The Linux Kernel Preparing To Drop Infrastructure For Old & Obsolete Graphics Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Linux Kernel Preparing To Drop Infrastructure For Old & Obsolete Graphics Drivers

Back during the Linux 6.3 kernel support for a number of legacy DRM drivers was removed and now patches have been volleyed for taking things one step further by now eliminating the infrastructure for supporting these older user-space mode-setting graphics/display drivers...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Drop-Old-UMS-DRM-Infra

[guspitts]

The ATI Rage 128, 3Dfx, S3 Savage, Intel 810, SiS, VIA and Matrox MGA DRM drivers

Reading that list of cards surely brings some nostalgic memories...

[pegasus]

MGA G200 is present on many previous-gen server boards that still have some chance of seeing some newer kernels some day. How will that affect them? I assume vga text mode will still work, what about fb console?

[c117152]

MGA G200 is present on many previous-gen server boards that still have some chance of seeing some newer kernels some day. How will that affect them? I assume vga text mode will still work, what about fb console?

Dell's PowerEdge R760 still ships with g200: https://www.delltechnologies.com/ass...ical-guide.pdf (p.72, October 2023)

[rmfx]

Linux kernel should only feature cpu software rendering drivers and leave the gpu support to mesa.
That would cleanup so much code.

[JustK]

MGA G200 is present on many previous-gen server boards that still have some chance of seeing some newer kernels some day. How will that affect them? I assume vga text mode will still work, what about fb console?

There's still SIMPLEDRM and SIMPLEFB (+FB_SIMPLE) to give you a framebuffer console. I think you're limited to whatever mode UEFI gives you, though.

[skeevy420]

Michael

"LTS" is spelled "ITS" in the 3rd paragraph.

[pegasus]

I think you're limited to whatever mode UEFI gives you, though.

Which should be fine in most cases.
Ok, if distros make sure that this works out of the box witout us admins noticing, I'm fine.

[Zbigniew]

Dell servers still use Matrox G200eR GPU for monitor connection (e stands for Embedded and R stands for Renesas who manufacturers GPUs on Matrox license for Dell servers).
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrox_G200 says:

2000s, 2010s and 2020s
Matrox G200 series, especially the G200e is still a popular choice for server motherboard manufacturers, like Dell's PowerEdge series, due to its robustness, low power consumption and limited features needed just for VGA display.^[5]

This package provides the driver for the video and is supported on the 12G PowerEdge family of products running the Windows Server 2012 Operating System.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en...driverId=FRYX9

This package provides the driver for the video and is supported on the 13G PowerEdge family of products running the Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2 and 2016 Operating Systems.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en...d=j32cx&lwp=rt

Other Dell servers: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=hrvnd

Just scroll down to the bottom of Dell page to section Additional Details and expand Compatible Systems to see how many Dells still use it.

[fitzie]

Reading that list of cards surely brings some nostalgic memories...

i ran tseng et4000, then s3, then matrox for a few generations. paid for X Inside's X11 server for a while. luckily ati picked up the ball when matrox faltered.