Allwinner sunxi Display Engine and TCON graphics
Display driver for Allwinner's sunxi family of ARM and RISC-V SoCs, covering the display engine and TCON output blocks that drive HDMI, LVDS, MIPI-DSI, and composite video. These chips power a wide range of low-cost tablets, set-top boxes, and hobbyist single-board computers from the early 2010s onward, including PINE64, Orange Pi, and Banana Pi boards.
recommendation
It should stay because this is the mainline graphics driver for nearly every Allwinner ARM SoC generation, from the original sun4i up through modern parts like the H6 and the RISC-V D1. Upstream activity is healthy, with functional patches still landing in 2026, and boards built on these chips, such as the PINE A64 and A64-LTS, were guaranteed to ship through at least 2025 and remain a staple of the single-board-computer ecosystem.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Recent upstream functional work still touches drivers/gpu/drm/sun4i/sun4i_drv.c in 2026, indicating the driver is actively maintained rather than abandoned.
- pine64.org
Current PINE A64 documentation says the board uses the Allwinner A64 and that most Linux distributions for it rely on mainline Linux, showing ongoing real-world deployment on supported sunxi hardware.
- pine64.org
Current PINE A64-LTS documentation states the Allwinner A64/R18 board was guaranteed to be supplied until at least 2025, supporting that sunxi display-engine hardware was still sold new in 2025.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local code inspection via shell `rg`/`sed` shows this is a real DRM/KMS driver and its OF tables span many Allwinner display-engine generations up to sun20i-d1 and sun50i-h6, so it is a family driver, not a one-off legacy part. `lore_file_timeline` on `drivers/gpu/drm/sun4i/sun4i_drv.c` showed sustained 2021-2026 patch traffic and a real 2026 functional patch at the cited lore URL; I found no concrete removal/deprecation evidence in the lore sample, so any 'no removal discussion' conclusion is an inference from continued maintenance. The two PINE64 URLs were obtained by web search and provide deployment evidence for current/mainline A64 boards, including supply through at least 2025. Given active upstream attention, broad SoC coverage, and continuing embedded/SBC use, this should be kept rather than deprecated.