[RFC PATCH 0/3] new subsystem for compute accelerator devices

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 01:55:56PM +0200, Thomas Zimmermann wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Am 22.10.22 um 23:46 schrieb Oded Gabbay:
> > In the last couple of months we had a discussion [1] about creating a new
> > subsystem for compute accelerator devices in the kernel.
> > 
> > After an analysis that was done by DRM maintainers and myself, and following
> > a BOF session at the Linux Plumbers conference a few weeks ago [2], we
> > decided to create a new subsystem that will use the DRM subsystem's code and
> > functionality. i.e. the accel core code will be part of the DRM subsystem.
> > 
> > This will allow us to leverage the extensive DRM code-base and
> > collaborate with DRM developers that have experience with this type of
> > devices. In addition, new features that will be added for the accelerator
> > drivers can be of use to GPU drivers as well (e.g. RAS).
> > 
> > As agreed in the BOF session, the accelerator devices will be exposed to
> > user-space with a new, dedicated device char files and a dedicated major
> > number (261), to clearly separate them from graphic cards and the graphic
> > user-space s/w stack. Furthermore, the drivers will be located in a separate
> > place in the kernel tree (drivers/accel/).
> > 
> > This series of patches is the first step in this direction as it adds the
> > necessary infrastructure for accelerator devices to DRM. The new devices will
> > be exposed with the following convention:
> > 
> > device char files - /dev/accel/accel*
> > sysfs             - /sys/class/accel/accel*/
> > debugfs           - /sys/kernel/debug/accel/accel*/
> 
> I know I'm really late to this discussion, but wouldn't 'compute' be a
> better name?
> 
> (I agree that skynet would also be nice :)

See the summary of the meeting we all held at the Plumbers conference
about this.  "accel" was the "least hated" of all of the options, so I
think we'll stick with that for now.

thanks,

greg k-h