The Official X.Org Notes For Ubuntu 11.10

This shouldn't be news for anyone who has followed the Phoronix articles for Ubuntu 11.10, particularly from the UDS Budapest event, but here's the official X.Org plans for this next Ubuntu Linux release.

Bryce Harrington of Canonical wrote to the Ubuntu mailing list the official X.Org plans for Ubuntu 11.10. It's pretty much in line with what we have said in the past month.

This email summarizes some key information regarding Ubuntu's plans for the upcoming Oneiric (11.10) release as it relates to video drivers. I've indicated the assumptions we're working to; if any of this looks incorrect to you, please let me know ASAP.

Target Versions for Release
---------------------------
kernel: 3.0.0
libdrm: TBD (Probably 2.6.26)
mesa: 7.11 (Plus updates; see 5 below)
x-server: 1.10
xorg: 7.6
drivers: TBD (Latest releases by Aug 18)
gnome libs: 3.2 (GTK3)

Important Dates
---------------
Aug 18th Deadline for driver version updates
Sep 1st Beta 1
Oct 13th Final Release

Driver-Specific Requirements
----------------------------
-intel: All Intel chipsets >= i915 (see 6 below)
DRI: DRI2
KMS: "On" for all chipsets by default

-ati: All Radeon chipsets
DRI: 3D on chipsets
KMS: "On" for all chipsets

-fglrx: Radeon chipsets R600 and newer only
DRI: Unspecified
KMS: No

-nouveau: All Nvidia chipsets >= NV04
DRI: 3D on chipsets NV04 and newer *NEW*
KMS: "On" for all chipsets

-nvidia (legacy): Older Nvidia chipsets
KMS: No

-nvidia (current): Newer Nvidia chipsets
KMS: No

Notable Changes
===============
1. The default graphical fallback will change from GNOME classic to Unity 2D where driver support for 3D is insufficient.

2. The default display manager will change from GDM to LightDM.

3. The ubuntu-x team will be maintaining a staging PPA with xserver 1.11 and other components for Ubuntu 12.04, which will be available later this year.

4. For fglrx and nvidia we are exploring post-release driver updates for users on an opt-in basis (via Jockey "Hardware Drivers")

5. Post-release, we plan to attempt incorporating updates from the mesa point releases. We are coordinating with Keith Packard to ensure mesa's point release process aligns with Ubuntu's SRU requirements. These updates are expected to in improved Ivy Bridge support which will be new in oneiric, along with other high impact fixes.

6. In natty, we stopped Ubuntu development support for the 8xx chipset; these may still work ok with the -intel driver but we no longer field bug reports or backport fixes for them. This policy will continue in oneiric, but we'll reevaluate for oneiric+1. Meanwhile, please work with upstream directly for 8xx problems.


Daily development snapshot ISO images of Oneiric are available at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

Newer upstream snapshot packages of X and the kernel are available at:
https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

Bryce