Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: [RFC PATCH 0/8] Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 driver | From | Jeffrey Hugo <> | Date | Wed, 20 May 2020 10:15:33 -0600 |
| |
On 5/20/2020 9:59 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 08:48:13AM -0600, Jeffrey Hugo wrote: >> On 5/20/2020 2:34 AM, Daniel Vetter wrote: >>> On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 7:15 AM Greg Kroah-Hartman >>> <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote: >>>> >>>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 10:41:15PM +0200, Daniel Vetter wrote: >>>>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 07:41:20PM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: >>>>>> On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 08:57:38AM -0600, Jeffrey Hugo wrote: >>>>>>> On 5/18/2020 11:08 PM, Dave Airlie wrote: >>>>>>>> On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 00:12, Jeffrey Hugo <jhugo@codeaurora.org> wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Introduction: >>>>>>>>> Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 is a PCIe adapter card which contains a dedicated >>>>>>>>> SoC ASIC for the purpose of efficently running Deep Learning inference >>>>>>>>> workloads in a data center environment. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The offical press release can be found at - >>>>>>>>> https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2019/04/09/qualcomm-brings-power-efficient-artificial-intelligence-inference >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The offical product website is - >>>>>>>>> https://www.qualcomm.com/products/datacenter-artificial-intelligence >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> At the time of the offical press release, numerious technology news sites >>>>>>>>> also covered the product. Doing a search of your favorite site is likely >>>>>>>>> to find their coverage of it. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> It is our goal to have the kernel driver for the product fully upstream. >>>>>>>>> The purpose of this RFC is to start that process. We are still doing >>>>>>>>> development (see below), and thus not quite looking to gain acceptance quite >>>>>>>>> yet, but now that we have a working driver we beleive we are at the stage >>>>>>>>> where meaningful conversation with the community can occur. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hi Jeffery, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Just wondering what the userspace/testing plans for this driver. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> This introduces a new user facing API for a device without pointers to >>>>>>>> users or tests for that API. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> We have daily internal testing, although I don't expect you to take my word >>>>>>> for that. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I would like to get one of these devices into the hands of Linaro, so that >>>>>>> it can be put into KernelCI. Similar to other Qualcomm products. I'm trying >>>>>>> to convince the powers that be to make this happen. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Regarding what the community could do on its own, everything but the Linux >>>>>>> driver is considered proprietary - that includes the on device firmware and >>>>>>> the entire userspace stack. This is a decision above my pay grade. >>>>>> >>>>>> Ok, that's a decision you are going to have to push upward on, as we >>>>>> really can't take this without a working, open, userspace. >>>>> >>>>> Uh wut. >>>>> >>>>> So the merge criteria for drivers/accel (atm still drivers/misc but I >>>>> thought that was interim until more drivers showed up) isn't actually >>>>> "totally-not-a-gpu accel driver without open source userspace". >>>>> >>>>> Instead it's "totally-not-a-gpu accel driver without open source >>>>> userspace" _and_ you have to be best buddies with Greg. Or at least >>>>> not be on the naughty company list. Since for habanalabs all you >>>>> wanted is a few test cases to exercise the ioctls. Not the entire >>>>> userspace. >>>> >>>> Also, to be fair, I have changed my mind after seeing the mess of >>>> complexity that these "ioctls for everyone!" type of pass-through >>>> these kinds of drivers are creating. You were right, we need open >>>> userspace code in order to be able to properly evaluate and figure out >>>> what they are doing is right or not and be able to maintain things over >>>> time correctly. >>>> >>>> So I was wrong, and you were right, my apologies for my previous >>>> stubbornness. >>> >>> Awesome and don't worry, I'm pretty sure we've all been stubborn >>> occasionally :-) >>> >>> From a drivers/gpu pov I think still not quite there since we also >>> want to see the compiler for these programmable accelerator thingies. >>> But just having a fairly good consensus that "userspace library with >>> all the runtime stuff excluding compiler must be open" is a huge step >>> forward. Next step may be that we (kernel overall, drivers/gpu will >>> still ask for the full thing) have ISA docs for these programmable >>> things, so that we can also evaluate that aspect and gauge how many >>> security issues there might be. Plus have a fighting chance to fix up >>> the security leaks when (post smeltdown I don't really want to >>> consider this an if) someone finds a hole in the hw security wall. At >>> least in drivers/gpu we historically have a ton of drivers with >>> command checkers to validate what userspace wants to run on the >>> accelerator thingie. Both in cases where the hw was accidentally too >>> strict, and not strict enough. >> >> I think this provides a pretty clear guidance on what you/the community are >> looking for, both now and possibly in the future. >> >> Thank you. >> >> From my perspective, it would be really nice if there was something like >> Mesa that was a/the standard for these sorts of accelerators. Its somewhat >> the wild west, and we've struggled with it. > > Put a first cut at such a thing out there and see how it goes! Nothing > is preventing you from starting such a project, and it would be most > welcome as you have seen.
I wish. I'll float the idea, but don't hold your breath.
-- Jeffrey Hugo Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is a member of the Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.
| |