Goodbye to the 20-year-old i915, Intel launches a new "Xe" Linux kernel graphics driver

CTOnews.com, December 23, if you use Intel Raptor Lake processors with set displays on Linux platforms, or Intel Arc processors, you should notice that they still rely on i915 DRM kernel graphics drivers. The "i915" chipset can be traced back to 20 years ago.

Intel today announced the launch of a new "Xe" kernel graphics driver, which aims to take effect in 2023 to better support modern Xe graphics hardware in Linux, the source said.

Intel open source Linux graphics driver engineers have long been developing new Direct Rendering Manager drivers for Gen12 / Xe graphics cards and want to bypass the i915 driver. For most of the past 20 years, the i915 driver has performed well and has adapted to Intel's Arc.

However, the "i915" graphics driver has become very bloated after nearly 20 years of development, and Intel hopes to provide a more minimalist driver for the future. CTOnews.com learned that Intel's new "Xe" DRM kernel graphics driver will support Gen 12 (starting with the 11th generation of Tiger Lake) and later processors, as well as Intel Arc.