DRM Leasing / Display Patches Updated For Mesa's Vulkan Drivers

Keith Packard's patches for improving the Linux infrastructure around VR HMD devices have landed within the mainline Linux kernel as well as in X.Org Server 1.20, but for rounding out the work, there still are pending patches for the Mesa Vulkan drivers.

Keith has spent more than one year working on allowing "DRM leasing", non-desktop handling for virtual reality head-mounted displays, and other related improvements to better embrace HMDs on the Linux graphics stack for optimal performance. The patches for the Vulkan DRM leasing though have yet to be merged into Mesa.

Sent out today by the longtime X developer were the latest revised patches. This work includes KHR_display_extension, EXT_direct_mode_display, and EXT_acquire_xlib_display for the Intel ANV and Radeon RADV drivers. These Vulkan driver extensions allow for manipulating the display support directly and for borrowing a RandR output / DRM lease for use directly by a Vulkan game/application/compositor.

Hopefully this work can get squared away in time for the Mesa 18.2 release that is expected out in August.