S3 Savage, ProSavage, SuperSavage, and Twister framebuffer
Framebuffer support for S3's Savage line of PCI and AGP graphics chips from the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the discrete Savage3D, Savage4, and Savage 2000 desktop and notebook GPUs as well as the VIA-integrated ProSavage, SuperSavage, and Twister chipsets that shipped in budget laptops and motherboards through about 2004.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because the hardware has been out of production for two decades yet the code is still seeing the occasional real bug-fix patch (an EDID cleanup leak fix in 2026 and another functional fix from a Huawei contributor in 2024). It remains configurable in current kernels and serves a small population of retro and legacy machines, so removal would be premature even though new deployments are essentially nil.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
As of April 20, 2026, savagefb still receives targeted bug-fix patches upstream ('fix probe-path EDID cleanup leaks').
- lore.kernel.org
The driver also received a functional fix in April 2024, indicating non-zero maintenance rather than pure bitrot.
- cateee.net
CONFIG_FB_SAVAGE remains present in current kernels; LKDDb describes it as support for notebooks and computers with S3 Savage PCI/AGP chips and lists the supported PCI IDs.
- en.wikipedia.org
The Savage family was introduced in 1998-1999; discrete Savage products were discontinued after S3's 2001 sale to VIA, with later usage limited to integrated ProSavage/Twister/SuperSavage-era designs that were later superseded by UniChrome.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection (`rg` in the directory) confirmed this is the `savagefb` PCI framebuffer driver and showed covered chip names including Savage3D/4/2000, ProSavage, SuperSavage, and Twister. `lore_file_timeline` on `savagefb_driver.c` produced the 2026 and 2024 lore URLs, which show recent bug-fix traffic and no evidence here of an active removal push, so removal/deprecation would be premature. Web search + open on LKDDb confirmed the driver is still configurable upstream and targets old PCI/AGP notebook/desktop GPUs. Web search + open on Wikipedia provided the product-family timeline; `last_widely_available_year=2004` is an inference from discrete Savage ending by 2001 and remaining VIA-integrated derivatives being later superseded, so present-day deployment is best characterized as low legacy use rather than none.