F12 Testing highlight: new xorg-x11-server, mesa, libdrm and xorg-x11-drv-ati

[Michael Breuer]

On 1/7/2010 9:40 AM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> Hi, folks. Just wanted to highlight some fairly major planned F12
> graphics updates going into updates-testing.
>
> I posted a testing request previously for xorg-x11-server, to get some
> preliminary testing before it went into the updates-testing repo. The
> feedback from that was positive, so a new xorg-x11-server - bumped up to
> 1.7.3 and with several other changes - is now in updates-testing.
>
> In addition, there's a new mesa package, with a significant version bump
> from 7.6 to 7.7. There's an accompanying libdrm update, and a
> significant update to xorg-x11-drv-ati (radeon), the driver for ATI/AMD
> graphics cards, with many bugfixes and changes.
>
> As graphics-related updates are prone to regressions and this a fairly
> major change when you add it all up, it would be extremely helpful if as
> many of you as possible could install these particular packages from F12
> updates-testing and check how they work for you. Please please report
> any noted regressions to Bodhi (preferable) or reply to this thread.
> Might also be helpful to know if they solve any problems anyone's been
> facing - they may address some 3D issues or improve performance,
> especially on ATI/AMD hardware. Thanks!
>    
Ok - finally gave it a go. Much better than last time - a few things to 
note however...
(8800GTS, Asus p6t deluxe v2, 12Gb, I7 920, ht enabled, vt-d enabled, 
2.6.32-2 (git) nouveau (git), CONFIG_DMAR off)
1. Performance - seems slower by about 15% than current f12. glxgears, 
for example I get about 650FPS with F12, and about 520 with updates-testing.
2. Race on startup when booting directly to runlevel 5 with gdm & tty1 - 
100% Xorg cpu. Clears after restart of X, or if booting 3 then 5.
3. Reboot required after upgrade - telinit 3 && 5 yields no visible 
console. Even tried removing all fb mods and modprobe fbcon... chvt 
(1..6), etc... nothing. Keyboard worked, but no display. OK after reboot.