DirectX 12 coming soon on Linux ?

A stunning announcement from the giant Microsoft and published with great fanfare on the blog of the corporation's developers, the library dedicated to the programming of multimedia applications that is DirectX 12 is about to be ported to Linux ! One might think that this statement is just a big joke to make the free software community laugh, but we have to admit that this will to integrate this technology widely used in the field of video games remains a reality.

How does it work ?

According to Steve Pronovost, one of the developers in charge of implementing Direct X in the kernel, this operation will be based on a virtualization method integrated into the Windows for Linux (WSL 2) subsystem. As a reminder, WSL is a compatibility layer that allows Linux binaries to be run natively on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019. The idea is therefore to insert a virtual bus for the GPU that will act as a bridge between the instructions of the graphics card under Windows (KMD) to a Linux kernel module developed for the occasion and named dxgkrnl. You will have understood that, for all this to work, you will have to use the NT kernel services of this good old Windows.

However, the addition of DxCore and D3D12, two APIs that will remain proprietary (not to be dreamed of either!), on top of this compatibility layer, will grant the possibility to fully use DirectX12 requests without using third party translation software such as Vulkan. Both technologies work in the same way as they do under Windows, since it is not a rewrite but a compilation based on the original d3d12.dll code. With this integration, one could almost hope that some well-meaning people and free software users will use these APIs to create additional compatibility layers for our favorite distros.

False good idea ?

In any case and under its aspect of encouraging news for the democratization of free operating systems, such a gift from a company like Microsoft is not necessarily seen in a positive light by the actors of Open-Source and free software. Some see it as a poisoned present, consisting in taking control of the development of free technologies. On the other hand, we can see that Microsoft is gradually abandoning its aging operating system and seeks to renew itself to probably build a future product based on Linux. Just as Apple has decided to use BSD for the development of its MacOS, it would not be surprising that Microsoft is turning to intensive exploitation of the little penguin for its future systems .