With the Intel Graphics Compiler having dropped Ice Lake and older support and in turn the Intel Compute Runtime dropping Ice Lake and older to just focus on newer Intel graphics hardware support, Fedora packagers and other stakeholders have been grappling with how to handle the situation. For Fedora 42 there’s been a proposal for updating to the newer Intel Compute Runtime code for benefiting the more recent Intel graphics hardware while in recent days there’s been talk of forking the legacy code.
Raised on the Fedora development list in recent days is the possibility of forking the Intel Compute Runtime and related code for being able to continue offering legacy packages on at least Fedora Linux with this Ice Lake and prior support. Messages were expressed such as:
“If it removes such a huge list of hardware, a compatibility package should be introduced (check nvidia-470xx, nvidia-390xx as an example).”
…
“Yes, I agree that’d be the best way forward!I, however, won’t have cycles for its maintenance. On the other hand, anybody who wants and has resources is welcome to package and maintain the legacy packages and llvm 15 in the repositories.”
…
“This is planned obsolescence at its best. Intel-controlled software dropping support for older (Intel) hardware to force you to buy new one to replace it.We have come to expect that from proprietary software, including the proprietary NVidia driver, but for Free Software, this is a new low. Introducing a compatibility package is the least we can do. Ideally, the project should be forked upstream to restore support for older hardware.”
More commentary via the Fedora devel thread.
But so far no firm commitment from any stakeholders willing to step up and maintain legacy packages for the Intel graphics compute stack for Ice Lake and prior.
Maintaining a legacy version of the Intel Compute Runtime stack will become more challenging with time. The Intel Compute Runtime isn’t just some simple, standalone package but requires its own older version of LLVM for the Intel Graphics Compiler and other intricacies that will make packaging and ongoing maintenance more difficult. Plus with Intel themselves no longer maintaining any legacy branch of the hardware support, fixing any bugs will likely be very limited and up to those independently volunteering to maintain such legacy packages.
Without many volunteers stepping up to maintain such a legacy Compute Runtime stack and likely a need for a multi-distribution effort to find enough community open-source developers volunteering to do so, the support will likely crumble with time. Plus let’s face it there isn’t too many OpenCL or Level Zero workloads that are really beneficial on aging Ice Lake or older Intel integrated graphics… It would be more pressing and popular if it affected discrete or more powerful graphics and where there are widely-used applications relying on the OpenCL / Level Zero acceleration.
So for now there’s talk of offering legacy Intel graphics compute support on future Fedora releases but no firm action plan nor the volunteers/resources to really see it through. We’ll see what happens moving forward starting with the Fedora 42 release in the spring where they plan to upgrade the Intel Compute Runtime for the newer Intel hardware support.
As an alternative there is also the Mesa Rusticl driver that is generic and becoming in increasingly great shape. Rusticl can work on the Intel driver stack to provide Rust-based OpenCL although no Level Zero support.
