Microsoft Begins Providing DirectX Shader Compiler Linux Binaries

In early 2017 Microsoft open-sourced their DirectX shader compiler and shortly thereafter it's been possible to build it on Linux while finally as of this week Microsoft has begun providing official Linux binaries of their shader compiler.

Released on Saturday was DirectXShaderCompiler v1.7.2212 as their "December 2022" DX compiler release. In addition to it now including full support of HLSL 2021 for SPIR-V generation and various new compiler flags, this marks the first time they are including full Linux binaries as part of the release.

The release notes mention:

Linux binaries are now included. This includes the compiler executable, the dynamic library, and the dxil signing library...For the first time the package also includes Linux version of the compiler with corresponding executable, libdxcompiler.so, headers, and libdxil.so for x64 platforms.

This isn't any real benefit though to Linux end-users. As mentioned, it's already been possible to compile the DirectX shader compiler for Linux while now they are providing official binaries. Before anyone gets too excited, this does not get Direct3D 12 on Linux natively, replace VKD3D-Proton, or anything along those lines -- this is just the DirectX shader compiler. The DirectXShaderCompiler on Linux can be useful for developers in cases of SPIR-V conversion for shaders, compiling HLSL shaders into DXIL on Linux, used by Mesa as part of their D3D12 work for benefiting Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) usage, and similar developer paths for better interoperability.

Those interested can find Microsoft's new DirectX Shader Compiler release with Linux binaries now in tow via GitHub.