Android Sync (SW_SYNC) To Leave Staging In Linux 4.9

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 23 August 2016 at 02:20 PM EDT. 3 Comments
LINUX KERNEL
Linux 4.9 will see SW_SYNC support leaving the staging area.

SW_SYNC provides the sync validation framework with a sync driver that uses a 32-bit counter for coordinating synchronization. This synchronization driver is used in cases where there is no hardware synchronization support. Of course, we're talking about in the graphics context for synchronizing rendering.

This sync support originally started off in the Android space and has slowly been working its way upstream into the Linux kernel. This synchronization framework can be passed between processes and to/from user-space and the kernel. This sync support is an alternative to DMA-BUF fences. More details on this Android Sync support can be found via this previous LPC presentation.

At Gustavo Padovan's request, Greg Kroah-Hartman went ahead and is seeing SW_SYNC destaged that will happen for the Linux 4.9 kernel merge window.

Collabora has now published sw_sync tests for Mesa in preparation of SW_SYNC leaving the staging area. This work appears mostly relevant to Intel for the Android space.
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