FBDEV Is Still Not Deprecated In The Linux Kernel

One and a half years ago there was a call for deprecating the Linux kernel's frame-buffer support but that still hasn't happened and the FBDEV support continues to advance, including with the in-development Linux 3.14 kernel.

Laurent Pinchart had called for deprecating the Linux kernel's FBDEV code at the 2012 Linux Plumbers' Conference with the DRM and V4L2 drivers being superior in quality and features to FBDEV. This call for deprecation was done in part due to the Linux Common Display Framework and other happenings, but long story short the FBDEV drivers are still living on happily in the latest upstream kernels.

In fact, the latest FBDEV work was merged this evening for the Linux 3.14 kernel merge window. The FBDEV work isn't particularly exciting but contains a new OpenCores VGA/LCD driver and other minor clean-ups and fixes. Those interested in the Linux 3.14 FBDEV changes can see the Git merge to mainline of this new code that comes in at less than one thousand lines of changes for this latest release cycle.