SimpleDRM Driver Published Ahead Of Linux 3.12

The SimpleDRM driver has been revised ahead of the Linux 3.12 kernel merge window. This simple DRM/KMS driver that's generic has been around for a few months now and David Herrmann is hoping it will be reviewed and ready in time.

David explains the one thousand line DRM driver as, "The SimpleDRM driver binds to simple-framebuffer devices and provides a DRM/KMS API. It provides only a single RTC+encoder+connector combination plus one initial mode. Userspace can create one dumb-buffer and attach it to the CRTC. Only if the buffer is destroyed, a new buffer can be created. The buffer is directly mapped into user-space, so we have only resources for a single buffer. Otherwise, shadow buffers plus damage-request would be needed."

This SimpleDRM driver has fbdev fallback support and this new code seeks to replace vesafb, efifb, simplefb, and vgafb as simple frame-buffer drivers for the Linux kernel. All that's required to use this DRM driver on new kernels for hardware not supported by other DRM drivers would be to enable CONFIG_X86_SYSFB.

The driver patch-set is up to its fourth revision and is still seeking reviews, you can join in on the discussion via the dri-devel mailing list. This would be another one of many great features for Linux 3.12.