Intel has some terrific improvements lined up for their modern “Xe” kernel graphics driver with the upcoming Linux 6.17 kernel cycle. New hardware support, SR-IOV preparations for Battlemage, other Intel Battlemage work, and also preparations for the upcoming multi-device support.
Sent out this evening was the latest drm-xe-next pull request of additional feature material queuing ahead of the Linux 6.17 cycle. The Linux 6.17 merge window is opening in late July or early August depending upon how the remainder of the 6.16 cycle plays out. Linux 6.17 in turn should be out as stable by early October and powering the likes of Ubuntu 25.10. There have already been some Intel graphics driver changes queuing in DRM-Next ahead of Linux 6.17 while today brings a new batch of exciting Xe driver work.
The latest additions for the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver being submitted for Linux 6.17 includes:
– Preparations for multi-device support. There are core Xe driver changes working toward their multi-device plans as well as some future-proofing around multi-tile and multi-GT hardware instances. This multi-device work is notable given Intel’s Project Battlematrix announcement back at Computex with plans to support up to eight Intel Arc Pro GPUs alongside a variety of Linux driver improvements to benefit the Intel Arc Pro appeal for AI and related workstation workloads. Linux 6.17 brings some multi-device prep work but doesn’t cross the finish line — if Intel is to meet their goal of this coming together in 2025, that leaves Linux 6.18 to get things buttoned up.
– In addition to some multi-device prep changes, another Project Battlematrix goal is on improved virtualization support and around Intel graphics SR-IOV. Today’s Intel Xe driver pull request has a lot of SR-IOV enablement work and preparations toward enabling it for Battlemage GPUs. Again, not for Linux 6.17 but as Intel previously noted Q4 enablement, we’d then hope and expect it to be ironed out for Linux 6.18.
– New hardware support submitted today includes enabling platform support for Wildcat Lake as the cut-down hardware compared to Panther Lake.
– Another significant milestone with the Intel Xe driver code for Linux 6.17 is that Intel is dropping the “force_probe” requirement for Panther Lake graphics. This is basically promoting Panther Lake out of being an experimental target. Thus with Linux 6.17 you will now find the Xe3 Panther Lake graphics enabled out-of-the-box. This is great news with Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora 43, and others expected to ship with Linux 6.17.
– There is also new driver code for accessing the non-volatile memory device on modern Intel discrete graphics cards.
– Fan control and voltage information is now exposed via sysfs for the Xe driver.
– Initialization changes for helping with a flicker-free boot process.
– Various other changes and enhancements.
Simply put, today’s batch of Intel Xe driver material is the heaviest I’ve seen in quite a number of months (or perhaps even years) with a lot of work included. From promoting Panther Lake to enabled by default, multi-device and SR-IOV preparations for Project Battlematrix, Wildcat Lake support, and more, the Intel Xe driver updates are very significant that are set to come with Linux 6.17.
