Even With Wayland Around, X.Org Had A Busy 2017

Written by Michael Larabel in X.Org on 11 December 2017 at 08:59 AM EST. 7 Comments
X.ORG
While 2017 was the first year in a decade without seeing a major X.Org Server release, it wasn't due to lack of X.Org Server development activity. Here's a look back at the X.Org 2017 highlights.

X.Org development continues even with Wayland beginning to see more adoption on the Linux desktop. This year Keith Packard spearheaded the work to improve the X.Org/DRM support for VR HMDs as part of SteamVR on Linux, NVIDIA has been involved in various efforts from server-side GLVND to HDR monitor support, X.Org projects began making use of the Meson build system, and GLAMOR/xf86-video-modesetting continued maturing.

Here's a look back at the most popular X.Org articles on Phoronix this year:

X.Org Server 1.19.5 Released To Fix Another Handful Of Security Vulnerabilities
X.Org Server 1.19.5 was released today to fix nearly one dozen new security vulnerabilities from recent CVE tickets.

AMD Developer Posts X.Org Modesetting "MS_ALL_IN_ONE" Patches
Qiang Yu of AMD has been baking a new feature for the xf86-video-modesetting DDX: MS_ALL_IN_ONE.

X.Org Server 1.20 Breaks The Video Driver ABI
Just a quick note for anyone who routinely builds the latest X.Org Server from Git, the video driver ABI has been broken again, thus you'll need to rebuild your dependent DDX drivers assuming they have been modified for this new ABI.

X.Org Server 1.19.2 Released With Numerous Fixes
Adam Jackson has announced the release of X.Org Server 1.19.2 and users are encouraged to update to this latest point release.

Today Marks 30 Years Since The Release Of X11
The X11 window system turns 30 years old today! X11 which still lives on through today via the X.Org Server on Linux, BSD, Solaris, and other operating systems is now three decades old.

OpenChrome X.Org Driver Updated With Better Support For Old VIA Hardware
Kevin Brace, the sole remaining main contributor to the OpenChrome project, has announced version 0.6 of the xf86-video-openchrome driver.

Open-Source OpenCL Adoption Is Sadly An Issue In 2017
While most of the talks that take place at the annual X.Org Developers' Conference are around the exciting progress being made across the Linux graphics landscape, at XDC2017 taking place this week at Google, the open-source GPGPU / compute talk is rather the let down due to the less than desirable state of the open-source OpenCL ecosystem.

X.Org Server 1.19.1 For Testing On Arch, Libinput X.Org Driver To Be Used By Default
Arch Linux fans can now find this week's X.Org Server 1.19.1 available from the extra repository plus other pending X.Org changes.

X.Org Struck Again By Multiple Security Issues
By now you probably know that X.Org's security is in bad shape and routinely new security issues are uncovered and that's the case today.

X.Org Server 1.20 Expected Around January With New Features
X.Org Server 1.19 is already almsot one year old and while X.Org is currently well off its six month release cadence, version 1.20 is being figured out for an early 2018 release.

X.Org Server 1.19.3 Released
Adam Jackson has announced xorg-server 1.19.3 as the latest point release for the long-living X.Org Server.

X.Org Server 1.19.4 Released
With X.Org Server 1.20 not expected for release until early next year, Adam Jackson of Red Hat today issued the X.Org Server 1.19.4 point release.

RandR 1.6 Proposal Around The Work On Linux VR HMDs Support
For those wanting to follow the work Keith Packard is doing for Valve around better supporting VR HMDs (Head Mounted Displays) on the open-source driver stack, he's made a proposal for some changes in what would become RandR 1.6.

The First Significant Update To DRI3 Proposed
Collabora, under sponsorship from Intel, has been working on "DRI3 v1.1" as the first major update to the Direct Rendering Infrastructure 3.

Faster Raspberry Pi X.Org Desktop Performance With NEON
Broadcom developer Eric Anholt has begun writing code within the VC4 open-source driver stack to make use of NEON in its acceleration code-paths.

The X.Org Foundation Is Preparing For Their 2017 Elections
This year's X.Org Foundation elections are warming up and will be getting underway shortly.

Libinput X.Org Driver Updated With New Capabilities
Libinput is the input handling library that originated with Wayland but has since been adopted by Mir as well as X.Org when using the xf86-input-libinput handling driver. This xf86-input-libinput adaptation for X.Org Servers has seen a new release today.

The Meson Build System Is Being Fitted For The X.Org Server
Longtime X.Org developer Eric Anholt who previously worked for Intel and is now working for Broadcom on the open-source VC4 driver stack is working to add the Meson build system support for the xorg-server.

X.Org Server 1.19.1 Released
X.Org Server 1.19.1 was released today with a couple regression fixes.

Keith Packard Making Progress On DRM Leases For VR HMDs
Keith Packard recently released a blog post covering changes he's making to DRM/X for VR head mounted displays to better support them as part of his working with Valve and wanting to ensure these virtual reality headsets don't get in the way of window managers and allow VR apps/games to directly interface with them. He's published another update to his work.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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