6 ms·

truly incredible, for less than two years, a group of talented engineers managed to release the world's first GPU driver in Rust by reverse engineering apple ha

by tw1984 4y ago

truly incredible, for less than two years, a group of talented engineers managed to release the world's first GPU driver in Rust by reverse engineering apple hardware known for its opacity. oh, they also happened to have the free time to port Linux to Apple hardware. now I just have one question - when this wonderful work will be merged into the mainline kernel. (PLEASE - no one cares who is Lina, we've been there many times, let's don't do it again here in this thread. thanks!)

bartvk 4y ago
> when this wonderful work will be merged into the mainline kernel Last year, they already merged part of their work: https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/asahi_linux_merged/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/asahi_linux_merged/ But I haven't seen anything since. It's the stated goal, though.
- pygy_ 4y ago
  Provided Linus Torvalds has been test driving it, I'd expect Asahi to be merged in sooner than later...
- OJFord 4y ago
  Presumably GP means the GPU driver specifically. There's a table here that shows not only what's supported vs. not, but also which minimum kernel version or linux-asahi/asahi-edge release it's in: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
anakaine 4y ago
aulin 4y ago
> no one cares who is Lina I couldn't care less who she is, but I'm pleased they're giving more status updates in written form.
oblio 4y ago
Who is Lina? :-) Edit: honest question...
- 16 4y ago
  I'm not sure if this is an elephant-in-the-room sort of thing of if people legitimately haven't picked up on it, but if you listen to the speech patterns and accent that Lina presents, (s)he speaks exactly like marcan. You can listen for yourself and form your own opinions, but I am firmly in the camp of "Lina is marcan".
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    Lina also lives in Tokyo, Japan; curiously just like Marcan. What are the odds of two of the brightest kernel developers living in the exact same city? ;)
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Well, it is the most populous city in the world.
    - coconut08 4y ago
      ???? what are the odds that a tech metropolis with a population of more than 10 million people has 2 people that are proficient enough to contribute to the linux kernel at a high level? i would say very high. i don't have an opinion on whether they are the same person or not, but your logic is hilarious.
  - jron 4y ago
    There are only a handful of people in the world that can do this type of work and the odds of both of them being into live streaming and Anime is exactly 0. I have no idea why marcan decided to make his reversing magic unwatchable but I hope it stops soon. That said, he doesn't try to keep it a secret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effHrj0qmwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effHrj0qmwk https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1509926572488556546 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1509926572488556546
tiahura 4y ago
If Lina is an Apple employee or otherwise has access to Apple trade secrets, it would be a huge issue. Merging code from an unverified source that is purportedly submitting a clean room implementation would be quite irresponsible.
- cthalupa 4y ago
  Marcan has been explicit in that he knows who Lina is and has indicated that they have been in the same room together. This scenario is not a risk. Others have discussed in here the speculation around Lina's identity if you care about the specifics for whatever reason. Personally, I don't think it's particularly important.
  - tiahura 4y ago
    See if "Marcan said it's fine" flies with legal.
    - cthalupa 4y ago
      The Linux kernel doesn't allow for anonymous or pseudonymous contributions. It does allow for organizations to contribute on behalf of people working for or through them. If Asahi wants to submit this upstream, then they and Marcan can put their name to it. Hector Martin or another person at Asahi would be the name on the git commit, and they would almost certainly be taken at their word that there is no concern with the merge around Lina's identity. It's not like other commits which are done from clean room re-implementations are requiring a background check on the person submitting it.

by tw1984 4y ago

bartvk 4y ago

> when this wonderful work will be merged into the mainline kernel Last year, they already merged part of their work: https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/asahi_linux_merged/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/asahi_linux_merged/ But I haven't seen anything since. It's the stated goal, though.

pygy_ 4y ago
Provided Linus Torvalds has been test driving it, I'd expect Asahi to be merged in sooner than later...
OJFord 4y ago
Presumably GP means the GPU driver specifically. There's a table here that shows not only what's supported vs. not, but also which minimum kernel version or linux-asahi/asahi-edge release it's in: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support

anakaine 4y ago

aulin 4y ago

> no one cares who is Lina I couldn't care less who she is, but I'm pleased they're giving more status updates in written form.

oblio 4y ago

Who is Lina? :-) Edit: honest question...

16 4y ago
I'm not sure if this is an elephant-in-the-room sort of thing of if people legitimately haven't picked up on it, but if you listen to the speech patterns and accent that Lina presents, (s)he speaks exactly like marcan. You can listen for yourself and form your own opinions, but I am firmly in the camp of "Lina is marcan".
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Lina also lives in Tokyo, Japan; curiously just like Marcan. What are the odds of two of the brightest kernel developers living in the exact same city? ;)
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Well, it is the most populous city in the world.
  - coconut08 4y ago
    ???? what are the odds that a tech metropolis with a population of more than 10 million people has 2 people that are proficient enough to contribute to the linux kernel at a high level? i would say very high. i don't have an opinion on whether they are the same person or not, but your logic is hilarious.
- jron 4y ago
  There are only a handful of people in the world that can do this type of work and the odds of both of them being into live streaming and Anime is exactly 0. I have no idea why marcan decided to make his reversing magic unwatchable but I hope it stops soon. That said, he doesn't try to keep it a secret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effHrj0qmwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effHrj0qmwk https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1509926572488556546 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1509926572488556546

tiahura 4y ago

If Lina is an Apple employee or otherwise has access to Apple trade secrets, it would be a huge issue. Merging code from an unverified source that is purportedly submitting a clean room implementation would be quite irresponsible.

cthalupa 4y ago
Marcan has been explicit in that he knows who Lina is and has indicated that they have been in the same room together. This scenario is not a risk. Others have discussed in here the speculation around Lina's identity if you care about the specifics for whatever reason. Personally, I don't think it's particularly important.
- tiahura 4y ago
  See if "Marcan said it's fine" flies with legal.
  - cthalupa 4y ago
    The Linux kernel doesn't allow for anonymous or pseudonymous contributions. It does allow for organizations to contribute on behalf of people working for or through them. If Asahi wants to submit this upstream, then they and Marcan can put their name to it. Hector Martin or another person at Asahi would be the name on the git commit, and they would almost certainly be taken at their word that there is no concern with the merge around Lina's identity. It's not like other commits which are done from clean room re-implementations are requiring a background check on the person submitting it.