Following all of the Linux kernel graphics driver features merged last week for the Linux 6.16 kernel, sent out this morning were the initial batch of fixes to the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) code. Besides fixes to these graphics / display / accelerator drivers, there is one new feature: the AMDKFD kernel compute driver can now be enabled on RISC-V systems.
Coming in via this “fixes” pull request is enabling support for AMDKFD on RISC-V. It’s fine as we are still within the Linux 6.16 merge window that is then closing this Sunday with the release of Linux 6.16-rc1. At this stage the AMDKFD on RISC-V support just comes down to a small Kconfig patch for allowing this kernel driver to be built on that CPU architecture.
In addition to x86_64 Linux, the AMDKFD HSA kernel driver can also be built on ARM64/AArch64, POWER 64-bit, and now RISC-V 64-bit hardware.
AMD developers signed off on the change while the patchcame from an engineer at China’s ZTE. ZTE had confirmed that the AMDKFD driver is now running successfully on RISC-V systems for pairing AMD GPUs/accelerators with RISC-V platforms for an open-source compute experience.
Separate from the AMDKFD kernel driver on RISC-V, a ZTE engineer also confirmed that the open-source ROCm user-space code could be built and used on RISC-V. Meanwhile changes merged last year to the Linux kernel allow newer AMD Radeon graphics cards to work on RISC-V in general following other changes — today’s activity is just about the AMDKFD/HSA compute driver.
It’s a nice addition such as for those with a SiFive HiFive Premier P550 board for RISC-V with a PCI Express x16 slot.
As for the DRM fixes in today’s fixes pull request the majority are Intel i915/Xe and AMDGPU fixes scattered across the board with this AMDKFD RISC-V patch being most notable.
