X.Org News Archives

It has been a while since we last had any major to report on VIA with their open-source efforts, but this morning they have finally published DRM code that supports their Chrome 9 IGP hardware. The announcement regarding this new Chrome 9 DRM was made on the dri-devel list and was made up of three patches.

Last week we asked the question of whether the X.Org 7.5 release schedule will be met. This X.Org / X Server update has already been delayed multiple times and it is currently running behind with their current release plans. X Server 1.7 was supposed to be branched from their master code-base ten days ago, but as you can see, at the time of publishing this still hasn't happened. In just four days there is supposed to be the next X.Org 7.5 milestone.

While the X Server is a very critical component to the Linux desktop and free software ecosystem, the X.Org project has had problems with delivering releases on time. Almost any X Server / X.Org release from recent times can be looked at and generally there were multiple delays in getting that release out that often spanned multiple months. In fact, for a simple point release last year it was over 200 days late. The most recent example is X Server 1.6, which was meant to be strictly a time-based release, but that arrived almost three months late. Beyond just being late, the quality of these X.Org releases have been degrading. Currently under development is X Server 1.7 and that too is running behind schedule.

The first pre-release for X Server 1.6.2 came a month ago followed by a release candidate about one week ago, but this afternoon Keith Packard has announced the final release of X Server 1.6.2.

One of the benefits of moving the different graphics hardware drivers over to using kernel mode-setting, an in-kernel GPU memory manager (whether it be GEM or TTM), and other newer X innovations is the possibility of now running the X Server without root privileges. By doing so, this of course improves the security since this very large chunk of code is no longer running with all of these high-privileged rights.

Keith Packard has been the release manager for the X Server 1.6 series and back in early May he issued an X Server 1.6.2 release cadndidate to close a few more X.Org bugs in this critical piece of software. After pulling in another heaping of bug fixes, Keith has now announced X Server 1.6.2 Release Candidate 2, which will go on to become the official 1.6.2 release assuming no bugs or regressions appear.

Adam Jackson, a well known X.Org developer at Red Hat, has proposed adding per-output DPMS controls to the Resize and Rotate extension, which would ultimately go on to be part of RandR 1.4. Adam has proposed a patch on the X.Org development list to add per-output DPMS support to the RandR protocol. In other words, DPMS modes of on, stand-by, suspend, or off could be forced to individual monitors (rather than all displays) with drivers that implement this new RandR support.

It was just one week ago that there was an update released to the DisplayLink X.Org driver and its kernel frame-buffer module, but there is now yet another update available. This time around the xf86-video-displaylink driver is at version 0.3 and it adds preliminary support for RandR and eliminates its ShadowFB support. Supporting the Resize and Rotate extension will make it easier to configure multiple display heads that are using a DisplayLink USB adapter, but so far this support is still very early. The shadow frame-buffer support has been eliminated in favor of using the frame-buffer kernel module's back-buffer, which means less system RAM is now used.

With the release of the Linux 2.6.30 kernel, the merge window for new features to enter the next Linux 2.6.31 development cycle is about to open. There's been much speculation whether TTM and Radeon kernel mode-setting would enter this next mainline kernel release or if it would be dragged on for another three months, but it looks like TTM at least is getting very close to entering the mainline tree.

X Input 2 was finally merged into the X Server this past week that brought a much needed update to this input device extension for X.Org. Most prominently, X Input 2 can handle Multi-Pointer X much better.

Last month we shared the news about DisplayLink providing USB GPU support under Linux that was open-source and backed by the company while the Linux drivers were being developed in conjunction with the Linux Driver Project. Today, on our birthday, they have released udlfb 0.2.2 and xf86-driver-displaylink 0.2. The udlfb is the DisplayLink Linux Frame-buffer driver while xf86-driver-displaylink is the accompanying X.Org driver for use with DisplayLink video devices.

Just as planned, the X Input 2 protocol for X.Org has entered the master X Server code-base. X Input 2 (or Xi2 for short) is a significant update over the original X Input extension and allows for Multi-Pointer X support and other enhanced input features. With this code finally entering the mainline server it means that MPX / X Input 2.0 will indeed be features of X Server 1.7 / X.Org 7.5, which are scheduled to be released around August.

