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The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

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Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#11

Post by imcritic »

jeroenhd wrote: post #8
davikr wrote: post #3

> Dave Airlie just announced in the Maintainers Summit that the DRM subsystem is only ""about a year away"" from disallowing new drivers written in C and requiring the use of Rust. wow

When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense. Completely new GPU drivers are quite rare and the macOS drivers from Asahi are a showcase proving that Rust and GPU drivers work together well. If there's any subcomponent switching to Rust-first for new contributions, it makes sense f…

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects for bringing similar compatibility for newer generations - I fear it all will be kinda useless in the end.

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#12

Post by kryptiskt »

imcritic wrote: post #11
jeroenhd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense. Completely new GPU drivers are quite rare and the macOS drivers from Asahi are a showcase proving that Rust and GPU drivers work together well. If there's any subcomponent switching to Rust-first for new contributions, it makes sense f…

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects…

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#13

Post by rjsw »

davikr wrote: post #3

> Dave Airlie just announced in the Maintainers Summit that the DRM subsystem is only ""about a year away"" from disallowing new drivers written in C and requiring the use of Rust. wow

Means that other platforms need to allow Rust in the kernel too in order to use future drivers.

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#14

Post by [deleted] »

rjsw wrote: post #13
davikr wrote: post #3

> Dave Airlie just announced in the Maintainers Summit that the DRM subsystem is only ""about a year away"" from disallowing new drivers written in C and requiring the use of Rust. wow

Means that other platforms need to allow Rust in the kernel too in order to use future drivers.

[deleted]

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#16

Post by mathfailure »

kryptiskt wrote: post #12
imcritic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects…

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.

One can start working on creation of a teleportation device. Doesn't mean we have it.

https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/

What do you see as progress here? Nothing is supported, everything is "to be announced" (i.e. unsupported).

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#17

Post by saidinesh5 »

rjsw wrote: post #13
davikr wrote: post #3

> Dave Airlie just announced in the Maintainers Summit that the DRM subsystem is only ""about a year away"" from disallowing new drivers written in C and requiring the use of Rust. wow

Means that other platforms need to allow Rust in the kernel too in order to use future drivers.

What do you mean other platforms?

Also they can just expose c bindings to these rust libraries no?

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#18

Post by rjsw »

saidinesh5 wrote: post #17
rjsw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Means that other platforms need to allow Rust in the kernel too in order to use future drivers.

What do you mean other platforms? Also they can just expose c bindings to these rust libraries no?

The old drivers are mostly dual GPL or MIT licenced, they have been used in all the BSD variants.

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#19

Post by c0balt »

imcritic wrote: post #11
jeroenhd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense. Completely new GPU drivers are quite rare and the macOS drivers from Asahi are a showcase proving that Rust and GPU drivers work together well. If there's any subcomponent switching to Rust-first for new contributions, it makes sense f…

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects…

> this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress

This seems a bit exaggerated, their latest progress report is barely two months old: https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/

They inarguably have slowed down, but this should be expected as the project matures. It has also inevitably now faced the time when new generations of contributors are needed as existing ones retire/ move to other projects.

Re: The Future for Tyr, a Rust GPU Driver for Arm Mali Hardware

#20

Post by jeroenhd »

imcritic wrote: post #11
jeroenhd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense. Completely new GPU drivers are quite rare and the macOS drivers from Asahi are a showcase proving that Rust and GPU drivers work together well. If there's any subcomponent switching to Rust-first for new contributions, it makes sense f…

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects…

Activity has died down as a result of general Linux kernel developer drama, petty in-fighting, and other factors, but that doesn't change the results they did produce during their most prolific phase so far.

Without proper support from upstream like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm (to some extent) are doing, Linux will never work as well on Apple's hardware as it does on normal hardware.

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