Intel Squeezes Final Batch Of Linux 4.19 DRM Changes, Lands Icelake Display Compression

Last week Intel sent in a "final" batch of i915 DRM driver feature updates to DRM-Next for the upcoming Linux 4.19 kernel cycle but it turns out there is one more batch of changes now focused on landing.

Intel open-source graphics driver developer Rodrigo Vivi submitted their final pull request of new material for Linux 4.19.

This last batch includes GTT read-only pages support, continued work on improving the GPU reset situation, caches are now flushed after GGTT writes, execlist fixes, GuC fixes, preparation for Display Stream Compression support, vGPU huge-page support for GVT guests, and various other code improvements and cleaning.

The Display Stream Compression that's landing is for Intel Icelake "Gen 11" graphics hardware. Intel has done a good job of working out the Linux hardware enablement for Icelake and support appears to be getting squared away while it will likely be not until Linux 5.0 or later when it's firmly in place, which should be fine considering that Intel Icelake processors aren't expected to ship at least for another year.

The final batch of i915 DRM updates for DRM-Next-4.19 can be found via this dri-devel list posting. Our Linux 4.19 DRM feature overview recapping all of the Direct Rendering Manager activity will be coming up in the next week on Phoronix.