X Input 2.0 is officially set to arrive in the X Server in just seven days. This input extension update for X.Org has been a longtime in the making and is needed for Multi-Pointer X and also improves other areas to enhance the input subsystem. X Input 2 was supposed to hit X Server 1.6 but then that got pushed back and now the X.Org 7.5 / X Server 1.7 schedule has been pushed back yet again to allow Xi2 to finally merge.

X.Org 7.5 with the X Server 1.7 update has been delayed, again. X.Org 7.5 was originally scheduled for release in early April but that ended up being an April Fool's Day joke. In late April the X.Org 7.5 / X Server 1.7 release schedule was then revised for a July release. The feature freeze for X Server 1.7 was supposed to occur last week, but Daniel Stone has announced this morning that X.Org 7.5 will be set back by another month.

With the release of X Server 1.7 as part of X.Org 7.5 hopefully coming in July, X Input 2 will finally be entering the limelight after being long in development. This updated X Input Extension is critical in allowing Multi-Pointer X support in this next X Server release.

Besides Intel, VIA, and ATI/AMD cooperating with X.Org and Linux developers by providing source code and documentation to help with the enablement of their hardware under Linux, another major company has come to the open-source table. No, sadly it is not NVIDIA. DisplayLink is the company and it has now provided an open-source library so that products using their technology will eventually work with Linux.

Tiago Vignatti has announced he has revived work on the VGA Arbiter for Linux and will be attempting to push this code upstream in the Linux kernel, just four years after this arbitration code was first hashed out. The VGA Arbiter seeks to address an old problem where having multiple graphics cards that use the the legacy VGA interface with multiple X Servers could cause havoc with the same command being sent to both graphics cards instead of just to the intended adapter. This though is not a problem when the driver and/or hardware disable the legacy interface. However, for those affected, the VGA Arbiter fixes this problem for those graphics cards using the legacy VGA interface by controlling which one is accessed.

With the release of X.Org 7.5 with X Server 1.7 not coming until at least July, Keith Packard is readying a second update in the X Server 1.6 series. Early this morning Keith announced the release of an X Server 1.6.2 pre-release.

It has been a while since Jerome Glisse last had any major public announcements, but this morning he is calling for those using the open-source ATI Linux graphics stack to checkout the latest code. Kernel mode-setting for ATI Radeon hardware should now be working atop the new TTM-based memory management code.

X.Org 7.5 with the X Server 1.7 release was planned for release at the start of this month, but sadly they far from made it -- no test releases of the new X Server are even available yet. Though after reading Phoronix, Daniel Stone remembered this release schedule and has decided to give another try at X.Org 7.5. Daniel now hopes the X.Org developers will be ready to deliver X.Org 7.5 with X Server 1.7 on the 15th of July.

While there is currently little work going on in the way of concerted development efforts towards X.Org 7.5 / X Server 1.7, a point update to X Server 1.6 has been released.

X Input 2, a major rework to the X.Org input extension, is a step closer to reality. Originally it was hoped that X Input 2 would be ready for X Server 1.6, but that didn't end up happening and also resulted in Multi-Pointer X being disabled in this latest X Server release. This morning, however, Peter Hutterer (of MPX fame) has his first working X Input 2 implementation.

The xf86-video-ati 6.11 driver was released less than a month ago, but coming out today is now the xf86-video-ati 6.12.0 release. What this release brings is most notably EXA and X-Video support for the ATI R600 and R700 generations of graphics processor. The R600/700 GPUs include the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000 series. In order to benefit from this R600/700 acceleration, however, an updated kernel DRM is required.

This is the fourth year that the X.Org project will be participating in Google's Summer of Code project. In the past we have seen work like Generic Gallium3D Video Decoding using a graphics card's shaders to assist in video decoding no matter the hardware vendor. This year there are a few interesting possibilities.

Present in X Server 1.6 is the server component to RandR 1.3, but today version 1.3 of the Resize and Rotate extension has been officially released. RandR 1.3 introduces panning support and other changes that we have talked about previously. The components released today were randrproto 1.3.0 and libXrandr 1.3.0. There are also some new options within the xrandr utility.

