GPU/Graphics: DRM/KMS and CUDA

• Google's Pixel 3 Is Using The MSM DRM Driver, More Android Phones Moving To DRM/KMS Code

  It turns out Google's recently announced Pixel 3 smartphone is making use of the MSM Direct Rendering Manager driver associated with the Freedreno open-source Qualcomm graphics project. Google is also getting more Android vendors moving over to using DRM/KMS drivers to power their graphics/display. Alistair Strachan of Google presented at this week's Linux Plumbers Conference and the growing adoption of Direct Rendering Manager / Kernel Mode-Setting drivers by Android devices.

• Red Hat Developers Working Towards A Vendor-Neutral Compute Stack To Take On NVIDIA's CUDA

  At this week's Linux Plumbers Conference, David Airlie began talking about the possibility of a vendor-neutral compute stack across Intel, Radeon, and NVIDIA GPU platforms that could potentially take on NVIDIA's CUDA dominance. There has been the work on open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) SPIR-V compute support all year and that's ongoing with not yet having reached mainline Mesa. That effort has been largely worked on by Karol Herbst and Rob Clark, both open-source GPU driver developers at Red Hat. There has also been other compute-motivated open-source driver/infrastructure work out of Red Hat like Jerome Glisse's ongoing kernel work around Heterogeneous Memory Management (HMM). There's also been the Radeon RADV driver that Red Hat's David Airlie co-founded and continues contributing significantly to its advancement. And then there has been other graphics/compute contributions too with Red Hat remaining one of the largest upstream contributors to the ecosystem.

Endless OS Switching To The BFQ I/O Scheduler For More Responsive Linux Desktop

While Con Kolivas' kernel patch series decided to do away with BFQ support, the GNOME-aligned Endless OS Linux distribution has decided to do the opposite in move from CFQ as the default I/O scheduler over to BFQ. Endless OS has decided to switch to the BFQ (Budget Fair Queuing) I/O scheduler since it prioritizes interactive workloads and should make for a better experience for its users particularly when applications may be upgrading in the background. During heavy background I/O, Endless found that their launch time of LibreOffice went from taking 16 seconds with CFQ to just three seconds when using BFQ. Other tests were also positive for improving the interactivity/responsiveness of the system particularly during heavy background I/O.

Goa to train teachers in new open-source software apps for cyber security

After working with Google India for wider adoption of internet safety in schools two years ago, Goa education agencies will implement another project to train computer, information and communication technology school and higher secondary teachers in new open-source software applications for cyber security integration. The State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education and Goa State Council Educational Research and Training (GSCERT) have decided to begin the second programme with over 650 computer teachers from December 4 to 18, Mr. Ajay Jadhav, Board of Study member and coordinator of the first project with Google, said on Friday. The cyber security training syllabus has been worked out and 18 resource persons are ready for the project.

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