X11 R6.9 and 7.0 Released - Improved ATI Support

[RoyGBiv]

XORG reports:

Landmark version X11R7.0 released today with X11R6.9 by the X.Org Foundation

Brookline, Massachusetts, December 21 2005. -- The first major version release of the X Window System in more than a decade, X11R7.0 is the first release of the complete modularized and autotooled source code base for the X Window System. X11R6.9, its companion release, contains identical features, and uses the exact same source code as X11R7.0, but with the traditional imake build system.

These changes in source code management, giving openness and transparency to the source code base and employing current technology, invite a new generation of developers to contribute, building on the long tradition of the X Window System. The new modular format offers focused development, and rapid and independent updates and distribution of tested modular components as they are ready, freed from the biennial maintenance release timetable.

--

Of particular interest to people like myself, the new system has incorporated many enhancements from the GATOS project, including TV input support for ATI built graphics cards. This is currently the only major use I have for my Windoze installation, and if it works as advertised, I will no longer require Windoze at all except, possibly, for some gaming. However, this release also may improve gaming performance with some of its features, including support of the PCI-E interface and the r300 and r400 series of ATI Radeon chips, etc. That'll be a wait-and-see type of thing.

See the full release notes for details.

In any case, all-in-all I think this is an exciting development. Due to the complexity of the system and the potential of me royally screwing it up, I don't plan on installing it from source and will wait for a binary that accompanies my distro. OTOH, I may just go ahead and create another partition and install a basic system just to try it out.

[bemildred]

1. Very interesting. It's been a long time.

Given the Byzantine nature of the X build system,
vast portions of which are completely irrelevant,
this could be a good thing. I'll have to check it out.

[Occulus]

2. How long until we see it in a distro release?

I wonder. ATI support in X has been unbelieveably poor for a long time (which is really ATI's own fault...). I've never once gotten all the features of my ATI card to function properly. Strange- Nvidia cards are always a snap.

I hope this new release fixes the ATI issues in X...

[RoyGBiv]

3. Good question ...

Wish I had a good answer.

Word on the streets (the rumor mill, IOW) is that SUSE, Fedora, Mandriva, and, I think, Ubuntu will start incorporating the updated X in future releases, but whether they'll release an official package prior to those releases I have no idea. (Someone told me the next development build of SUSE will have it, but I have no idea if that is true.) For major distros, I'm assuming it will happen eventually, but I do not have the expertise to know what all goes into doing it, particularly for 7.0, so I couldn't even guess at a time-frame. I've seen people asking about them on various Linux discussion forums, and no one has mentioned availability yet.

Of course it has only been a few days, and it was about a week before I found a package for the latest Firefox, which is a fairly simple package to create from my understanding. I just know I'll keep looking.

As for ATI cards, the GATOS projects have been quite successful at providing near-full functionality for ATI cards up through the X800 A-i-W, and their incorporation into X itself should massively improve the performance of these cards. As noted originally, I've been waiting for this. I am just ignorant enough not to be able to get the individual projects from GATOS itself to function properly, so I'm hoping incorporating them with X will solve my issues.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Mandriva ...

According to Distrowatch, Mandriva has released a public beta of Mandriva Linux 2006 that includes X.Org 6.9 as its windowing system.

Personally, I'm looking for a switch to the new modular design of 7.0, and a few things about the Mandriva distro don't please me, but this would be good for testing purposes at least.

[qnr]

5. We have modular in our devel grimoire. I haven't tried it, but most

of the chatter I've seen on the mailing list and on IRC has been very positive.

[longship]

6. Gentoo will have it first.

It seems that Gentoo gets things into Portage (their package management system) much faster than other distributions.