Back in November we saw the launch of the S3 Graphics Chrome 530 GT and with that they talked up a new magical Linux driver that would provide HD video acceleration support along with OpenGL 3.0 capabilities. But no driver was released, however, a day later it was confirmed by S3 Graphics that they were working on a new Linux driver. Their PR representative said the driver was to be released in December, but that didn't happen. In February they continued to talk up their Linux support but months later there still was no driver. However, that changed in late February when S3 Graphics did in fact roll out a new Linux display driver.

In the event you are still using any 3Dfx Voodoo 1 or Voodoo 2 graphics cards, the X.Org Linux driver for them has been updated. No new features have been implemented for these outdated graphics cards, but the xf86-video-voodoo 1.2.1 driver just brings a couple of fixes to ensure the driver still works with the most recent X Server bits. The release announcement for the Voodoo Linux driver update can be found here.

X Server 1.6 was supposed to be released by the end of 2008 as Intel had called for it to be a strictly time-based release. However, the release schedule ended up putting it as a early January release (the 5th of January to be exact). The release schedule was being closely followed up until late December and then come January there was no X Server 1.6 release in sight. To this date, X Server 1.6 still hasn't been released, but it's slowly getting there.

Last week S3 Graphics had released the Chrome 540 GTX, which is their newest and fastest PCI Express graphics card. Similar to when announcing the S3 Chrome 540 GT, in the Chrome 540 GTX press release they once again mention Linux support along with OpenGL 3.0 capabilities. However, they talk up Linux support, but fail to provide the support. We have just heard back though from S3 Graphics' Benson Tao, which is the one that previously told us there would be Chrome 500 Linux support in December along with a beta OpenGL 3.0 driver. What though did he have to say this time? His email is below.

All of the recordings from the X.Org meetings that took place during FOSDEM 2009 are now available on Phoronix. There were nine topics in total from RandR 1.3 to shader compiler optimization strategies.

S3 Graphics has announced this afternoon the release of the Chrome 540 GTX, which they advertise as "The World's Most Connected Hi-Def Card" with its HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI connections. The Chrome 540 GTX runs at 850MHz, uses GDDR3 memory, and shares other features to the Chrome 530 GT that was introduced in the fourth quarter of 2008. In the press release announcing the S3 Graphics Chrome 540 GTX they once again mention Linux support... But is there any Linux support?

Helge Bahmann talked about bringing multimedia and audio extensions into the X Server this morning at FOSDEM. Helge talked about this topic last year at FOSDEM, but in the past year he has made more progress in this area. No multimedia extensions are yet present in the mainline X Server, but his code is working to varying degrees based upon the situation. This code is also utilizing some existing X functionality already.

The Free Open-Source Developers' European Meeting is taking place this weekend in Brussels, Belgium. There is a series of dedicated development talks taking place on both days for X.Org on topics ranging from kernel mode-setting to LLVM and Gallium3D to memory management. At Phoronix we will be providing recordings of these talks that will be accessable online. We hoped to have these recordings up in a near real-time manner, but due to the Internet connection at FOSDEM not being ideal this year, that isn't taking place. We hope to have up the video recordings and notes from our talks within a couple days (but hopefully not that long).

The xf86-input-synaptics driver, which is used as the touch-input driver for many notebooks, has reached version 1.0.0. Worth noting in this release is improved device auto-scaling and support for input device properties. The improved device auto-scaling should give supported touch-pads a more unified feel without needing to do any manual configurations. Should you need to configure your Synaptics touch-pad, the input device properties support makes it possible without having to enable SHM config.

RandR 1.3 has come together for the X Server 1.6 release with namely new properties and panning support. Besides this update to the Resize and Rotate extension for the X.Org Server, xrandr, the command-line utility for controlling RandR-capable drivers/hardware, has been receiving improvements as well.

X Server 1.6 was supposed to be out nearly a month ago, but today we are finally getting closer to nearing this much anticipated release. Intel's Keith Packard has announced the second release candidate for X Server 1.6.0. The RC2 release is arriving almost three weeks after the first release candidate was made available. Fixed in this release is a few RandR and input changes, but a majority of the work deals with Apple's XQuartz in the server.

NVIDIA has already released quite a few Linux drivers this year already that improve their VDPAU support and stabilize their OpenGL 3.0 implementation. Yesterday AMD had then released its first proprietary Linux driver of 2009 that brought OpenGL 3.0 support. While both sides are off to a good start, what else do you want to see from them and their drivers in 2009?

