Sent out today was a batch of drm-misc-next patches for queuing ahead of the Linux 6.16 merge window. There are a few notable changes here as part of the Direct Rendering Manager updates for the core code and smaller kernel drivers.
Going back to Linus Torvalds’ frustrations with “disgusting” testing “turds” introduced during the Linux 6.15, there have been patches to hide these excess testing files. For Linux 6.16 there is another DRM core patch for ensuring to “remove the disgusting turds.” The patch ensures the “DRM_HEADER_TEST” option is properly gated behind both the EXPERT and BROKEN Kconfig switches.
When it comes to the DRM drivers, the TI AM68 GPU is now added to the Imagination PowerVR DRM kernel graphics driver. There’s been work for the kernel driver as well as Mesa PowerVR Vulkan driver for enabling the Imagination BXS-4-64 MC1 GPU with the TI AM68. That kernel-side support is ready to go for the Linux 6.16 cycle and there is also the code in Mesa for the Vulkan driver.
Today’s pull request also adds DRM Panic handler integration for the DRM VirtIO driver so in a virtualized world you can also be enjoying those DRM Panic messages as a “Blue Screen of Death” or QR-coded kernel error messages.
As part of this pull request, the Intel IVPU accelerator driver for the Intel NPU on Core Ultra SoCs now has a heartbeat-based hang check.
The full list of drm-misc-next patches sent out today ahead of the Linux 6.16 merge window can be found via this pull request.
