Recently, Intel has submitted over a hundred new patches with functional updates to DRM-Next for the new material of the "Xe" kernel graphics driver, which they have prepared for the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel merge window.The Intel Xe Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) graphics driver continues to evolve successfully since its experimental introduction in Linux 6.8. While Xe remains experimental, Intel is actively working to ensure that this modern kernel graphics driver is fully ready for use with Lunar Lake processors "out of the box". Linux 6.9 already added more functional code to the initial Xe driver, and now for Linux 6.10, there are even more features aimed at bridging the gap with the i915 driver and preparing for next-generation Xe2 graphics and other aspects.
Among the updates on the user-space API (uAPI) side, there is now a request to obtain the HuC firmware version and other additions. However, perhaps most interesting to end-users is the HWMON support now provided by the Xe driver for hardware monitoring. Like the i915 driver, through the HWMON sysfs driver, the Xe driver can now provide data on energy consumption and energy metrics of discrete graphics cards.
Additionally, there are new workarounds for Xe2 and other preparations for integrated Lunar Lake graphics and Battlemage discrete graphics cards. With Xe2, the Xe driver aims to become the default kernel driver for Linux, replacing the i915 driver.
The code for Linux 6.10 also includes initial preparations of the Xe driver to support SR-IOV. While SR-IOV support is not yet complete, work is underway in this direction for this important virtualization feature.
Similarly to the i915 driver, which adds PCI identifiers for Arc A750E and Arc A580E graphics, the Xe driver also adds these new PCI device identifiers for Linux 6.10.
In conclusion, significant additions include Xe2 HPG configuration for this upcoming kernel cycle. Additionally, this merge request contains dozens of other patches, including bug fixes and other low-level driver changes.
This drm-xe-next merge request represents a significant batch of new Intel Xe driver changes planned for the Linux 6.10 merge window next month.