A Look At The Many Features To X.Org Server 1.20

2017 marked the first tine in a decade without seeing a major update to the X.Org Server. But finally X.Org Server 1.20 is now being prepared for release and it incorporates all the major work since the X.Org Server 1.19 debut in November 2016. Needless to say, xorg-server 1.20 is going to be a huge release.

Adam Jackson announced yesterday that after they failed to hit their January shipping goals, the release candidates will begin with the first expected out later today. For those wondering what all X.Org Server 1.20 will include, here is a look at some of the prominent changes for this big xserver update:

- The featured work by Keith Packard on improving Steam VR / HTC Vive VR HMD support on Linux. Among the work is RandR leasing to allow the Steam VR compositor direct access to the hardware without the X.Org Server or any desktop compositor getting in the way. This also includes the "non-desktop" quirk handling for VR headsets and other changes. Keith still needs to land his ANV/RADV Vulkan driver improvements for rounding out this work he's been engaged in for more than the past year.

- Better support for 16:9 and 16:10 displays.

- Server-side GLVND "GLXVND" for allowing different OpenGL drivers to back different X screens. This should help in some multi-GPU setups and other combinations.

- EGLStreams support for XWayland is still pending but Jackson has indicated he will still let it land. This will allow the NVIDIA proprietary driver to support XWayland!

- While on the topic of XWayland, there is now support for keyboard grabs and tablet pad support.

- Deep color / color depth 30 support for GLAMOR and the mode-setting driver.

- Various GLAMOR improvements for 2D acceleration over OpenGL / OpenGL ES.

- DRI3 v1.1 and v1.2 updates for Direct Rendering Infrastructure 3. The DRI3 v1.2 updates are still pending but Jackson has indicated they can still land.

- Atomic mode-setting for the generic xf86-video-modesetting DDX driver.

- Multi-buffered XWayland support.

- Improved driver matching behavior.

- Initial support for the Meson build system with the X.Org Server.

Plus a lot of other minor improvements and bug fixes... X.Org Server 1.20 is quite a big update and of the tier-one Linux distributions will likely first ship with Fedora 28 due to it being too late now for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Stay tuned for release candidate and testing details as this long release series finally gets tidied up.