If you use an Intel Raptor Lake processor with integrated graphics on a Linux platform or an Intel Sharp (Arc) graphics card alone, then you should notice that they still rely on the “i915 ” DRM kernel graphics driver. The “i915” chipset dates back to 20 years ago.
According to the news, Intel today announced the launch of a new “Xe” kernel graphics driver, which is targeted to take effect in 2023, in order to better support modern Xe graphics hardware in Linux.
Intel’s open-source Linux graphics driver engineers have long been working on a new Direct Rendering Manager driver for Gen12/Xe graphics cards, hoping to bypass the i915 driver. For most of the past 20 years, the i915 driver has performed relatively well and has been adapted to Intel’s Arc graphics card.
However, the “i915” graphics driver has become very bloated after nearly 20 years of development, and Intel hopes to provide a future-proof, more minimalistic driver. Intel’s new “Xe” DRM kernel graphics driver will support Gen 12 (starting from the 11th generation Tiger Lake) and later processors as well as Intel Sharp (Arc) discrete graphics.
