Re: [PATCH 0/5] drm: Remove remaining support for kdb

Thomas Zimmermann
2025-11-25T14:24:39Z

Hi

Am 25.11.25 um 14:16 schrieb Christian König:
> On 11/25/25 13:52, Thomas Zimmermann wrote:
>> Remove the rest of the kbd support from DRM. Driver support has been
>> broken for years without anyone complaining.
>>
>> Kdb cannot use regular DRM mode setting, so DRM drivers have to
>> implement an additional hook to make it work (in theory). As outlined
>> by Sima in commit 9c79e0b1d096 ("drm/fb-helper: Give up on kgdb for
>> atomic drivers") from 2017, kdb is not compatible with DRM atomic mode
>> setting. Non-atomic mode setting meanwhile has become rare.
>>
>> Only 3 DRM drivers implement the hooks for kdb support. Amdgpu and
>> nouveau use non-atomic mode setting on older devices. But both drivers
>> have switched to generic fbdev emulation, which isn't compatible with
>> kdb. Radeon still runs kdb, but it doesn't work in practice. See the
>> commits in this series for details
> Amdgpu is heavily pushing on switching to atomic for older GPUs as well. Timur and our DC guys have made quite some progress on that recently.

From what I've seen, I really like the work they are doing there.

>
> Feel free to add Acked-by: Christian König <christian.koenig@amd.com> to the amdgpu and radeon changes.

Thanks.

Best regards
Thomas

>
> Regards,
> Christian.
>
>> Therefore remove the remaining support for kdb from the DRM drivers
>> and from DRM fbdev emulation. Also remove the hooks from fbdev, as
>> there are no fbdev drivers with kdb support.
>>
>> If we ever want to address kdb support within DRM drivers, a place to
>> start would be the scanout buffers used by DRM's panic screen. These
>> use the current display mode. They can be written and flushed without
>> mode setting involved.
>>
>> Note: kdb over serial lines is not affected by this series and continues
>> to work as before.
>>
>> Thomas Zimmermann (5):
>> drm/amdgpu: Do not implement mode_set_base_atomic callback
>> drm/nouveau: Do not implement mode_set_base_atomic callback
>> drm/radeon: Do not implement mode_set_base_atomic callback
>> drm/fbdev-helper: Remove drm_fb_helper_debug_enter/_leave()
>> fbcon: Remove fb_debug_enter/_leave from struct fb_ops
>>
>> Documentation/process/debugging/kgdb.rst | 28 -----
>> drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/dce_v10_0.c | 35 ++-----
>> drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/dce_v6_0.c | 35 ++-----
>> drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu/dce_v8_0.c | 35 ++-----
>> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_fb_helper.c | 108 --------------------
>> drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/dispnv04/crtc.c | 24 +----
>> drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/atombios_crtc.c | 74 ++++----------
>> drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_legacy_crtc.c | 23 ++---
>> drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_mode.h | 10 +-
>> drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.c | 24 -----
>> drivers/video/fbdev/core/fbcon.h | 1 -
>> include/drm/drm_fb_helper.h | 21 ----
>> include/drm/drm_modeset_helper_vtables.h | 23 -----
>> include/linux/fb.h | 4 -
>> 14 files changed, 63 insertions(+), 382 deletions(-)
>>
>>
>> base-commit: 0a21e96e0b6840d2a4e0b45a957679eeddeb4362

--
--
Thomas Zimmermann
Graphics Driver Developer
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Frankenstr. 146, 90461 Nürnberg, Germany, www.suse.com
GF: Jochen Jaser, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich, (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg)