Kernel graphics Driver

The Linux* kernel graphics driver is responsible for driving the GPU at the lowest level. It is responsible for managing the video outputs, power management, low-level graphics commands execution, monitor hotplug detection and all the low-level bits required for the graphics card to work.

All the communication between the user space applications and the kernel driver occurs by the means of the DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) protocol, which is also used by all the other graphics cards on Linux.

To understand more about the Kernel development, and participate in the process, the following are the main guidelines to get started:

Mailing list

• General developers discussions occur on the intel-gfx@lists.freedesktop.org mailing list.
• Subscribe to the list at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/intel-gfx.
• Archives are found at http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/.

IRC

• The developers hang out in #intel-gfx@freenode.net.

Bugs

• When you discover a problem or want to request a new feature, you can file an issue by following the guideline at https://01.org/linuxgraphics/documentation/how-report-bugs.

Patches

The kernel development happens in the drm-intel-next branch, for features intended for next Linux Kernel release; and in the drm-intel-fixes branch, which contains patches targeted for the currently developed Kernel.

Clone our maintainer's Kernel repository, and feel free to experiment with it, test the new code and send patches when appropriate! Code speaks louder than words.