The VIA Kernel Mode-Setting Code Progresses

While VIA defenestrated its open-source Linux graphics driver strategy, there has been some recent work under-way on providing a GEM/TTM + KMS driver for VIA's integrated graphics processors by the community. In particular, this work is being done by James Simmons, the former Google Summer of Code student developer who was working on 3Dfx kernel mode-setting support a few months back.

We reported on the progress as of last week, but some more work has been accomplished since. James is now sharing that he finished his KMS / UMS (user-space mode-setting) code reordering and so far has found no fall-out from these changes. However, the actual KMS support has yet to be added. Once the kernel mode-setting support is found within the DRM driver, the OpenChrome-derived X.Org driver will be updated to properly play with the VIA Linux KMS support. This KMS support though for VIA hardware will not be enabled by default as this would break things for users of newer VIA-KMS-capable Linux kernels but with an outdated DDX driver.

This update was shared on the OpenChrome mailing list. There is not yet any word on when we may see the improved VIA DRM driver with GEM/TTM memory management and kernel mode-setting support enter the mainline Linux kernel.