I'd love to see GPU support for Plan9. This discussion falls right into my professional capacity. I'll say that people generally *grossly* underestimate the complexity of a modern GPU and of its supporting software stack. The GPU driver is effectively a second operating system with shared memory and DMA interfaces to the host. Even bringing up a modern GPU for just compute tasks is a very large endeavour.
That being said, if you want real hardware support, the best place to start is currently AMD's open-source stack. Ignoring the Vulkan bit, understanding their platform abstraction layer (PAL) and shader ISA ( https://developer.amd.com/wp-content/resources/Vega_Shader_ISA_28July2017.pdf) is the base. The lower hardware levels are reasonably well-described in linux's libdrm and its AMD support in amdgpu. Opinions on how to bring this to Plan9? I don't really have any - it's a huge pile of work with minimal benefit. If you're looking for lightweight graphics, WebGL is a doable path, and almost certainly the right way to experiment with Plan9-like interfaces to graphics hardware. Paul On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 5:30 AM sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9f...@sirjofri.de> wrote: > > 22.08.2021 14:10:20 Stuart Morrow <morrow.stu...@gmail.com>: > > Also: > >> people have discussed that for years > > > > They have? I mean I might have seen occasionally someone vaguely > > going "some sort of GPU support would be cool to have". That isn't > > discussion. > > I've even heard of someone actually making GPU stuff work on plan 9. I've > only heard from their partner, who made a cute glenda thing on a piece of > cloth. I chatted with her a little and told her she should encourage her > partner for some discussion about this in our channels. It looked like > it's some academic work, but I don't know any details about it. > > Worst case, someone already has a proper and good GPU implementation for > Plan 9 and nobody knows about it. > > sirjofri > > Btw if the said person reads this: it would be nice to learn some > details. ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tad29bfc223dc4fbe-M5f5fc3eff26e802047dbc69d Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
