Linux port via Blade

[kvark]

Motivation

I ❤️ Zed! It's lightning fast and has great UX. I want it to run as well on all major platforms. I'm currently using Linux most actively.
Blade is a good candidate for providing GPU access: it supports Vulkan, Metal, and GLES/WebGL. Its abstraction is extremely thin, while having one of the nicest GPU APIs. Codebase is also tiny. Checkout the meetup recording from a year ago.
I believe these projects make a good match 🚀 !

Why this is a bad idea

If Zed team wants to use off-the-shelf components from Rust ecosystem, then Blade is certainly at disadvantage here, since it's not widely used. It would rely on Zed team adding necessary features in a branch, then maybe upstreaming some of them. That is to say, it's unclear if this can be avoided with more popular alternatives - being flexible with any local changes is a good ability.

Why it's not too bad

Blade uses WGSL shaders, similar to wgpu and arcana, but without the binding decorations. So this aspect of the product is nicely portable.

Progress

• Platforms
  • X11 (via xcb)
    • input handling
    • get proper content size
  • Windows
  • Replace the existing Metal backend
• Text System
  • shaping
  • glyph rasterization
• Texture atlas
• Rendering
  • basic primitives
  • path rendering
  • sprite rendering
• media surfaces
• CI

Current status

Zed starts up but crashes on text-system related checks.

[cla-bot]

We require contributors to sign our Contributor License Agreement, and we don't have @kvark on file. You can sign our CLA at https://zed.dev/cla. Once you've signed, post a comment here that says '@cla-bot check'.

[kvark]

@cla-bot check

[cla-bot]

The cla-bot has been summoned, and re-checked this pull request!

[williamdes]

Thank you, after kvark@88dfb35 that installed the missing dependency.

I now have this crash:

trace

VUID-VkSwapchainCreateInfoKHR-imageExtent-01274(ERROR / SPEC): msgNum: 2094043421 - Validation Error: [ VUID-VkSwapchainCreateInfoKHR-imageExtent-01274 ] Object 0: handle = 0x5650fc2070c0, type = VK_OBJECT_TYPE_DEVICE; | MessageID = 0x7cd0911d | vkCreateSwapchainKHR() called with imageExtent = (1920,1080), which is outside the bounds returned by vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR(): currentExtent = (1920,1024), minImageExtent = (1920,1024), maxImageExtent = (1920,1024). The Vulkan spec states: imageExtent must be between minImageExtent and maxImageExtent, inclusive, where minImageExtent and maxImageExtent are members of the VkSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR structure returned by vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceCapabilitiesKHR for the surface (https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.3-khr-extensions/html/vkspec.html#VUID-VkSwapchainCreateInfoKHR-imageExtent-01274)
    Objects: 1
        [0] 0x5650fc2070c0, type: 3, name: NULL
Thread "main" panicked with "called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: glyph not found for character 'm'" at crates/editor/src/element.rs:1907:18
   0: Zed::init_panic_hook::{closure#0}
             at crates/zed/src/main.rs:583:29
   1: <alloc::boxed::Box<F,A> as core::ops::function::Fn<Args>>::call
             at /rustc/82e1608dfa6e0b5569232559e3d385fea5a93112/library/alloc/src/boxed.rs:2021:9
      std::panicking::rust_panic_with_hook

[kvark]

@williamdes yes, that's the big boss of the text system missing. Looks like the suggested path to it is implementing cosmic_text.

[williamdes]

I do not know where 7509677 comes from but:

• libxcb-dev should be libxcb1-dev
• alsa-base was removed in oldstable: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/alsa-base see https://bugs.debian.org/852455 reading the changelog of the package mentioned it was replaced by kmod

/cc @mikayla-maki
The packages in the commit do not exist on Debian 12

[h3mosphere]

@aminya: Can you try the following branch: https://github.com/h3mosphere/zed/tree/resize-on-draw

I had the same issue, this is probably a performance killer until @kvark can work out a better solution. But it works for me.

After kvark#2, I also get a white screen for a second. This is the error I get then resulting in a crash:

[aminya]

I do not know where 7509677 comes from but:

• libxcb-dev should be libxcb1-dev
• alsa-base was removed in oldstable: tracker.debian.org/pkg/alsa-base see bugs.debian.org/852455 reading the changelog of the package mentioned it was replaced by kmod

/cc @mikayla-maki The packages in the commit do not exist on Debian 12

It reverted it in kvark#2. cause it also causes conflicts.
@mikayla-maki was this commit intended? If so, could you create pull requests instead of directly pushing?

[mikayla-maki]

@aminya, sorry about that meant to push to a branch. Thanks for fixing things :)

[noverby]

@bhavya3024 No, there is still missing essential functionality. E.g. font rendering.

[RustoMCSpit]

Zed team wants to use off-the-shelf components from Rust ecosystem, then Blade is certainly at disadvantage here, since it's not widely used. It would rely on Zed team adding necessary features in a branch, then maybe upstreaming some of them.

they could also just offer its developer a full-time, work-at-home job as theyre more proficient with linux and they could then gear blade into its direction rather than other way round. just throwing the idea out there