[Jasper_]

Yes. fbdev is kept alive for compatibility (and fbcon) reasons, but it's a really outdated API and drivers have to jump through hoops to support it. Please use dumb buffers when necessary. See a simple example here: https://github.com/magcius/drmdemo

[rowanG077]

How can I write a simple device driver using dumb buffers? I have searched far and wide but I can't find anything. I'm forced to write a framebuffer driver. Once you dip into DRI shit get's insanely complex quick.

[Jasper_]

For the simplest case, where you have contiguous memory for your framebuffer storage and no MMIO, try the CMA helpers: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/gpu/dr...

I wrote a basic device driver for a platform I worked on. It's since been upstreamed and gotten more eyeballs, but it's still relatively simple. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/gpu/dr...

[nitrogen]

Does the Nvidia proprietary kernel module provide a DRI interface?

[Jasper_]

Yes, since a few years ago. https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/396.51/READ...