Linux 5.1 Picking Up Intel Coffeelake GVT, More Icelake IDs Added

As is standard practice for the DRM-Next development workflow, the Intel open-source graphics driver developers have already been staging their new feature work ahead of the Linux 5.1 kernel cycle, as have other parties involved in DRM/KMS drivers and elsewhere in the kernel. Today another big feature update was submitted to DRM-Next of new material that will come with Linux 5.1 this spring.

Highlights of today's pull include:

- Coffeelake GVT support is finally in place! That's the Graphics Virtualization Technology for newer Intel desktop CPUs. This doesn't come as a big surprise since we knew Intel developers were working on it and it would likely be ready by "Linux 4.22", which given Linus Torvalds' version bump to 5.0, 5.1 would have been 4.22. This is great news for Coffeelake CPU owners wanting to have accelerated guests in KVM/Xen instances using GVT rather than Virgl or other alternatives.

- More device IDs for upcoming Icelake hardware has been added to the driver along with other Icelake enablement/fixes work. The Intel Icelake Linux graphics support appears quite mature at this stage for the "Gen 11" graphics hardware that will be out later in the year. The new device IDs for the Icelake graphics part are 0x8A59, 0x8A58, 0x8A57, and 0x8A56, but don't reveal any other details on these additions. It's difficult to ascertain just how many different Icelake graphics adapter models there will be since some of them may just be for engineering samples / pre-production, reserving for future but currently unplanned parts, etc.

There is also a number of other fixes and low-level code refactoring via this pull request.