OpenChrome Still Pushing For DRM Kernel Driver, Updated DDX

It's been a while since last having anything to report on the OpenChrome project for providing open-source Linux graphics support for vintage VIA x86 graphics hardware. But it's still going and what is one of the only contributors left on the project has issued an update.

OpenChrome has seen a DRM/KMS kernel driver in the works for years but has never gotten close to merging to the mainline kernel yet, even as VIA x86 hardware becomes increasingly rare to find. Kevin Brace is one of the last developers still working on OpenChrome with trying to get the DRM driver working as well as maintaining the DDX X.Org driver.

Kevin wrote today he's been working on re-basing the DRM driver so that he will be able to develop it against the DRM-Next code rather than off an old kernel release that is far behind the core Direct Rendering Manager state. This could help in getting more testers of the driver with it hopefully soon being able to build against recent kernels and obviously is needed if this driver is eventually to be merged to mainline.

He also wrote he's preparing xf86-video-openchrome v0.7. He's now mostly onto bug fixes for version 0.7 but for version 0.8 he hopes to begin rewriting OpenChrome's TV output code. The v0.7 release will likely be out by November.