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2bitencryption

* clean-room M1 GPU driver created by (seemingly) one dev in a matter of months

* an excellent POC of Rust drivers on Linux

* the dev live-streamed almost every minute of development

* the dev is a virtual anime girl

So far I'm LOVING 2022.

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> by (seemingly) one dev

I think Alyssa Rosenzweig and Asahi Lina both did pretty substantial work on this?

GPU driver is mostly by Alyssa, DCP (display controller) is mostly by Lina.

I believe Rosenzweig was responsible for the user-space bits; this post is about the kernel driver, which (as I understand it) was done entirely by Asahi Lina.

(Both of them deserve a ton of praise, of course.)

I'm pretty sure this post is about both bits. I don't think you can pass that test suite without both bits.

It was passing that test suite when being run as of their XDC talk 10 days ago using only Alyssa's bit. This update shows that when using both bits combined it now passes with the same level of conformance.

At least that's my understanding of it. You're right in that this is about both bits working together, but the person you're replying to is right in the sense that this particular update is showing specifically an update in Lina's bit.

It is impressive. I remember reading something related to new abstractions in chip level. The most of the GPU drivers are actually on some specific chip and it works similarly regardless of the OS. Kernel developers actually develop against this new abtraction layer and not directly against GPU. Does someone has more information about this, or was this nonsense?

It means that the drivers likely have a giant 'firmware' which is really just a closed source driver loaded into the chip, but with a nicer api for the kernel to program against

That's even acknowledged in the tweet thread.

Aren't they the same person though? I've only seen small parts of a presentation, this vtuber stuff is not for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XSJG5xGZfU&t=21330s

They are not.

You're literally linking to a youtube video where 10 seconds later Alyssa is saying "this should all be sufficient proof that I'm not Lina"... and Lina engaged in an interactive Q&A while Alyssa stood around demonstrably not the person responding.

IF Lina had to be an extant member of the Asahi Linux project, it is much more likely that she would be Hector (marcan); Lina and marcan had identical dev environments when she first started making videos and Lina’s introduction to the Asahi Linux YouTube community was her “hacking” one of Hector’s streams. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=effHrj0qmwk)

Ultimately, though, does it matter at all?

Lina was first introduced as an April Fools joke from marcan, but after the positive response from the audience he (or now she?) probably just decided to go why not and stick with the alternate identity. But as you’ve said, it really doesn’t matter.

(Kudos from marcan trying as much as possible to keep the illusion /s: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1582930401118806016?s=46...)

one "anime" girl, 2 "anime" girls, 10 dev bros, I don't really care at this point. Color me impressed at the skillz required to make this to the point it is in the time it is. Way past anything I might dream about doing myself. So many kudos to any/all involved male/female/other doesn't matter in the slightest for the possibility to use the hardware to whatever I want.

> * the dev is a virtual anime girl

Who had "skilled Linux kernel vtuber writes reverse engineered drivers for Apple hardware" on their 2022 bingo cards?

Mesa lets OpenGL(ES) drivers to share a lot of code. This doesn't take anything away from this achievement however.

Having seen some of Rosenzweig's work and talks, I would say "twenty devs".

interesting! can you share some details?

I think they are implying Rosenzweig is as capable as 20 devs.

Even 10x engineers are getting hit by inflation!

I think more code with fewer devs is deflationary. "As productivity increases, the cost of goods decreases." [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation

It's the value of the productivity itself that's decreasing (i.e. undergoing inflation)

> the dev live-streamed almost every minute of development

Is there an archive of this dev work?

https://www.youtube.com/AsahiLina

The key moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7cNeFtGM3k&t=35595s

I love the "it works!" rush!

Can someone explain the virtual thing?

Who's running this operation.

The dev is Asahi Lina (I presume a pseudonym https://twitter.com/LinaAsahi ) and when she livestreams the coding sessions instead of a video feed there's an avatar (an animated anime girl) and the voice is modulated to fit the part as well

A random stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbVQWo0kh9Q

> So far I'm LOVING 2022

Stoical irony.

Edit: Look: you can be excited by some tech advance, but no - 2022 remains part of an ongoing global disaster. The above quoted sentence is hardly manageable. The best it deserves is to be read like some twisted humour.

“Ongoing global disaster”

Life is good and only getting better :- Not sure where this “global disaster”, but then again I’m not a Doomer.

> Life is good and only getting better

Is it?

Yes. Unequivocally, yes. Get out of the doom echo chambers.

There is no need for echo chambers, Bear: you can just look directly. And no, our assessment does not conclude the same.

If one wants to be optimistic, good; celebratory with awareness, with some maturity, well good then; but "locked in a box", no: this is public.

> 2022 remains part of an ongoing global disaster.

Which of the several dozen currently ongoing global disasters are you referring to, and, bluntly, why should we care?

Are you joking? The Russian war of conquest against Ukraine, obviously.

That is obviously terrible, and I have several personal ties to Ukraine and the conflict, but the arc of humanity is currently getting better. Russia’s invasion of its sovereign neighbor is bad, but I wouldn’t call it globally bad, unless this turns into a nuke war.

It already has global effects, plus we’re on the brink of a very serious recession, plus China is not playing ball, plus this whole war is opening pandora’s box that was closed ever since WW2. So no, it takes an incredible amount of techie privilege to ignore it to such extent.

> why should we care

Because you are living in it. (At least that.)

But what I wrote is not "that you should care" - it was that you would better avoid expressions that read naïve and possibly uselessly provocative. When somebody communicates something like "Oh sweet were the times under the iron fist", it better be for a good clear reason.

You should care about your audience - and avoid lacking respect.

> and avoid lacking respect.

Yeah, that's about what I figured it would come down to.

I normatively endorse disrespecting anyone naive, oblivious, or self-absorbed enough to think there's only one currently ongoing global disaster.

Eh it's not so bad in the US. Sure the economy isn't doing too good and gas prices are still high, but most people are overall doing alright. If there was a literal disaster, 9mm wouldn't be selling for $0.20

Where can I get 9mm for 20cpr (esp if it's actual brass)?

I meant including steel case and remanufactured: https://ammoseek.com/ammo/9mm-luger

Material doesn't really matter if you don't reload and just use it for practice.

IMO remans move the risk/reward curve pretty substantially,especially from no-name brands and steel is banned anywhere within an hour of me :( Although I suppose in a true disaster people wouldn't be as concerned about following the BLM/Forest Service rules

Apples to apples it looks like new brass ammo is still about 2x what it cost in 2019.

Ah yes, I sure do miss YEAR_IDENTIFIER where nothing went wrong.

It is not a matter of «[going] wrong», it is a matter of "how" "we are going", and where we are, and where we should have been. What is actually happening in chronicles is not an accident.

...And silent "snipers" are just a symptom of said illness of civilization.

Well that's bad news for anyone hoping this driver would ever be upstreamed, linux requires real identity for participation.

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