Hector Zelaya on HectorZelaya.dev

Nova: A NVIDIA Driver Written in Rust for the Linux Kernel - Part 1

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 13:56:42 -0600

Part 1: Architecture, Initialization & Hardware Discovery Link to heading

This is Part 1 of a three-part series exploring Nova, a new open-source GPU driver written in Rust for NVIDIA GPUs in the Linux kernel. This post covers the two-driver architecture, PCI initialization, BAR0 mapping, GPU identification, and safe register access.

Note: Nova is under active development. The code shown here reflects the upstream state as of writing, but APIs are evolving — some features described are work-in-progress. For the current state, check the nova-gpu mailing list and the NVIDIA/nova development branch.

Writing My First Linux Kernel Patch: From User Space to Kernel with Kiro IDE

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:26:42 -0600

I’ve used Linux daily for over a decade—drawn in by its customization, its reliability, and the open philosophy around the kernel and OS utilities that makes the whole thing tick. But after all these years, and despite my software engineering background, I never got involved with its development, and most of my dev experience was around user space: web applications, cloud infrastructure, containers, configuration management. The kernel and open source utilities were this mythical layer I depended on but never touched.

Spec'ing my way to Mixing and Mastering a Song in Reaper with reaper-mcp and Kiro IDE

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 11:26:42 -0600

Producing music and writing code have surprisingly a lot in common. Both require a delicate balance of rigid structure and free-flowing creativity. Just like a developer has to wrestle with boilerplate code, environment setups, and syntax errors before they can build a killer feature, an audio engineer spends hours on tedious tasks—tweaking volume knobs, notch-filtering harsh frequencies, and meticulously gain-staging—before they can actually focus on the vibe of a track.

If Your Business Relies on Open Source, You Want to Contribute Back

Sun, 31 May 2026 20:16:42 -0600

Like The Force in Star Wars, open-source software surrounds us, penetrates our servers, and binds the digital universe together. It is the invisible engine powering modern business.

Whether you realize it or not, your company is likely standing on the shoulders of open-source giants. We rely on the Linux kernel to run our cloud infrastructure, web servers like Nginx or Apache to host our sites, and technologies tools like WebRTC to exchange media in real-time.

C in the Times of AI

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

C in the Times of AI Link to heading

The AI coding revolution Link to heading

AI coding agents are everywhere. In just a couple of years they went from novelty to necessity in many software teams. Tools like Copilot, Cursor, Kiro, and a growing list of alternatives promise to write code faster than any human could. And they deliver — sort of.