Freedreno Driver Now Supports Server Managed FDs, Automatic Config

The open-source X.Org Freedreno driver supporting Qualcomm's Adreno graphics hardware under Linux using a reverse-engineered, fully open-source stack has been updated.

Rob Clark, the lead developer behind the Freedreno driver project, released the xf86-video-freedreno 1.2.0 DDX. The primary features for this X.Org driver update include server managed FDs support and platform-probe with autoconfig when using the X.Org Server 1.16 or newer.

Many other DDX drivers now support server managed FDs as a prerequisite for running the X.Org Server without root privileges. Freedreno is now alongside Intel, Radeon, Nouveau, xf86-video-modesetting, etc, in offering this feature.

The other main feature is platform-probe and autoconfig support for allowing the Qualcomm Adreno hardware to be automatically detected and loading of the Freedreno driver without an explicit xorg.conf configuration. This feature needs to be used in tandem with X.Org Server 1.16 due to its late feature of improved non-PCI graphics support so that the NVIDIA Tegra driver and now Freedreno can be supported in a better and easier manner for end-users.

There's also bug-fixes and a libdrm requirement bump with the xf86-video-freedreno 1.2.0 release. More details via the release announcement.