RFC: xserver update strategy in F21+

[Simone Caronni]

On 17 November 2014 20:06, Adam Jackson <ajax at redhat.com> wrote:

> Since the modular X repackaging in FC5, we have limited X server updates
> such that the ABI does not change.  F20 shipped with xserver 1.14.4, for
> example, so we might update it to 1.14.7 but not to 1.15.0.  With the
> reduced driver set in F21 it's now much more reasonable to push updates
> to older releases as well.
>
> With that in mind, I ask for feedback on how we'd actually like that to
> work.  The kernel rebase policy seems like a pretty reasonable model:
> F21 would stay on 1.16.x until there's an upstream 1.17.1 release, and
> (if F20 were to be affected by this policy) F20 would wait until 1.17.1
> had been tested in F21.
>
> One thing we might have to play by ear is the interaction with binary
> drivers.  The nvidia legacy driver, for instance, does not always have
> builds available for arbitrarily new servers, which means updating the X
> server might change you to an nvidia driver that no longer supports your
> hardware.  Depending on how severe that cutoff is, it might be cause to
> pin a particular Fedora release at a given server version.  I don't
> think this is presently a problem, but it could be in the future.
>
> This would also want some coordination with the various desktop
> environments; the version of KDE in F21 might have latent bugs only
> exposed by switching to F22's X, for example.  I have a reasonable idea
> of how to test Gnome for that kind of thing, but for the others I'd need
> some pointers.
>
> So what do we think?  Good idea?  Bad idea?  Other things to watch for?


Looks like the policy for RHEL. Right now my RHEL 6.x systems have X 1.15
from official updates, which is even newer than the Fedora 20 X server. If
it can be done for even older RHEL releases that are supposed to keep ABI
stability I don't know why it could not be done for Fedora.

Maybe pushing not-the-very latest X.org server in stable releases would
prevent disruption with binary drivers, just like what is happening for
RHEL. Just my 2c.

Regards,
--Simone


-- 
You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of
the shore (R. W. Emerson).

http://xkcd.com/229/
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