Linux 6.12 Lands QR Code For DRM Panic Messages, Intel LNL & BMG Graphics Enabled

The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel graphics/display driver updates have been submitted and already merged for the in-development Linux 6.12 kernel.

Linux 6.12 DRM is notable at the core level for adding optional support for displaying QR-code based kernel error messages via the DRM Panic infrastructure when running into a kernel error rather than just a large wall of text that is often cut off by the display size. Now a convenient QR code is displayed that is much easier to snap a picture of rather than trying to immediately decipher all of the text. This QR code support for the Linux kernel is written in the Rust programming language.

Another big DRM graphics driver change with Linux 6.12 is enabling Xe2 Lunar Lake and Battlemage discrete graphics by default so that the Xe kernel driver will be in-use out-of-the-box when using new Intel Lunar Lake laptops with integrated graphics or the upcoming Battlemage Arc Graphics dGPUs.

A change contributed by Intel also allows for more than 64 DRM drvices. There was a current max of 64 DRM devices but in the context of multi-GPU servers, SR-IOV virtual functions, virtual devices during testing, etc, they found a need for more than 64 DRM devices.

On the AMD graphics side there is now per-queue reset support for more fine-grained reset handling, more RDNA4 / GFX12 updates, process isolation framework support for newer Instinct GPUs, and other updates.

The Adreno MSM DRM driver has added Adreno 615 / 306 / 621 GPU support, the ASpeed DRM driver adds AST2600 VGA support, improved BMC handling within the Matrox MGAG200 driver, 4K@60 support within the Rockchip DW HDMI code, and many other updates.

See the DRM pull for the full list of kernel graphics/display driver updates found in Linux 6.12.