AGP Graphics Card Support Proposed For Removal From Linux Radeon/NVIDIA Drivers

Written by Michael Larabel in Hardware on 11 May 2020 at 01:34 PM EDT. 90 Comments
HARDWARE
Longtime AMD open-source driver developer Christian König is proposing the removal of AGP graphics card support from their Radeon kernel driver as well as the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" kernel driver and in turn removing the AGP related code from the TTM memory management code.

"Well let's face it AGP is a total headache to maintain and dead for at least 10+ years," began Christian's proposal sent out today.


Killing off the AGP graphics card support would allow removing a lot of x86-specific "stuff" from the graphics memory management code and make other code improvements moving forward without the burden of carrying AGP support.

We'll see where this proposal leads. Linux graphics driver developers have been in favor of seeing AGP support eliminated given the headaches involved but Linux also has many vintage hardware users that will likely argue in favor of seeing this Radeon/Nouveau/TTM AGP support continue. It's been a decade and a half already since PCI Express began replacing AGP as the standard interface for graphics cards.
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