Mesa 7.6 in Karmic

[Bryce Harrington]

Hi all,

According to our previous plans, we've gone ahead with uploading mesa
7.6.0 for Karmic.  We would appreciate your extra attention given to
testing 3D functionality this coming week.

Upstream's release notes:
    http://www.mesa3d.org/relnotes-7.6.html

mesa 7.6 brings improved OpenGL support to Radeon R200/R300 and Intel
i915/i945 which should improve 3D functionality for users of older
hardware.  It also provides a huge number of bug fixes; in particular it
solves many issues we've seen with KMS on -ati.

Please file bugs for any issues you encounter with this new mesa version
by running:

  ubuntu-bug xorg


For some added background, we've known that 7.6.0 would hit around
beta time.  We decided at the outset that it was probably worth the
risk, and we've been carefully tracking git snapshots of it all along.
Still, given the lateness in the cycle we have had worry that any change
at this brings some risk, with minimal time to recover.

But fortunately we have a pretty solid X stack now, and can afford to
take some risk.  We have a good fallback to revert to if we need it, and
the upside here is an even more solid X stack with better 3D and OpenGL
behavior for a lot of users.  The evidence we have on hand from testers
indicates this to be safe.  If additional evidence proves this to be
false, we are prepared to revert back to the git snapshot from August.

Bryce

FAQ's:
======
Q: Does this mean KMS will be available on -ati?

A: This pulls in a number of bug fixes for KMS on -ati, but does not set
it as the default.  Turning it on requires a kernel parameter be set.
You can test it by booting with the 'radeon.modeset=1' kernel option.

Q: Will libdrm, -intel, or xserver be updated as well?

A: Those are unrelated to this upload and will each be evaluated
separately in turn.  Those three are pretty much just bug fix releases;
worst case is we can cherrypick patches from them as necessary.

Q: Didn't a late-in-the-release mesa update break Jaunty?

A: No, as it turned out.  We had updated mesa right prior to when a
bunch of X freeze bugs were reported, so it looked very suspicious.
However, the freezes still occurred even after downgrading mesa.  In the
end, the X freezes were fixed by changes in the Karmic kernel's DRM
code.

Q: How do I downgrade to the earlier mesa version?

A: I will be uploading the prior version to x-retro later today:
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-retro

Q: Are even newer versions available?

A: Snapshots of the 7.7 development tree are being provided in
xorg-edgers:
https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa