Backporting patches using LLM by jankara

Description

Backporting Linux kernel fixes (either for CVE issues or as part of general git-fixes workflow) is boring and mostly mechanical work (dealing with changes in context, renamed variables, new helper functions etc.). The idea of this project is to explore usage of LLM for backporting Linux kernel commits to SUSE kernels using LLM.

Goals

• Create safe environment allowing LLM to run and backport patches without exposing the whole filesystem to it (for privacy and security reasons).
• Write prompt that will guide LLM through the backporting process. Fine tune it based on experimental results.
• Explore success rate of LLMs when backporting various patches.

Resources

• Docker
• Gemini CLI

Repository

Current version of the container with some instructions for use are at: https://gitlab.suse.de/jankara/gemini-cli-backporter

---

The Agentic Rancher Experiment: Do Androids Dream of Electric Cattle? by moio

Rancher is a beast of a codebase. Let's investigate if the new 2025 generation of GitHub Autonomous Coding Agents and Copilot Workspaces can actually tame it.

---

The Plan

Create a sandbox GitHub Organization, clone in key Rancher repositories, and let the AI loose to see if it can handle real-world enterprise OSS maintenance - or if it just hallucinates new breeds of Kubernetes resources!

Specifically, throw "Agentic Coders" some typical tasks in a complex, long-lived open-source project, such as:

❥ The Grunt Work: generate missing GoDocs, unit tests, and refactorings. Rebase PRs.

❥ The Complex Stuff: fix actual (historical) bugs and feature requests to see if they can traverse the complexity without (too much) human hand-holding.

❥ Hunting Down Gaps: find areas lacking in docs, areas of improvement in code, dependency bumps, and so on.

If time allows, also experiment with Model Context Protocol (MCP) to give agents context on our specific build pipelines and CI/CD logs.

Why?

We know AI can write "Hello World." and also moderately complex programs from a green field. But can it rebase a 3-month-old PR with conflicts in rancher/rancher? I want to find the breaking point of current AI agents to determine if and how they can help us to reduce our technical debt, work faster and better. At the same time, find out about pitfalls and shortcomings.

The CONCLUSION!!!

A State of the Union document was compiled to summarize lessons learned this week. For more gory details, just read on the diary below!

---

Try out Neovim Plugins supporting AI Providers by enavarro_suse

Description

Experiment with several Neovim plugins that integrate AI model providers such as Gemini and Ollama.

Goals

Evaluate how these plugins enhance the development workflow, how they differ in capabilities, and how smoothly they integrate into Neovim for day-to-day coding tasks.

Resources

• Neovim 0.11.5
• AI-enabled Neovim plugins:
  • avante.nvim: https://github.com/yetone/avante.nvim
  • Gp.nvim: https://github.com/Robitx/gp.nvim
  • parrot.nvim: https://github.com/frankroeder/parrot.nvim
  • gemini.nvim: https://dotfyle.com/plugins/kiddos/gemini.nvim
  • ...
• Accounts or API keys for AI model providers.
• Local model serving setup (e.g., Ollama)
• Test projects or codebases for practical evaluation:
  • OBS: https://build.opensuse.org/
  • OBS blog and landing page: https://openbuildservice.org/
  • ...

---

AI-Powered Unit Test Automation for Agama by joseivanlopez

The Agama project is a multi-language Linux installer that leverages the distinct strengths of several key technologies:

• Rust: Used for the back-end services and the core HTTP API, providing performance and safety.
• TypeScript (React/PatternFly): Powers the modern web user interface (UI), ensuring a consistent and responsive user experience.
• Ruby: Integrates existing, robust YaST libraries (e.g., yast-storage-ng) to reuse established functionality.

The Problem: Testing Overhead

Developing and maintaining code across these three languages requires a significant, tedious effort in writing, reviewing, and updating unit tests for each component. This high cost of testing is a drain on developer resources and can slow down the project's evolution.

The Solution: AI-Driven Automation

This project aims to eliminate the manual overhead of unit testing by exploring and integrating AI-driven code generation tools. We will investigate how AI can:

1. Automatically generate new unit tests as code is developed.
2. Intelligently correct and update existing unit tests when the application code changes.

By automating this crucial but monotonous task, we can free developers to focus on feature implementation and significantly improve the speed and maintainability of the Agama codebase.

Goals

• Proof of Concept: Successfully integrate and demonstrate an authorized AI tool (e.g., gemini-cli) to automatically generate unit tests.
• Workflow Integration: Define and document a new unit test automation workflow that seamlessly integrates the selected AI tool into the existing Agama development pipeline.
• Knowledge Sharing: Establish a set of best practices for using AI in code generation, sharing the learned expertise with the broader team.

Contribution & Resources

We are seeking contributors interested in AI-powered development and improving developer efficiency. Whether you have previous experience with code generation tools or are eager to learn, your participation is highly valuable.

If you want to dive deep into AI for software quality, please reach out and join the effort!

• Authorized AI Tools: Tools supported by SUSE (e.g., gemini-cli)
• Focus Areas: Rust, TypeScript, and Ruby components within the Agama project.

Interesting Links

• goose

---

Try AI training with ROCm and LoRA by bmwiedemann

Description

I want to setup a Radeon RX 9600 XT 16 GB at home with ROCm on Slowroll.

Goals

I want to test how fast AI inference can get with the GPU and if I can use LoRA to re-train an existing free model for some task.

Resources

• https://rocm.docs.amd.com/en/latest/compatibility/compatibility-matrix.html
• https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/science:GPU:ROCm
• https://src.opensuse.org/ROCm/
• https://www.suse.com/c/lora-fine-tuning-llms-for-text-classification/

Results

got inference working with llama.cpp:

export LLAMACPP_ROCM_ARCH=gfx1200
HIPCXX="$(hipconfig -l)/clang" HIP_PATH="$(hipconfig -R)" \
cmake -S . -B build -DGGML_HIP=ON -DAMDGPU_TARGETS=$LLAMACPP_ROCM_ARCH \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLLAMA_CURL=ON \
-Dhipblas_DIR=/usr/lib64/cmake/hipblaslt/ \
&& cmake --build build --config Release -j8
m=models/gpt-oss-20b-mxfp4.gguf
cd $P/llama.cpp && build/bin/llama-server --model $m --threads 8 --port 8005 --host 0.0.0.0 --device ROCm0 --n-gpu-layers 999

Without the --device option it faulted. Maybe because my APU also appears there?

I updated/fixed various related packages: https://src.opensuse.org/ROCm/rocm-examples/pulls/1 https://src.opensuse.org/ROCm/hipblaslt/pulls/1 SR 1320959

benchmark

I benchmarked inference with llama.cpp + gpt-oss-20b-mxfp4.gguf and ROCm offloading to a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB. I varied the number of layers that went to the GPU:

• 0 layers 14.49 tokens/s (8 CPU cores)
• 9 layers 17.79 tokens/s 34% VRAM
• 15 layers 22.39 tokens/s 51% VRAM
• 20 layers 27.49 tokens/s 64% VRAM
• 24 layers 41.18 tokens/s 74% VRAM
• 25+ layers 86.63 tokens/s 75% VRAM (only 200% CPU load)

So there is a significant performance-boost if the whole model fits into the GPU's VRAM.

---