouveau did as well.
This adds a bare-bones ReStructured Text document with sections for
module parameter documentation, an overview of the driver architecture,
a section for internal and external API documentation, and a glossary
for nouveau-specific terms.
Signed-off-by: Jeremy Cline <jcline@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/gpu/drivers.rst | 1 +
Documentation/gpu/nouveau.rst | 173 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 174 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/gpu/nouveau.rst
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/drivers.rst b/Documentation/gpu/drivers.rst
index b4a0ed3ca961..783c749d12e0 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/drivers.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/drivers.rst
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ GPU Driver Documentation
i915
mcde
meson
+ nouveau
pl111
tegra
tve200
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/nouveau.rst b/Documentation/gpu/nouveau.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..84c8d601adca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nouveau.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,173 @@
+=======
+Nouveau
+=======
+Nouveau is the free/libre driver for NVIDIA GPUs. This documentation is for the
+kernel mode-setting driver, and is meant to complement the general `nouveau`_
+documentation, which contains end user documentation and a general overview of
+the project, and `envytools`_, which covers reverse-engineering and the
+hardware architecture of the individual card families. Finally, there is
+some `NVIDIA-provided documentation`_.
+
+Issues with this driver are tracked on Nouveau's freedesktop.org `issue
+tracker`_.
+
+If you'd like to improve this documentation, great! Refer to the :doc:`Sphinx
+introduction </doc-guide/sphinx>` and :doc:`/doc-guide/kernel-doc` documents
+for details on how to do so.
+
+
+Module Parameters
+=================
+A number of module parameters are provided to tweak the behavior of the driver.
+These are provided to ease debugging issues and users that need to set a
+parameter to fix an issue they are experiencing should report this as a bug on
+the `issue tracker`_.
+
+Each parameter requires a value. These can be passed via the kernel command
+line using the format "nouveau.<parameter-name>=<value>". Boolean values should
+use 1 for true and 0 for false.
+
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau_drm.c
+
+
+Driver Overview
+===============
+The driver is located in ``drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/``.
+
+.. note:: The latest pending patches for nouveau are available as an
+ `out-of-tree driver <https://github.com/skeggsb/nouveau>`_.
+
+Within the driver, there are several distinct sections. The reason for this is
+that NVIDIA hardware is partitioned into "privileged" and "user" blocks. For
+more details on the particulars of NVIDIA's hardware, consult `envytools`_.
+
+The general module architecture from userspace to the hardware lay is described
+in the diagram below.
+
+.. kernel-render:: DOT
+ :alt: Nouveau Software Architecture Diagram
+ :caption: Nouveau Software Architecture Diagram
+
+ digraph "Nouveau" {
+ node [shape=box]
+ "Userspace" -> "DRM APIs"
+ "Userspace" -> "NVIF APIs"
+ "DRM APIs" -> "NVIF APIs"
+ "NVIF APIs" -> "NVKM APIs"
+ "NVKM APIs" -> "Hardware-specific Interfaces"
+ }
+
+
+NVKM
+----
+The NVidia Kernel Module (NVKM) is responsible for the low-level resource
+management of the privileged portions of the hardware. Almost all direct
+register access is performed in this layer. The functionality of the underlying
+hardware is exposed by NVKM as objects of a particular class, and in general
+these are identified with the same class IDs that NVIDIA uses.
+
+Some classes, such as :term:`channels`, have a block of registers associated with
+them that are intended to be directly accessed by an unprivileged client. NVKM
+allows objects to be "mapped" by a client to support this.
+
+The NVKM layer sits closest to the hardware and services requests issued by
+clients.
+
+
+NVIF
+----
+Atop the NVKM sits the NVidia Interface (NVIF) library, which defines a client
+interface that can be used to interact with the NVKM server. NVIF is intended
+to be usable both in the kernel and in userspace. This is accomplished with
+drivers that implement the interface defined in struct nvif_driver. Clients
+within the kernel use with an NVIF client backed with
+struct nvif_driver_nvkm.
+
+This design allows userspace direct access to the registers of :term:`channels`
+it allocates and allows it to submit work to the GPU without going through the
+kernel.
+
+
+DRM
+---
+The DRM layer of nouveau uses the NVIF to implement the interfaces of a DRM
+driver, such as modesetting, command submission to :term:`channels`
+from userspace, synchronization between userspace clients, and so on.
+
+.. note:: All interaction with the NVKM layer inside the kernel should happen
+ through NVIF. Historically this has not been the case, so there may still
+ be legacy code that bypasses NVIF and directly calls NVKM.
+
+Nouveau's DRM driver is defined in the aptly-named nouveau_drm.c file. The
+files in the driver directory's root provide all the functionality required for
+the DRM driver. Kernel mode-setting is implemented in the dispnv* directories
+and is abstracted in the ``nouveau_display.h`` interface.
+
+For details on what is required to implement these interfaces interfaces, refer
+to the :doc:`drm-internals`, :doc:`drm-kms`, and :doc:`drm-uapi` documents.
+
+
+Public APIs
+===========
+This section covers userspace interfaces provided by nouveau. Like other DRM
+drivers, much of the interface exposed to userspace is documented in
+:doc:`drm-uapi`, but there are a few nouveau-specific interfaces.
+
+
+debugfs
+-------
+Nouveau exposes the some :doc:`DebugFS </filesystems/debugfs>` files. All files
+referenced are relative to ``dri/<card-id>``.
+
+
+crtc-N/nv_crc/flip_threshold
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/dispnv50/crc.c
+ :doc: nv_crc/flip_threshold
+
+
+Internal APIs
+=============
+The following sections document the internal interfaces and is useful only to
+nouveau developers.
+
+
+DRM
+---
+Code related to implementing the standard DRM interfaces is documented in this
+section.
+
+
+dispnv50/crc.h
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+.. kernel-doc:: drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/dispnv50/crc.h
+
+
+Glossary
+========
+There are a number of NVIDIA-specific terms in the code as well as the
+documentation.
+
+.. glossary::
+
+ EVO
+ NVD
+ EVO/NVD
+ In pre-Volta architectures, the Evolution (EVO) controller is used to
+ interact with display memory-mapped IO registers via a pushbuffer. In
+ Volta architectures and newer, the NVDisplay controller takes the place
+ of the EVO controller, although it has slightly different semantics.
+
+ channels
+ Channels are hardware blocks that consumes methods from a
+ direct-memory-accessed command stream.
+
+ CRC notifier context
+ A shared DMA region programmed through the core :term:`EVO/NVD`
+ channel used to report frame CRCs.
+
+
+.. _nouveau: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/
+.. _envytools: https://envytools.readthedocs.io/
+.. _issue tracker: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/nouveau/-/issues
+.. _NVIDIA-provided documentation: https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-doc
--
2.28.0
_______________________________________________
Nouveau mailing list
Nouveau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/nouveau
