GNOME Mutter 46.2 Rolls Out To Ubuntu 24.04 Users, Experimental VRR Remains Rough

GNOME's Mutter 46.2-1ubuntu0.24.04.1 package was uploaded on Friday for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS users. This Mutter compositor update not only brings Mutter 46.2 changes to this current Ubuntu release but also pulls in all of the 46.1 upstream changes too.

Mutter 46.1 brought explicit sync support, better NVIDIA hybrid GPU acceleration, and other changes. But it's due to landing explicit sync in Mutter 46.1 that Ubuntu's GNOME micro-release exception policy was broken. Mutter stable release updates are no longer covered by the GNOME micro-release exception as a result but need to be checked on an individual basis.

With the Mutter update rolling out to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS users since Friday, both Mutter 46.1 and 46.2 changes are now incorporated. Plus Ubuntu's patches around dynamic triple buffering and other features were updated. It is also notable that Ubuntu has opted to disabling the linux-drm-syncobj-v1 support as part of not enabling any major new features in the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS SRUs.

The list of changes with this most recent Mutter package update for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS can be found here.

With GNOME 46 came the experimental setting for Variable Rate Refresh (VRR) support for Mutter. Ubuntu hasn't been recommending GNOME's VRR option and it continues to remain that way for Ubuntu 24.04. Ubuntu desktop developer Daniel Van Vugt with Canonical has been exploring more of the VRR functionality and has been dealing with additional bugs around it as noted in this week's Ubuntu desktop team updates.