Hi Am 22.10.22 um 23:46 schrieb Oded Gabbay:
In the last couple of months we had a discussion [1] about creating a new subsystem for compute accelerator devices in the kernel. After an analysis that was done by DRM maintainers and myself, and following a BOF session at the Linux Plumbers conference a few weeks ago [2], we decided to create a new subsystem that will use the DRM subsystem's code and functionality. i.e. the accel core code will be part of the DRM subsystem. This will allow us to leverage the extensive DRM code-base and collaborate with DRM developers that have experience with this type of devices. In addition, new features that will be added for the accelerator drivers can be of use to GPU drivers as well (e.g. RAS). As agreed in the BOF session, the accelerator devices will be exposed to user-space with a new, dedicated device char files and a dedicated major number (261), to clearly separate them from graphic cards and the graphic user-space s/w stack. Furthermore, the drivers will be located in a separate place in the kernel tree (drivers/accel/). This series of patches is the first step in this direction as it adds the necessary infrastructure for accelerator devices to DRM. The new devices will be exposed with the following convention: device char files - /dev/accel/accel* sysfs - /sys/class/accel/accel*/ debugfs - /sys/kernel/debug/accel/accel*/
I know I'm really late to this discussion, but wouldn't 'compute' be a better name?
(I agree that skynet would also be nice :)
I tried to reuse the existing DRM code as much as possible, while keeping it readable and maintainable. One thing that is missing from this series is defining a namespace for the new accel subsystem, while I'll add in the next iteration of this patch-set, after I will receive feedback from the community. As for drivers, once this series will be accepted (after adding the namespace), I will start working on migrating the habanalabs driver to the new accel subsystem. I have talked about it with Dave and we agreed that it will be a good start to simply move the driver as-is with minimal changes, and then start working on the driver's individual features that will be either added to the accel core code (with or without changes), or will be removed and instead the driver will use existing DRM code.
What's your opinion on the long-term prospect of DRM vs accel? I assume that over time, DRM helpers will move into accel and some DRM drivers will start depending on accel?
After reading the provided links, I wondered if we shouldn't rename drivers/gpu to drivers/accel and put the new subsystem into drivers/accel/compute. We'd have DRM and compute devices next to each other and shared helpers could be located in other subdirectories within accel/
Best regards Thomas
In addition, I know of at least 3 or 4 drivers that were submitted for review and are good candidates to be included in this new subsystem, instead of being a drm render node driver or a misc driver. [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2022/7/31/83 [2] https://airlied.blogspot.com/2022/09/accelerators-bof-outcomes-summary.html Thanks, Oded Oded Gabbay (3): drivers/accel: add new kconfig and update MAINTAINERS drm: define new accel major and register it drm: add dedicated minor for accelerator devices Documentation/admin-guide/devices.txt | 5 + MAINTAINERS | 8 + drivers/Kconfig | 2 + drivers/accel/Kconfig | 24 +++ drivers/gpu/drm/drm_drv.c | 214 +++++++++++++++++++++----- drivers/gpu/drm/drm_file.c | 69 ++++++--- drivers/gpu/drm/drm_internal.h | 5 +- drivers/gpu/drm/drm_sysfs.c | 81 +++++++++- include/drm/drm_device.h | 3 + include/drm/drm_drv.h | 8 + include/drm/drm_file.h | 21 ++- include/drm/drm_ioctl.h | 1 + 12 files changed, 374 insertions(+), 67 deletions(-) create mode 100644 drivers/accel/Kconfig -- 2.34.1
-- Thomas Zimmermann Graphics Driver Developer SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev
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