By admin 
Sent out today was this week’s round of x86 (x86_64) fixes ahead of the Linux 7.2-rc3 kernel test candidate due out on Sunday.
The x86 fixes for Linux 7.2-rc3 are mostly some minor fixes but one that does stand out is fixing the x86 VGA display fallback logic during the Linux boot process on some multi-GPU systems.
Canonical engineer Aaron Ma originally raised the issue of improper default VGA selection on some unspecified system(s) with AMD and NVIDIA graphics. AMD Linux engineer Mario Limonciello ultimately reworked the patch, which is now part of today’s x86 fixes pull. Mario explained of the behavior and improved logic with the patch:
“Some multi GPU systems may have a VGA compatible device, but that might not be used for display. If due to enumeration order this device is found before the one actually used for display then multiple devices may show the boot_display attribute, confusing userspace.
When screen info is valid, use it exclusively to find the primary device so that only the device backing the framebuffer is reported. Only when no framebuffer has been set up does it make sense to fall back to the default VGA device. This ensures at most one primary graphics device, preferably the one with the framebuffer.”
That patch in turn is in x86 fixes for improving the x86 VGA display fallback logic beginning with Linux 7.2-rc3. The patch is marked as a fix for an FBCON code change from September 2025 that has been in place since Linux 6.18, so it’s possible the patch will be back-ported in the near future to recent stable Linux kernel versions.