Intel Gaudi2's Linux Driver Support Is "Very Stable At This Point", Gaudi2C Device Added

By now you've likely heard how Intel's Gaudi2 accelerator hardware is standing up very well against the NVIDIA competition especially in value. There's nothing new there but an important part to keep in mind -- and where Intel is the hands-down winner -- is the open-source ecosystem with having a fully open-source and upstream Linux kernel accelerator driver as well as their SynapseAI open-source components in user-space. The Gaudi2 open-source kernel driver support is now considered "very stable at this point" with the upstream state fairing well.

Intel's Oded Gabbay who is the maintainer of the Habana Labs Linux kernel accelerator driver today sent out the v6.8 updates to DRM-Next. There he summed up the cycle rather simply as:

"It's rather small this time, as Gaudi2 is very stable at this point.

Same as in the previous cycle, it's a bit all over the place. A few uapi changes, mostly improvements and bug fixes."

It was earlier in the year when the Gaudi2 open-source driver support was "pretty much stable" while with ongoing kernel cycles is now "very stable", which is good to hear without having the hardware on-hand to test.

For Linux 6.8, the new pull request brings a few user-space API additions to the Habana Labs driver, support for the Gaudi2C device, PCIe reset prepare/done hooks, and various bug fixes. Nothing really exciting besides the new "Gaudi2C" device being added.

The Linux patches don't describe what this Gaudi2C device is besides that it's a Gaudi2 with a PCI revision ID of "3" and otherwise following the same driver code paths as Gaudi2 and the Gaudi2B revision. Perhaps some cut-down version of the Gaudi2 like for the Chinese market to comply with export restrictions? We'll see what this new revision brings in due course but for now there doesn't seem to be much in the way of public information on the Gaudi2C revision.