[ubuntu-x] Core Xorg components now uploaded

[Bryce Harrington]

Hi all,

I mentioned in last week's platform team meeting minutes[0] that we were
about to upload new core Xorg components; this is now done, with Timo
Aaltonen's uploads of mesa and xserver 1.5 and rebuilds of all drivers
due to the new API's.

At this point, all major Xorg merge/sync work (except for the binary
drivers - see below) is complete and ready for testers to start laying
into.

We're tracking a few remaining minor bits here:
http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Xorg/versions_current.html.  We also
anticipate keeping drivers updated with new upstream releases, probably
up until -beta or so.


== Details ==
xserver 1.5 brings DRI2, but otherwise was largely a bug fix
release[1].  However, for Hardy we shipped a couple new X features
defaulted to off (input-hotplug and pciaccess), which we'll be switching
on in Intrepid, so don't worry that X is getting too stable!  With
input-hotplug in place, we'll finally have no need for xorg.conf for the
vast majority of users, so we might be shipping Intrepid without one by
default; but we'll see how things go.

input-hotplug is not turned on by default yet; Timo and I are both going
to be on travel for the second half of July, so we figure it would be
best to wait until we're both back so we're available for
troubleshooting.  Meanwhile, we'll document how to switch it on manually
so people can begin initial testing of it.

The pciaccess change should be transparent for most users, and has been
fairly extensively tested already.  However, keep an eye on exotic
hardware that may not have received as much testing; if you notice
regression in non- ATI/nVidia/Intel graphics from alpha-1 to alpha-2, it
could possibly be due to this pciaccess change.

DRI2 requires a memory manager in libdrm, but for various reasons[2]
this didn't come to be, so we'll be shipping DRI2 switched off for
Intrepid.

The binary drivers are going through a major rework.  Both -fglrx and
-nvidia are being broken out of linux-restricted-modules starting in
Intrepid.  We're also introducing a fourth(!) -nvidia legacy driver
variant, and will be renaming them more systematically (instead of -new,
-legacy, etc. they will be -71, -96, -173, and -177.)  The packaging
work has been completed by Alberto Milone and is currently in
testing[3], but will be uploaded soon.  I'm excited about this change
because not only will this make these drivers easier to maintain in
Ubuntu releases, it will also enable the same packaging process to be
used for Ubuntu and Envy.

Bryce

0: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PlatformTeam/Meetings/20080701
1: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjU1Ng
2: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjU3MA
3: https://launchpad.net/~lrm-intrepid/+archive