Intel Mode-Setting Code Rework Explained

Back in August new Intel driver mode-setting code was unveiled by Daniel Vetter. Today at XDC2012 he explained this i915 KMS driver rework to the X.Org developers in Germany.

The Intel mode-setting rewrite no longer uses common CRTC helper code found within the Direct Rendering Manager code-base but rather has new code written specifically against how Intel graphics hardware is designed. This work includes new encoder functions, reworking the DPMS code, infrastructure for reading the current hardware state, and various other changes.

For those wishing to learn more about the i915 mode-setting driver rework at a low level, a video of Daniel's talk from this morning is embedded below.

For BSD users that have expressed complaints since the code was unveiled last month, Daniel/Intel basically says "sorry." Redoing the KMS code is a major impairment to the BSD developers that have been working on (slowly) porting the Intel Linux driver code to the FreeBSD kernel, but these Intel driver developers don't have BSD as a support target/interest and aren't going to hold back the Linux code as a result.

This new code should hit the Linux 3.7 kernel.