New xf86-video-ati Release Planned With KMS

The xf86-video-ati 6.12.0 X.Org driver was released in March of 2009. Since then there has been no significant releases of the ATI X.Org driver, but fortunately, a new release is on the way.

The xf86-video-ati DDX driver has been at version 6.12.99 for quite a while now in the Git snapshots, but no release has been pushed. Largely the reason for this has been because the kernel mode-setting DRM driver has been in the "staging" tree of the mainline Linux kernel, but now with the Linux 2.6.33 kernel this driver has left the staging area with KMS support.

In response to an inquiry, AMD's Alex Deucher has responded. "Now that 2.6.33 is out we'll be rolling a KMS-capable radeon release. I just haven't had time to get to it yet. Hopefully next week."

In other words, we should be seeing xf86-video-ati 6.13.0 within a few days. Ubuntu, Fedora, and other mainstream Linux distributions have already been pulling in Git snapshots of this X.Org driver, but it's good to see a released version in time for the first 2010 distribution updates.