Top all-time · #2551
Simona Vetter
Personal blog · blog.ffwll.chprogrammingsystems
Simona Vetter writes stuff by sima, a personal blog at blog.ffwll.ch about programming and systems. Since 2013, 29 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Why GitHub can't host the Linux Kernel Community (2017)”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Simona Vetter's ramblings on code, bugs, graphics, hw and the utter lack of sanity in all this.
Most-linked posts?
- Why GitHub can't host the Linux Kernel Community (2017)5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-07-02
- Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-08-08
- Upstream Graphics: Too Little, Too Late2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-12-10
- On Getting Patches Merged2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-06-05
- Crashcourse on Intel hardware:i915 and what the GEM does2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-02-08
- Linux Kernel Maintainer Statistics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-04-23
- Locking Engineering Principles2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-30
- Review, not Rocket Science2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-04-10
What Hacker News says?
https://blog.ffwll.ch/about/ > Currently I work at Intel’s Linux Cloud SE group, mostly creating havoc in kernel driver’s given my more than a decade of work in the graphics subsystem. I’m also co-maintaining the graphics subsystem. I also have been drm/i915 kernel maintainer for a few years, but handed that all off to a great new team.
Comment linking /about/
on “Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin resigns from Linux kernel”Submitted Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community as a story · 395 points
HN discussion>> In a Flatpak you have (?) to assume the system glibc is incompatible with the bundled one either way, thus you can’t assume you can load host libraries. > Not exactly. You must assume that the host glibc is incompatible with the bundled one, that's right. > But that does not mean you cannot load host libraries. You can load them (provided you got them somehow inside the container namespace, including their depend…
Comment linking /2013/11/botching-up-ioctls.html
on “Win32 Is the Only Stable ABI on Linux?”Submitted Maintainers Don't Scale as a story · 161 points
HN discussionFor the longest time I viewed kernel programming as an exalted realm of "optimized bare-metal software written by visionaries and wizards" (like operating system core developers of the Dave Cutler variety). Having had the misfortune of dabbling in reverse-engineering Windows drivers and debugging in-tree Linux kernel drivers, I now believe they're often messy hackjobs written by low-paid average-skilled embedded dev…
Comment linking /2022/08/locking-hierarchy.html
on “A list of developer questions to ask prospective employers”Submitted Locking Engineering Principles as a story · 24 points
HN discussionHere's a good article. https://danluu.com/monorepo/ It cites simplified organization, simplified dependencies, superior tooling, and easier cross-project changes. https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kerne... is another good one. You can build issue/PR tools treating a monotree as containing multiple repositories; that's how Google and Facebook do their work (including checked-in OWNERS/MAINTAINERS…
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “Yarn Plug'n'Play: Getting rid of node_modules”Submitted Why GitHub Can't Host the Linux Kernel Community as a story · 10 points
HN discussionI recently found this article, which probably repeats the same points, but with a very concrete example (Linux kernel development): https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kerne... It was an interesting read because Linus has repeatedly dismissed github for kernel development, and he never explains why in detail (as a consequence most news reporting his soundbites are not very informative either)
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “iOS on QEMU”Submitted Upstream Graphics: Too Little, Too Late as a story · 4 points
HN discussionProbably this link: http://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel... ? In that case, yes, that applies to GitLab too. The main problem is how GitHub and GitLab manage subprojects: GitLab forks are strictly hierarchical in how they manage pull requests and contributions (you can only submit patches from your repo to the single repo that you forked from). But that may not be an issue for per-package rep…
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “Debian and GNOME announce plans to migrate communities to GitLab”Submitted Why No 2D Userspace API in Linux Direct Rendering Manager? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere is an interesting post about the Linux project and why they don't use GitHub https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kerne...
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “The advantages of an email-driven Git workflow”Submitted Why GitHub can't host the Linux kernel community as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis is the most upsetting part about it, IMHO. The reason Microsoft pays a salary to this person is precisely to get GitHub mentioned into these sorts of conversations -- even though it's widely known that GitHub doesn't support such usecases. But, of course, there's never any time to mention such facts; but here's an example if anyone's curious: https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kerne... . Yet…
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “Embrace, extend, and finally extinguish – Microsoft plays their hand”Submitted Linux Kernel Maintainer Statistics as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've found quite readable and relatively high level description of memory management and command submission in Linux drivers for Intel GPUs. http://blog.ffwll.ch/2013/01/i915gem-crashcourse-overview.ht... This (plus some low-level register poking) is the stuff you would need to implement in your GPU daemon. Actual generation of drawing commands, compilation of shaders etc is performed by applications. The overhead s…
Comment linking /2013/01/i915gem-crashcourse-overview.html
on “Liberation fonts causing Windows 7 SP1 to BSOD”Submitted Linux Kernel Maintainer Statistics as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere is what email patches are all about: https://blog.ffwll.ch/2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kerne... I tried email patches with another person myself. The only reason GH won here, is because the git people made one fatal mistake: They forgot to include the tree hash and only show the commit hash in the email patch. But the commit hash is useless . When you email patch, then commits people want to treat as "the…
Comment linking /2017/08/github-why-cant-host-the-kernel.html
on “Git Your Freedom Back: A Beginner's Guide to Sourcehut (2025)”Submitted Neat Intel Graphics Stuff for Linux 4.8 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted On Getting Patches Merged as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why GitHub can't host the Linux Kernel Community (2017) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Upstream Graphics: Too Little, Too Late as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Awesome Atomic Advances as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Crashcourse on Intel hardware:i915 and what the GEM does as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Upstream, Why and How as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Locking Engineering Principles (2022) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Maintainers Don't Scale (2017) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Linux Kernel Maintainer Statistics as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Review, not Rocket Science as a story · 1 points
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