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I cannot speak to the feasibility of such a thing, but it feels a lot like OS vendors should be very seriously looking into moving GPU drivers away from the ker
by kitsunesoba 5y ago
I cannot speak to the feasibility of such a thing, but it feels a lot like OS vendors should be very seriously looking into moving GPU drivers away from the kernel and into userspace. GPUs are increasingly looking like a massive hole in otherwise secure systems, even without the added possibilities of GPUs being exposed to the web.
- pjmlp 5y agoWindows has already done that for a while now, macOS is doing that for all drivers, Android has Treble, is the BSDs and Linux kernel that are still stuck with monolithic designs.
- kitsunesoba 5y agoIsn't macOS still using kernel extensions (kexts) for GPU drivers? That might not technically be in the kernel itself but it's still pretty close and certainly not userspace.
- pjmlp 5y agoYes, I should have been more clear, it is a multiple year roadmap. The long term plan is to remove all support for any kind of kexts. As presented at WWDC, after a kext gets a userspace alternative, its support is removed on the following OS release.
- saagarjha 5y agoFor now it seems like the plan only extends to third-party kexts.
- swiley 5y agoKeeping the drivers in the Linux kernel means they're covered by the GPL. It's the only reason some of the drivers are decent, otherwise GPU manufacturers would all do what Nvidia and Qualcomm do.