Repositories and Branches¶

All the relevant repositories and branches are described below. For the current list of maintainers, mailing lists, etc. please refer to MAINTAINERS.

The Upstream Linux Kernel Repository¶

See upstream for repository details. Maintained by Linus Torvalds.

master¶

Linus’ master, the upstream, or mainline. This is where all features from all subsystems, including DRM and i915, are merged.

The upstream follows a single branch, time-based development model, with a new kernel release occurring roughly every 10 weeks. New features are merged from subsystem trees during the two week merge window immediately following a kernel release. After the merge window, the new development kernel is stabilized by only merging fixes until the next kernel release. During development, there’s a new release candidate (-rc) kernel each week.

The Upstream DRM Subsystem Repository¶

See drm upstream for repository details. Maintained by Dave Airlie of Red Hat. Consists mostly of drivers/gpu/drm and include/drm.

drm-next¶

This is the branch where all new features for the DRM core and all the GPU drivers, including drm/i915, are merged.

The drm-next branch is closed for new features at around -rc5 timeframe of the current development kernel in preparation for the upcoming merge window for the next kernel, when drm-next gets merged to Linus’ master. Thus there’s a stabilization period of about 3-5 weeks during which only bug fixes are merged to drm-next.

drm-fixes¶

This is the branch where all the fixes for the DRM core and all the GPU drivers for the current development kernels are merged. drm-fixes is usually merged to Linus’ master on a weekly basis.

The DRM Misc Repository¶

See drm-misc and the drm-misc repository for repository details. Maintained by Maarten Lankhorst, Maxime Ripard, and Thomas Zimmermann, with a large pool of committers.

drm-misc-next¶

This is the main feature branch where most of the patches land. This branch is always open to “hide” the merge window from developers. To avoid upsetting linux-next and causing mayhem in the merge window, in general no pull requests are sent to upstream after rc6 of the current kernel release. Outside of that feature freeze period, pull requests are sent to upstream roughly every 1-2 weeks, to avoid too much coordination pains.

If you’re unsure, apply your patch here, it can always be cherry-picked to one of the -fixes branches later on. But in contrast to the drm-intel flow cherry-picking is not the default.

drm-misc-next-fixes¶

During the time between rc6 of kernel version X and rc1 of X+1, drm-misc-next will be targeting kernel version X+2 and drm-misc-fixes still targets kernel version X. This branch is for fixes to bugs introduced in the drm-misc-next pull request that was sent for X+1, which aren’t present in the drm-misc-fixes branch.

drm-misc-fixes¶

This is for bugfixes which target the current -rc cycle.

The Upstream i915 Driver Repository¶

See drm-intel and the drm-intel repository for repository details. Maintained by Jani Nikula, Joonas Lahtinen and Rodrigo Vivi, with a large pool of committers. Consists mostly of drivers/gpu/drm/i915.

drm-intel-next (aka “din”)¶

This is the branch where all new features, as well as any non-trivial or controversial fixes, are applied.

This branch “hides” the merge window from the drm/i915 developers; patches are applied here regardless of the development phase of Linus’ upstream kernel.

(This branch is effectively the same as drm-intel-next-queued, or “dinq”, used to be.)

drm-intel-next-fixes (aka “dinf”)¶

This branch contains drm/i915 specific fixes to drm-next after the drm/i915 features have been merged there. Fixes are first applied to drm-intel-next, and cherry-picked to drm-intel-next-fixes.

Pull requests to Dave are sent as needed, with no particular schedule.

drm-intel-fixes (aka “-fixes”)¶

This branch contains fixes to Linus’ tree after drm-next has been merged during the merge window. Fixes are first applied to drm-intel-next, and cherry-picked to drm-intel-fixes. The fixes are then merged through drm-fixes. Valid from -rc1 to the kernel release.

Usually Linus releases each -rc on a Sunday, and drm-intel-fixes gets rebased on that the following Monday. Usually this is a fast-forward. The pull request to Dave for new fixes is typically sent on the following Thursday. This is repeated until final release of the kernel.

This is the fastest path to getting fixes to Linus’ tree. It is generally for the regressions, cc:stable, black screens, GPU hangs only, and should pretty much follow the stable rules.

The DRM Testing and Integration Repository¶

See drm-tip and the drm-tip repository for repository details.

drm-tip¶

This is the overall integration tree for drm, and lives in git://anongit.freedesktop.org/drm-tip. Every time one of the above branches is updated drm-tip gets rebuilt. If there’s a conflict see section on resolving conflicts when rebuilding drm-tip.

drm-rerere¶

This branch contains the nightly.conf configuration file and the shared git rerere conflict resolutions for dim to generate drm-tip, as well as some kernel defconfig files for build testing.

maintainer-tools¶

This branch contains all the tools and documentation you’re reading about.