For those that haven't noticed or have forgot, X Server 1.6, which was the update Intel wanted out by the end of 2008, still hasn't been released. The latest schedule for X Server 1.6.0 called for a January 5th release, but that had simply passed by and there wasn't even a release candidate.

With VIA Technologies delivering on their promises by finally releasing 2D/3D documentation and driver code, and Tungsten Graphics creating a new VIA 3D stack for a client, there has been a lot to report on in the VIA Linux scene. Tungsten Graphics and VIA are both interested in creating a Gallium3D driver for the Chrome 9 series, Tungsten already created a feature-rich DRM and Mesa driver, and there is a lot of other work going on too. What's new this week is a build-able TTM-based OpenChrome driver.

It's less than a month away until FOSDEM, the annual Linux European meeting for developers, is held in Brussels, Belgium, but the list of X.Org-related talks is beginning to be finalized.

Peter Hutterer, the mastermind behind Multi-Pointer X, has released the draft specification for the X Input 2.0 protocol.

The outlook turned grim for meeting the X Server 1.6 release schedule when no release candidate was out by Christmas (and we still have yet to see any tagged RC) and then when the final release date passed with no X Server 1.6 in sight. Nothing had been committed to the X Server 1.6 repository since the middle of December, but we are finally seeing some activity this afternoon.

Late last month the open-source community was presented with Chrome 9 series DRM support as the first step in providing 3D acceleration for these VIA IGPs atop a free software stack. Today we have been greeted with more patches from VIA's Bruce Chang.

During the last X Developers' Summit that took place at the Edinburgh Zoo, Keith Packard called for X Server 1.6 to be released by the end of 2008. Once the release schedule was set though, the final ship date for X Server 1.6.0 was the 5th of January. Well, today's the day and there is no release.

If you happen to be using a Silicon Motion GPUs, there's good news with its latest open-source driver update. A Mandriva engineer has released xf86-video-siliconmotion 1.7.0, which adds in some significant features. The capabilities of RandR 1.2 (including the rotation mode) are finally supported by this graphics driver along with dual-head support.

While Tungsten's Gallium3D architecture is still a ways out from being used by most open-source graphics drivers and then being picked up by end-users, it continues to pickup new technical features. Corbin Simpson and Stephane Marchesin that work on the Radeon and Nouveau projects, respectively, have been working to building LLVM back-ends for Gallium3D. Corbin is a step closer to getting his LLVM compiler working: it now builds, but it ends with a segmentation fault.

The X Server 1.6 release schedule called for the first release candidate to come about two weeks after the second beta. We ended up getting a third beta but more than two weeks have now passed and there is no X Server 1.6 release candidate available. It should have arrived earlier this week, but there hasn't even been any Git activity to the server-1.6-branch in nine days.

A month ago VIA had published 2D and 3D documentation (along with video register guides) for some of their newer IGPs and they had also announced a partnership with the OpenChrome project. As we have come to find out, some OpenChrome developers are under NDA with VIA Technologies already and they'll be looking at improving their ASIC support, delivering RandR 1.2 support, and making other fundamental improvements to this open-source VIA X.Org driver. Today though VIA has stepped forward once more and they have now released the DRM code for their Chrome 9 series.

A month ago S3 announced the Chrome 500 GPU along with what we called a magical Linux driver. In the press release for this budget graphics card, S3 Graphics mentioned this product can handle Blu-Ray playback, DirectX 10.1, and OpenGL 3.0 applications on both Windows and Linux. Their previous binary Linux drivers have been less than pleasing and there isn't even an official Blu-Ray player on Linux. NVIDIA has been the only manufacturer to deliver OpenGL 3.0 support on Linux thus far.

In time for the holidays and the forthcoming release of X Server 1.6 next month, a horde of X.Org driver updates were released. David Airlie has announced new versions of xf86-video-trident, xf86-video-apm, xf86-video-ast, xf86-video-chips, xf86-video-glint, xf86-video-neomagic, xf86-video-sis, xf86-video-tseng, xf86-video-tdfx, xf86-video-s3, xf86-video-ark, and xf86-video-s3virge. Peter Hutterer announced a new version of xf86-input-vmmouse.