Linux kernel is not made of 34M loc, most of it is drivers which I hardly consider kernel code.
AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
11–20 of 77 posts
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#12I'm not sure I get why the comparison to the Kernel is needed. GPUs are wildly complex. Rendering is wildly complex. Managing memory and data is complex. Managing connected hardware is complex. I am not sure why anyone would expect a GPU Driver to be small while also doing a billion things and playing games as well as mature gaming platforms.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's large and large is difficult to maintain. AMD maintains it but do we know how they are generated? Probably not. It's like a gift that stinks but you can't complain about because it's a gift.
>but do we know how they are generated? Probably not Having worked in the semi industry, I can fathom a guess: It's a spaghetti mess of cascading Perl scripts that parse the Verilog/VHDL design files, with their development going back 20+ years, full of comments like "don't touch this line because it breaks another line, nobody knows why", and maintained by a team where a gray-beard "Gandalf" engineer wearing an ATI…
I have not seen these scripts, but can confirm that AMD has a long history of such Perl scripts. Look at hipcc for a current, moderately frustrating, example of this. Also the last time I met one of the open source driver team in person he was, in fact, wearing a classic ATI red ATI t-shirt straight in from Markham. Much of that team is European now though from what I hear, and they’re generally a good bunch.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#14The openbsd situation is even worse. over there the driver is bigger than the rest of the kernel. Don't get me wrong I use the driver every day and AMD is definitely one of the good guys for making an open source driver and them who ported it are absolute heros. However.... Sometimes I wish AMD had tied down the isa to their cards a little better. Narrowed the interface if you would. because as it is the driver is so…
The issue is that the generated code is checked in. Surely there's a better solution.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
>but do we know how they are generated? Probably not Having worked in the semi industry, I can fathom a guess: It's a spaghetti mess of cascading Perl scripts that parse the Verilog/VHDL design files, with their development going back 20+ years, full of comments like "don't touch this line because it breaks another line, nobody knows why", and maintained by a team where a gray-beard "Gandalf" engineer wearing an ATI…
I have not seen these scripts, but can confirm that AMD has a long history of such Perl scripts. Look at hipcc for a current, moderately frustrating, example of this. Also the last time I met one of the open source driver team in person he was, in fact, wearing a classic ATI red ATI t-shirt straight in from Markham. Much of that team is European now though from what I hear, and they’re generally a good bunch.
>ATI t-shirt straight in from Markham.
Curious how much of AMD Radeon GPU development now is being done in Markham-Canada, as AFAIK, the modern Radeon architecture stems from ATI's acquisition of ArtX[1], a US-based spin-ff of SGI, which was responsible for the GPUs in the Nintendo GameCube, Wii and many other innovations like programable shaders, later found in ATI/AMD GPUs.
>Much of that team is European now though from what I hear, and they’re generally a good bunch.
I didn't know AMD has a GPU design team in Europe. Where? I know they had a fab in Germany and they have an office for the Ryzen and Infinity Fabric R&D in Romania, but I had no idea they do GPU stuff as well in Europe. Where is that office?
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#16Does a graphical representation of the files in the Linux kernel exist anywhere? Like a graphical file explorer but for the different kernel components.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#17The openbsd situation is even worse. over there the driver is bigger than the rest of the kernel. Don't get me wrong I use the driver every day and AMD is definitely one of the good guys for making an open source driver and them who ported it are absolute heros. However.... Sometimes I wish AMD had tied down the isa to their cards a little better. Narrowed the interface if you would. because as it is the driver is so…
There is no business reason to restrict themselves on the ISA, and it would be make their hardware less performant compared to the competition which would not be so bound.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#18Does a graphical representation of the files in the Linux kernel exist anywhere? Like a graphical file explorer but for the different kernel components.
Yeah the files are organized into a directory hierarchy, pretty cool tech! :-)
And there are great tools for exploring directories of files, my current favorite is dolphin with two or three panes.
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#19Does a graphical representation of the files in the Linux kernel exist anywhere? Like a graphical file explorer but for the different kernel components.
you can run windirstat (or similar tool) on a checkout to get an idea
Re: AMD Open-Source GPU Kernel Driver Above 5M Lines, Entire Linux Kernel at 34.8M
#20It's not completely clear from the article, but: are the files generated 'on-the-fly' during the build process (and therefore not in git), or generated once (by AMD), and then committed?
Pre-generated by AMD and committed, I assume.
If they were generated as part of the build, they would not be counted as SLOC (not being "source").