XorgOnTheEdge
Hardy
Xorg 7.3 and xorg-server 1.4 have landed in Hardy Heron. The test driver packages in the Gutsy section below should work fine in Hardy as well.
Gutsy
Gutsy includes Xorg 7.2, and ships with xorg-server 1.3. Some packages are from Xorg 7.3.
xorg-server
Gutsy does not ship with version 1.4, but many fixes from 1.4 have been backported into the gutsy 1.3 version. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=490982 for more information and discussion.
ati driver
The ati driver pre-release of 6.8 (6.7.195) with support for randr display configuration is in Gutsy. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3321087 for more information and discussion. A newer test version can be found in https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive
- xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.7.196-1ubuntu0tv
avivo and radeonhd drivers
The open-source, reverse-engineered avivo driver for ATI radeon 1100-1900 cards (experimental) is in universe: xserver-xorg-video-avivo (2D only, does not work for all cards)
The new open-source, AMD-sponsored radeonhd driver for 1xxx-2xxx cards is also in universe: xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd (2D only)
A newer test version of xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd can be found in https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive
- xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd_0.0.2+git20071026-0ubuntu0tv2
The diagnosis tool conntest is not included in the driver package, but a [attachment:rhd_conntest-20071020_i386 386 executable] can be downloaded here.
vesa driver
A new version of the vesa driver, 1:1.3.0-1ubuntu5, got into Gutsy after Tribe 5.
Experimental Xorg packages for Feisty
Warning: This is for testing only! Expect to screw up your X if you try this out. This page is meant to help testing of new upstream versions, to see if they fix Ubuntu bugs. If they do, a fix might be backported to the official packages, or they will be available in the next Ubuntu release.
Ross Burton has a repository for new Xorg packages built for feisty: http://www.burtonini.com/debian/feisty/ You can either install the xorg-server 1.3 server packages one by one:
- xserver-xorg-core_1.3....deb
- xserver-xorg-core-dbg_1.3...deb
or, to avoid manual dependency and version tracking, add this to /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://www.burtonini.com/debian/ feisty/ deb-src http://www.burtonini.com/debian/ feisty/
and run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Update: Xorg 7.3 packages are now coming into Gutsy, and might be more up to date then the packages from Ross. However, you will have to install Gutsy, or rebuild the packages for Feisty (see below).
xorg-server
Many fixes from 1.4 have been backported into the latest Gutsy 1.3 version, and there are Feisty builds in http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/xorg-server-backports-feisty/
- xserver-xorg-core_1.3.0.0.dfsg-12ubuntu4feisty_i386.deb
- xserver-xorg-core-dbg_1.3.0.0.dfsg-12ubuntu4feisty_i386.deb
ati driver
For ATI cards, get a test build of 6.7.195 from http://tormod.webhop.org/linux/ati/
- xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.7.195+git20071017tv
intel driver
Ross Burton's repository includes the intel driver xserver-xorg-video-intel 2.1.
savage driver
For S3 Savage cards, http://tormod.webhop.org/linux/savage/
- xserver-xorg-video-savage_2.1.2-6pre_i386.deb
Note that 2.1.2-6 has been released in Gutsy.
vesa driver
For "all those other" cards and for "failsafe" mode, from http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/xorg-server-backports-feisty/
- xserver-xorg-video-vesa_1.3.0-1ubuntu5feisty1_i386.deb
mesa libraries
Ross Burton's repository also includes the new mesa 7.0 libraries:
- libgl1-mesa-dri...deb
- libgl1-mesa-glx...deb
- libglu1-mesa...deb
- mesa-utils...deb
Uninstalling, reverting
Please keep track of which packages you install. The easiest way to revert to standard Feisty, is to uninstall the packages sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-core etc, etc, and clean up /etc/apt/sources.list if you changed it, and reinstall from normal repositories: sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core
Building drivers
The easiest is to grab the source from either Gutsy or Debian experimental (or unstable) and build them on Feisty. Example for an ati driver:
Find the experimental packages from http://packages.debian.org/xserver-xorg-video-ati and download the .orig.tar.gz, .diff.gz and .dsc files.
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-ati dpkg-source -x xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.6.191-1.dsc cd xserver-xorg-video-ati-6.6.191 debuild -b -us -uc cd .. sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-ati_6.6.191-1_i386.deb
In many cases this will build and install nicely without changes. Otherwise you'll have to patch them... The official Ubuntu source and patches (for older versions) can be found through for instance http://packages.ubuntu.com/xserver-xorg-video-ati Download and unpack them as for the Debian packages, and look at the patches in the debian/patches directory.
Latest drm kernel modules
If you would like to try the latest drm from git, you can use this script which will assist you in downloading, compiling and installing the latest drm modules from upstream: attachment:easy-drm-modules-installer
If the latest version does not work, you can delete the drm-yyyymmdd directory which the script created, and download an older version and rename its "drm" directory to "drm-yyyymmdd" and put it in the same directory as the script. See [https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/88905 bug #88905] for the origin of this script.
Links
http://wiki.debian.org/XTips Building Debian packages from git
- ["Bugs/AtiDriver"]