Intel Starts Sending In Graphics Patches For Linux 3.18

While Linux 3.17-rc1 isn't even out yet, the merge window is coming to an end and Intel OTC is already starting to send in pull requests to the drm-next branch for merging into the next cycle, Linux 3.18.

Daniel Vetter as the Intel i915 DRM maintainer sent in his first pull request to David Airlie for getting the DRM driver changes queued up early for the next cycle. More pull requests are expected for the Intel driver in Linux 3.18 with this just being the changes that are queued and ready for further testing by the community.

Among the changes found in this first Intel drm-next pull for the Linux 3.18 kernel are:

- Cherryview power-well support.

- DisplayPort training pattern 3 support for Cherryview

- Clean-up of Haswell/Broadwell DDI PLL code, as prep work for Intel Skylake graphics support.

- Other Cherryview fixes.

- 180 degree rotation support within the DRM driver.

As is evident, most of the work for this pull is about getting Intel's Cherryview support in order. Intel's been working on Cherryview Linux graphics support going back several months and with the hardware due for release soon, the Intel Open-Source Technology Center developers are trying to get everything in order.

The Atom Cherryview is part of the Cherry Trail platform and its CPU is derived from the Airmont micro-architecture and will feature Broadwell-like graphics. Cherryview hardware is expected to start shipping in September.