More On GEM & Intel's Next Driver

The xf86-video-intel 2.4 driver was just released about three weeks ago, but we're already well into the xf86-video-intel 2.5 development cycle, which will be Intel's next quarterly graphics driver release. Intel's Jesse Barnes has provided a brief status on the code mergers taking place for this next open-source release.

At the forefront of development with this driver is GEM, or the Graphics Execution Manager. GEM is of course Intel's replacement for Tungsten's TTM as an in-kernel memory manager for the graphics drivers. As we shared just days ago, GEM has entered the mainline Intel code for their DDX, DRM, and Mesa drivers. The xf86-video-intel 2.5.0 release will be the first version shipping with GEM support.

To benefit from GEM, however, you'll first need the Graphics Execution Manager code within the kernel. This isn't done yet. We've been planning on seeing this happen with the Linux 2.6.28 kernel but Jesse notes that it may still happen in time for Linux 2.6.27.


Jesse also notes that he's been bringing the intel-kernelmode branch up to speed with GEM, but that's not quite ready yet for kernel-based mode-setting. He is also adding GTT (Graphics Translation Table) mapping support to GEM.

So there isn't anything too new to share if you've been staying up to date on the news at Phoronix and in the Phoronix Forums other than Intel is hard at work on their open-source video driver and GEM will be a big player in this next release. The blog post written by Jesse Barnes can be read here.