ASPEED AST2400/AST2500/AST2600 BMC Video Engine
The video-capture and JPEG-compression engine built into ASPEED's AST2400, AST2500, and AST2600 baseboard management controller chips, which sit on the motherboards of most x86 and Arm servers. It snapshots the host's graphics output so a remote administrator can see the server's screen over the network through the BMC's "iKVM" remote-console feature.
recommendation
It should stay because the hardware is the video-capture and compression block inside ASPEED's BMC chips, which are still shipped on most new server motherboards in 2025. The driver saw active development as recently as November 2025, including new feature work from ASPEED's own engineers, and there is no in-tree replacement for the iKVM video path it provides.
repository signals
sources
- lore-kernel.gnuweeb.org
Recent linux-media patch series in 2025 adds new aspeed-video functionality, showing active upstream development rather than removal.
- aspeedtech.com
ASPEED's server-management lineup still lists AST2500 and AST2600 products, indicating continuing market presence into 2025-era deployments.
- aspeedtech.com
AST2600 is a current ASPEED remote-management/BMC SoC with iKVM and video features relevant to this driver's use case.
- dri.freedesktop.org
Kernel documentation describes the ASPEED video driver for AST2400/2500/2600 video engine hardware and its remote-KVM/video-compression role.
- cateee.net
LKDDb shows CONFIG_VIDEO_ASPEED continues to exist in current kernel series and maps to ASPEED video-engine compatibles.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local evidence from exec_command: this directory contains the real V4L2 driver aspeed-video.c with OF compatibles for ast2400/2500/2600, and git log shows substantive touches through 2025-11-24 with multiple authors, so it is active. URL acquisition: lore patch thread via web search; ASPEED server and AST2600 product pages via web search; kernel aspeed-video documentation via web search; LKDDb page via web search. No removal discussion was found in the gathered evidence. Hardware is still sold for server/BMC use, deployments remain in enterprise/embedded remote-management niches, and there is no natural in-tree replacement for this specific video-engine/iKVM block.