Intel Releases 2.17 X.Org Driver for Linux

A nice piece of software comes right from Intel: the 2.17 X.Org driver, sporting some fixes for  reported problems, and offering better performance for the graphic chipset in your Intel SandyBridge processors.

Nevertheless, since the new IvyBridge CPUs are on their way, the Intel 2.17 X.Org driver comes with support for them, too. The new graphic driver comes with quite a lot of fixes:

- Video clobbering composite batch state
- Incorrect reuse of surface bindings within a batch for multiple formats
- Nothing was rendered for text with procedural sources
- Handle fallbacks involving alpha maps
- Workaround blitter hang on SandyBridge and IvyBridge
- Workaround pipe control issues on SandyBridge
- Use correct maximum PS thread count on IvyBridge
- Protect against failed pixmap allocation for XV

Chris Wilson gets the praises for the improved Sandy Bridge New Acceleration (SNA).

The Glamour acceleration support and SNA are disabled by default and have to be "configured at build-time", Michael Larabel (Phoronix) notes. Get your hands on the Intel xf86-video-intel 2.17.0 X.Org driver, as we've got it.