Intel Wraps Up Linux 5.13 Graphics Driver Development By Preparing For Future Hardware

The past several weeks have seen a few rounds of Intel graphics driver changes sent in to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 5.13 cycle. This Linux 5.13 Intel graphics driver work has included Alder Lake S enablement and other feature changes. A final batch of "feature" work was sent out this morning for targeting the Intel kernel graphics driver in Linux 5.13.

This final patch of Intel i915 kernel graphics driver changes for targeting Linux 5.13 is "a pull request of refactoring both to clean up and prepare for future."

The future prep work is due to the forthcoming Intel XE_LPD v13 display hardware and now the display block being separated from the "Gen" graphics. While that XE_LPD display support didn't make it for Linux 5.13, the prep work for splitting up the display vs. graphics versioning logic did in preparing for the future Intel hardware where it may be more "mix and match" of display/GPU blocks.

The initial hardware using XE_LPD display but with Gen12 class Xe Graphics is Alder Lake P. That work will presumably get squared away for Linux 5.14.

Besides disassociating the display version from the Gen version, today's pull request has a lot of refactoring around the DisplayPort and HDMI code, cleaning up of frame-buffer plane code, and other mostly display related code refactoring.

There are also fixes in this pull request around HDCP as well as various display issues.

See this pull request for all the details on this last batch of Intel graphics driver feature changes aiming for Linux 5.13, which in turn will debut as stable around June.