Re: Should GPU shaders be considered firmware?
> On 12 Mar 2025, at 13:02, Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> wrote:
>
> On Mar 12, Hakan Bayındır <hakan@bayindir.org> wrote:
>
>> In first blush, I don’t think shaders should be considered firmware. They are not used to enable the hardware,
> I am not taking a position about shaders at this point, but I will note that this has never been the definition of firmwares.
> Firmwares are software which runs outside of the OS on a different CPU.
You’re right, but many if not all firmware runs all the time the unit is powered on. Shaders are transient software which run on the GPU for a limited time, e.g. when you’re encoding a video.
If we think that a shader is a firmware, any software running on the second socket on a system is also a firmware, since the program is running on a different CPU w.r.t. to Kernel.
>
> --
> ciao,
> Marco
Cheers,
H.
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