14 DAY TRIAL // After a long wait, it finally happened, Canonical pushed today the latest X.Org Server 1.19 display server to the main repositories of the upcoming Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) operating system.
In mid-March, Canonical's Timo Aaltonen announced the availability of the X.Org Server 1.19.2 packages in the proposed repositories of Ubuntu 17.04, along with the Mesa 17.0 3D Graphics Library. It took about a month of testing, but the X.Org Server packages were finally upgraded from the old 1.18.4 release to version 1.19.3.
Yes, you're reading it right, Ubuntu 17.04's graphics stack has just been upgraded to X.Org Server 1.19.3 and Mesa 17.0.2, which should provide users with a more powerful gaming platform if they are using open-source graphics drivers for AMD Radeon and Intel graphics cards, but also for Nvidia GPUs.
Mesa 17.0.3 maintenance update was just released this past weekend, bringing a bunch of improvements for the Nouveau open-source graphics driver for Nvidia GPUs that should add an extra layer of performance to many of the games ported by Feral Interactive to the Linux and SteamOS platforms.
Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty Zapus) is a worthy upgrade for all Ubuntu gamers
Mesa 17.0.3 is not yet available in Ubuntu 17.04, but it should come before the operating system's final release on April 13, 2017. The Zesty Zapus series is powered by the latest stable Linux 4.10 kernel, so we can say that it's a worthy upgrade for all Ubuntu Linux gamers out there, especially those with AMD and Intel GPUs.
We believe that this is the big news every Ubuntu gamer out there wanted to hear, so there you have it. And don't forget that if you want to add another layer of performance for the newest Linux games, you can always install a third-party PPA that provides bleeding-edge Mesa packages, as you can see from the screenshot attached. Happy gaming!