Intel Engineer Responses to Linus Torvalds Criticism of hdrtest Code Quality

Intel software engineer Jani Nikula responded to Linus Torvalds’ criticism regarding the unfortunate (turds) hdrtest code associated with the Intel Xe kernel driver project.

«In order to address this, hide all the distasteful code within the .hdrtest subdirectories of the build tree and place additional DRM build-time checks under a Kconfig option,» Nikula suggested to Torvalds in reaction to the acceptance of the commit from the Linux creator.

Here’s the original wording from Nikula’s message: «Hide all the disgusting turds in .hdrtest subdirectories in the build tree, and put the extra drm build-time checks behind a kconfig option.»

At the end of March 2025, Linus Torvalds criticized the hdrtest testing code, which compiles as part of the complete kernel build and leaves behind unpleasant artifacts (turds). Torvalds argued that this code “needs to die,” especially from the perspective of DRM-less driver developers.

The new hdrtest code is intended for the Intel Xe kernel driver to ensure that the DRM header files option is self-sufficient and passes basic kernel-doc checks and tests.

Grr. I executed the pull, resolved the (trivial) conflicts, but noticed that it included the off-putting hdrtest component that:

(a) slows the build because it is incorporated with the regular allmodconfig build instead of being a simple utility for you guys to run when necessary;

(b) also leaves random hdrtest artifacts scattered in the include directories.

Developers have already complained about this separately. It should never have come to me in such a flawed state.

Why on earth is this testing integrated into the usual build process?

And for goodness’ sake, we don’t add arbitrary junk files for dependencies that spoil the source tree.

I realized it was still there when «git status» flagged the silly files as not being ignored.

More critically, those files disrupt filename completion! Therefore, simply adding it to gitignore doesn’t truly solve the issue; it merely delays my awareness of it.

This problem must be addressed.

If you want to utilize hdrtest, do so as part of your checks. Do not make everyone else deal with that unpleasant code, nor clutter their branches with such artifacts.

For now, I’ll disable it by marking it as BROKEN. You all can determine the next steps, but no, forcing this upon others is not the solution.

I’d recommend not integrating this into the Kconfig setup or regular build at all; rather, make it something that can be run as part of your testing (like «make drm-hdrtest» instead of as part of standard builds).

Linus.

In January 2024, Linus Torvalds criticized %^!@$% new Intel Xe code for DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) in Linux 6.8. He rectified its faults himself and urged third-party developers and maintainers to rigorously test their patches.

In July 2023, Linus Torvalds expressed frustration with one of AMD’s solutions concerning the hardware implementation of a random number generator. He declared his weariness over the «silly» fTPM (Firmware-based Trusted Platform Module) mistakes and urged Linux maintainers to disable this feature by default in the operating system.

“Let’s just turn off that ridiculous fTPM hwrnd feature. Why would anyone want to use this junk if it exists on every machine? I see no issue in saying, ‘This fTPM thing doesn’t work.’ Even if it becomes functional later, the alternatives are just as good. The fixes from AMD we saw, as reported by developers, ‘clearly did not hold up,’” Torvalds explained.

In 2018, Torvalds decided to step back from his exasperated speaker role in communication with the media and companies. He took a break from working on the Linux kernel to address his behavior towards other developers. Once he resolved this, he returned to kernel development. Since then, he has adopted a much softer approach. Torvalds recently acknowledged his newfound restraint in an interview during the Open Source summit in Japan. He remarked that he would no longer «point fingers at any company. I have learned my lesson.»