struct drm_framebuffer *(*fb_create)(struct drm_device *dev,
				     struct drm_file *file_priv,
				     struct drm_mode_fb_cmd2 *mode_cmd);

Frame buffers are abstract memory objects that provide a source of pixels to scanout to a CRTC. Applications explicitly request the creation of frame buffers through the DRM_IOCTL_MODE_ADDFB(2) ioctls and receive an opaque handle that can be passed to the KMS CRTC control, plane configuration and page flip functions.

Frame buffers rely on the underneath memory manager for low-level memory operations. When creating a frame buffer applications pass a memory handle (or a list of memory handles for multi-planar formats) through the drm_mode_fb_cmd2 argument. For drivers using GEM as their userspace buffer management interface this would be a GEM handle. Drivers are however free to use their own backing storage object handles, e.g. vmwgfx directly exposes special TTM handles to userspace and so expects TTM handles in the create ioctl and not GEM handles.

Drivers must first validate the requested frame buffer parameters passed through the mode_cmd argument. In particular this is where invalid sizes, pixel formats or pitches can be caught.

If the parameters are deemed valid, drivers then create, initialize and return an instance of struct drm_framebuffer. If desired the instance can be embedded in a larger driver-specific structure. Drivers must fill its width, height, pitches, offsets, depth, bits_per_pixel and pixel_format fields from the values passed through the drm_mode_fb_cmd2 argument. They should call the drm_helper_mode_fill_fb_struct helper function to do so.

The initialization of the new framebuffer instance is finalized with a call to drm_framebuffer_init which takes a pointer to DRM frame buffer operations (struct drm_framebuffer_funcs). Note that this function publishes the framebuffer and so from this point on it can be accessed concurrently from other threads. Hence it must be the last step in the driver's framebuffer initialization sequence. Frame buffer operations are

The lifetime of a drm framebuffer is controlled with a reference count, drivers can grab additional references with drm_framebuffer_referenceand drop them again with drm_framebuffer_unreference. For driver-private framebuffers for which the last reference is never dropped (e.g. for the fbdev framebuffer when the struct drm_framebuffer is embedded into the fbdev helper struct) drivers can manually clean up a framebuffer at module unload time with drm_framebuffer_unregister_private.

The KMS API doesn't standardize backing storage object creation and leaves it to driver-specific ioctls. Furthermore actually creating a buffer object even for GEM-based drivers is done through a driver-specific ioctl - GEM only has a common userspace interface for sharing and destroying objects. While not an issue for full-fledged graphics stacks that include device-specific userspace components (in libdrm for instance), this limit makes DRM-based early boot graphics unnecessarily complex.

Dumb objects partly alleviate the problem by providing a standard API to create dumb buffers suitable for scanout, which can then be used to create KMS frame buffers.

To support dumb objects drivers must implement the dumb_create, dumb_destroy and dumb_map_offset operations.

Note that dumb objects may not be used for gpu acceleration, as has been attempted on some ARM embedded platforms. Such drivers really must have a hardware-specific ioctl to allocate suitable buffer objects.

void (*output_poll_changed)(struct drm_device *dev);

This operation notifies the driver that the status of one or more connectors has changed. Drivers that use the fb helper can just call the drm_fb_helper_hotplug_event function to handle this operation.

Beside some lookup structures with their own locking (which is hidden behind the interface functions) most of the modeset state is protected by the dev-<mode_config.lock mutex and additionally per-crtc locks to allow cursor updates, pageflips and similar operations to occur concurrently with background tasks like output detection. Operations which cross domains like a full modeset always grab all locks. Drivers there need to protect resources shared between crtcs with additional locking. They also need to be careful to always grab the relevant crtc locks if a modset functions touches crtc state, e.g. for load detection (which does only grab the mode_config.lock to allow concurrent screen updates on live crtcs).