OpenChrome 0.4.0 DDX Driver Revives VIA Open-Source x86 Graphics

Written by Michael Larabel in Hardware on 1 April 2016 at 05:46 PM EDT. 5 Comments
HARDWARE
The xf86-video-openchrome 0.4 release has finally happened! It's been more than two years since this VIA x86 X.Org driver was last updated.

With Kevin Brace, an independent developer, stepping up to take over the OpenChrome DDX driver with no one actively maintaining it in quite a while, the xf86-video-openchrome v0.4.0 release has finally happened.

This release brings many bug fixes and minor improvements while supporting a bulk of the VIA Unichrome and Chrome 9 IGPs -- the VIA hardware unrelated to Trident or S3 Graphics. This driver continues to provide user-space mode-setting, EXA acceleration, Xv and XvMC video acceleration, dual screen support, VGA / DVI / LVDS display support, and other work.

More details on the OpenChrome 0.4.0 DDX driver changes can be found via the release notes. While this X.Org driver has been updated, sadly there's nothing new going on at this time for the OpenChrome VIA KMS/DRM driver previously started by James Simmons or any OpenChrome/VIA Gallium3D/Mesa driver.
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