Kernel 5.10-rc1 is finally released, and brief details are here:  http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2010.3/00552.html

Thanks to Joan Bruguera, there is a work-in-progress fix for NVIDIA 455.28, here:  https://gist.github.com/joanbm/beaccedd729589df98332d70a1754e9a
(and thanks to Willy Frissen for the notification..)

ld -r -o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-modeset-interface.o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nvidia-modeset-linux.o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-kthread-q.o
MODPOST /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/Module.symvers
CC [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-drm.mod.o
LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-drm.ko
CC [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset.mod.o
LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-modeset.ko
CC [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-uvm.mod.o
LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia-uvm.ko
CC [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia.mod.o
LD [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-455.28/kernel/nvidia.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-5.10-rc1'

The ‘taint’ issue is still there, and needs to be ‘worked around’..

Now I was able to test some more, and applied the latest VMware patches (which now include 5.10-related items), VMware compiled and loaded OK, but when I came to open a VM, I just got the black-background window with ‘Waiting for connection’ and nothing more happened..  On the console was:

[ 85.257360] /dev/vmmon[2842]: PTSC: initialized at 3492065000 Hz using TSC, TSCs are synchronized.
[ 85.399212] /dev/vmmon[2842]: Monitor IPI vector: ff
[ 85.399214] /dev/vmmon[2842]: HV IPI vector: f2
[ 85.845630] kernel write not supported for file [eventfd] (pid: 2920 comm: vmx-vcpu-0)
[ 85.853082] kernel write not supported for file [eventfd] (pid: 2921 comm: vmx-vcpu-1)
[ 85.859711] kernel write not supported for file [eventfd] (pid: 2921 comm: vmx-vcpu-1)

More testing needed, of course…

Robert Gadsdon.   October 26th 2020.