FreeBSD Catching Up To Linux DRM Graphics Drivers, In Sync With Git

For the first time ever, the FreeBSD DRM drivers match the code of what's found in the upstream Linux kernel Git. They started off trailing many releases behind the state of the upstream Linux kernel, but as of now the Intel DRM as the first driver has made it to be in sync with the current Linux 4.8 development code.

It looks like FreeBSD's new DRM/KMS compatibility/porting layer is paying off. It's a big milestone to see them achieve as just a few years ago they were struggling to bring-up KMS after it was introduced in the Linux drivers and they tended for a while to be far behind the upstream Linux kernel drivers. Just ahead of FreeBSD 11.0, it's incredible to find out they've now hit parity.

Most of the FreeBSD DRM efforts have been around the Intel i915 DRM driver, but once the Kabylake support for FreeBSD is figured out, they intend to get the Radeon and AMDGPU DRM drivers working "as well as i915." It's terrific to hear the Radeon/AMDGPU open-source driver support will get some much needed love on FreeBSD. There's little interest in the Nouveau driver on FreeBSD since NVIDIA provides their first-rate proprietary driver for FreeBSD systems.

Confirmation of this milestone was posted to freebsd-x11. Developer Matthew Macy noted, "I feel this is a bit of a milestone as it means that it is possible that in the future graphics support on FreeBSD could proceed in lockstep with Linux."