Intel Framebuffer Driver Set To Be Retired For Old i8xx/i9xx Graphics

The Intel frame-buffer driver "IntelFB" has been solicited for removal from the mainline Linux kernel. This FBDEV driver is for supporting very old Intel i8xx/i9xx integrated graphics hardware.

This 5.2k lines of code providing simple frame-buffer support on old Intel integrated graphics has been unmaintained for years. But it won't mean the end of the i8xx/i9xx series support as that support can be found with the Intel i915 DRM/KMS driver... This is just about the removal of the old IntelFB driver. The i915 DRM/KMS driver provides for frame-buffer device compatibility, so nothing is lost it's just a matter of users by now should have transitioned to that DRM/KMS driver instead of the old Intel FBDEV device.

Removing the IntelFB driver isn't being pursued simply because it's old and unmaintained but because of the technical debt involved. The driver makes excessive use of global screen information "screen_info" state that shouldn't be dealt with by the individual drivers. Rather than investing significant code changes to clean-up the driver, it's better to just remove it and users go the DRM/KMS driver route.

The Intel frame-buffer driver was for supporting:

- Intel 830M
- Intel 845G
- Intel 852GM
- Intel 855GM
- Intel 865G
- Intel 915G
- Intel 915GM
- Intel 945G
- Intel 945GM
- Intel 945GME
- Intel 965G
- Intel 965GM

This patch by SUSE's Thomas Zimmermann would go ahead and remove the IntelFB FBDEV driver. We'll see if the retirement party happens for the Linux v6.9 cycle with it now being too late for v6.8 material with its imminent merge window.