VirtualBox DRM/KMS Driver Proceeding With Atomic Mode-Setting Support

The "vboxvideo" DRM/KMS driver for use by VirtualBox guest virtual machines that has been part of the mainline Linux kernel the past several cycles will soon see atomic mode-setting support.

Hans de Goede of Red Hat, who has been stewarding this driver into the Linux kernel after Oracle has failed to do so, is tackling the atomic mode-setting as his latest advancement to this driver important for a VirtualBox desktop VM experience. Published today were initial patches preparing the move to atomic mode-setting but not yet the full migration to this modern display API that offers numerous benefits.

Besides the significance of atomic mode-setting itself for improving this virtual DRM/KMS driver, use of the atomic APIs is the last known blocker preventing vboxvideo from graduating out of the Linux kernel's staging area.

The prep patches can be found on dri-devel and hopefully it won't be much longer before seeing the actual atomic patches and then their mainlining.