The Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC) is one of the most important technical gatherings for developers working deep in the Linux stack — from kernels and filesystems to bootloaders, toolchains, and core infrastructure. It provides a highly focused environment for upstream developers to exchange ideas, review work-in-progress, and solve complex system-level problems through direct collaboration.
This year’s conference, held in Tokyo, Japan, once again brought together maintainers, contributors, and system engineers from around the world, creating a space for honest technical discussions and long-term ecosystem alignment.
At the Linux Plumbers Conference, Yuning Liang, Founder and CEO of DeepComputing, delivered a talk focused on pre-silicon kernel upstreaming for RISC-V. The session shared real-world experiences from working with early RISC-V silicon, highlighting the challenges of enabling Linux kernel support before hardware reaches production.
Rather than presenting a polished success story, the talk emphasized practical issues encountered along the way — including mismatches between specifications and implementations, early bring-up pitfalls, and coordination challenges across hardware and software teams. The goal was to surface these issues early, so the community can improve processes and tooling for future RISC-V platforms.
One of the most valuable aspects of the Linux Plumbers Conference is its culture of openness. Beyond formal presentations, many discussions centered around lessons learned, mistakes made, and assumptions that didn’t hold up in real deployments.
For DeepComputing, LPC was an opportunity to connect with kernel maintainers, toolchain developers, and fellow RISC-V contributors — not just to showcase progress, but to openly share where things went wrong and why. These conversations are essential to improving upstream collaboration, reducing duplicated effort, and building more robust RISC-V systems together.
As RISC-V continues to mature, honest technical dialogue and early upstream engagement will remain critical. Linux Plumbers Conference once again proved to be the right place for those conversations to happen.
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