There are many new and innovative features brewing within the
X.Org development community right now -- among the many are Gallium3D,
the TTM memory manager, and MPX (Multi-Pointer X) -- but one of the
features that has risen towards the top of the list and delivers visible
benefits to the end-user is kernel-based mode-setting. As implied by its
name, kernel mode-setting involves moving the mode-setting code for
video adapters from the user-space X server drivers into the Linux
kernel.
This may seem like an uninteresting topic for end-users, but
having the mode-setting done in the kernel allows for a cleaner and
richer boot process, improved suspend and resume support, and more
reliable VT switching (along with other advantages). Kernel mode-setting
isn't yet in the mainline Linux kernel nor is the API for it frozen, but
Fedora 9 shipping next month will be the first major distribution
carrying this initial support. In this article we're looking more
closely at kernel mode-setting with the Intel X.Org driver as well as
showing videos of kernel-based mode-setting in action.
Check it out at Phoronix.
A Preview Of Kernel-Based Mode-Setting
Posted on Saturday, April 19 2008 @ 22:24 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck