Mesa 23.1.8 Released While Waiting On Mesa 23.2

Mesa 23.1.8 was released on Wednesday as yet another bi-weekly stable release for the Mesa 23.1 release as that series drags on while waiting for Mesa 23.2 to materialize.

Mesa 23.2 was supposed to be released as stable in August but that lapsed after a five week hiatus compared to the usual weekly release candidates. Mesa 23.2-rc3 was released on 5 September with it being expressed of a possible release candidate later that week. Two weeks later Mesa 23.2-rc3 remains the latest version and no word when the -rc4 will arrive let alone final. At this point it's possible Mesa 23.2 stable won't be out until Q4. It's unfortunate for the autumn Linux distribution releases that wait for the Mesa 3D stable releases to debut before pulling them in, such as jeopardizing Ubuntu 23.10 now for including Mesa 23.2.

Mesa 23.2 does have many new graphics driver features but the usual release management stumble. Due to the Mesa 23.2 delays, Mesa 23.1.8 is out as an extra unplanned point release in the current series.

The Mesa 23.1 series continues to be managed by Eric Engestrom. Mesa 23.1.8 brings a number of Zink fixes, a few Android build system updates, ACO compiler fixes, and other mostly mundane fixes across the board. A Mesa 23.1.9 point release is already scheduled to happen on 4 October with typically these point releases continuing until the Mesa N+1.1 point release is out.