Release history




Version Release date Most important changes
Old version, no longer maintained: X1 June 1984 First use of the name "X"; fundamental changes distinguishing the product from W.
Old version, no longer maintained: X6 January 1985 First version licensed to a handful of outside companies.
Old version, no longer maintained: X9 September 1985 Color. First release under MIT License.
Old version, no longer maintained: X10 November 1985 IBM RT PC, AT (running DOS), and others.
Old version, no longer maintained: X10R2 January 1986
Old version, no longer maintained: X10R3 February 1986 First freely redistributable X release. Earlier releases required a BSD source license to cover code changes to init/getty to support login. uwm made standard window manager.
Old version, no longer maintained: X10R4 December 1986 Last version of X10.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11 15 September 1987 First release of the current protocol.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R2 February 1988 First X Consortium release.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R3 25 October 1988 XDM.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R4 22 December 1989 XDMCP, twm brought in as standard window manager, application improvements, shape extension, new fonts.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R5 5 September 1991 X386 1.2, PEX, Xcms (color management), font server, X video extension.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6 16 May 1994 ICCCM v2.0; Inter-Client Exchange; X Session Management; X Synchronization extension; X Image extension; XTEST extension; X Input; X Big Requests; XC-MISC; XFree86 changes.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.1 14 March 1996 X Double Buffer extension; X keyboard extension; X Record extension.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.2
X11R6.3 		23 December 1996 Web functionality, LBX. Last X Consortium release. X11R6.2 is the tag for a subset of X11R6.3 (Broadway) with the only new features over R6.1 being XPrint and the Xlib implementation of vertical writing and user-defined character support.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.4 31 March 1998 Xinerama.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.5 2000 Internal X.org release; not made publicly available.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.5.1 20 August 2000
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.6 4 April 2001 Bug fixes, XFree86 changes.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.7.0 6 April 2004 First X.Org Foundation release, incorporating XFree86 4.4rc2. Full end-user distribution. Removal of XIE, PEX and libxml2.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.8.0 8 September 2004 Window translucency, XDamage, Distributed Multihead X, XFixes, Composite, XEvIE.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.8.1 17 September 2004 Security fix in libxpm.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.8.2 10 February 2005 Bug fixes, driver updates.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R6.9
X11R7.0 		21 December 2005 XServer 1.0.1, EXA, major source code refactoring. From the same source-code base, the modular autotooled version became 7.0 and the monolithic imake version was frozen at 6.9.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.1 22 May 2006 XServer 1.1.0, EXA enhancements, KDrive integrated, AIGLX, OS and platform support enhancements.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.2 15 February 2007 XServer 1.2.0, Removal of LBX and the built-in keyboard driver, X-ACE, XCB, autoconfig improvements, cleanups.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.3 6 September 2007 XServer 1.4.0, Input hotplug, output hotplug (RandR 1.2), DTrace probes, PCI domain support.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.4 23 September 2008 XServer 1.5.1, XACE, PCI-rework, EXA speed-ups, _X_EXPORT, GLX 1.4, faster startup and shutdown.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.5 26 October 2009 XServer 1.7.1, Xi 2, XGE, E-EDID support, RandR 1.3, MPX, predictable pointer acceleration, DRI2 memory manager, SELinux security module, further removal of obsolete libraries and extensions.
Old version, no longer maintained: X11R7.6 20 December 2010 X Server 1.9.3, XCB requirement.
Current stable version: X11R7.7 6 June 2012 X Server 1.12.2; Sync extension 3.1: adds Fence object support; Xi 2.2 multitouch support; XFixes 5.0: Pointer Barriers.
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release

On the prospect of future versions, the X.org website states:

X.Org continues to develop and release the X Window System software components.

These are released individually as each component is ready, without waiting for a overall X Window System “katamari” release schedule - see the individual X.Org releases directory for downloads, and the xorg-announce archives or git repositories for details on included changes.

No release plan for a X11R7.8 rollup katamari release has been proposed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

History

Image
Predecessors edit Several bitmap display systems preceded X. From Xerox came the Alto (1973) and the Star (1981). From Apollo Computer came Display Manager (1981). From Apple came the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh (1984). The Unix world had the Andrew Project (1982) and Rob Pike's Blit terminal (1982). Carnegie Mellon University produced a remote-access application called Alto Terminal, that displayed overlapping windows on the Xerox Alto, and made remote hosts (typically DEC VAX systems running Unix) responsible for handling window-exposure events and refreshing window contents as necessary. X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system called W (the letter preceding X in the English alphabet). W ran under the V operating system. W used a network protocol supporting terminal and graphics windows, the server maintaining display lists. Origin and early development edit The original idea of X emerged at MIT in 1984 as a collaboration between Jim Gettys (of Project Ath
Read more

Limitations and criticism

Image
This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject . Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. ( July 2014 ) The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) devoted a full chapter to the problems of X. Why X Is Not Our Ideal Window System (1990) by Gajewska, Manasse and McCormack detailed problems in the protocol with recommendations for improvement. User interface issues edit The lack of design guidelines in X has resulted in several vastly different interfaces, and in applications that have not always worked well together. The Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM), a specification for client interoperability, has a reputation for being difficult to implement correctly. Further standards efforts such as Motif and CDE did not alleviate problems. This has frustrated users and programmers. Graphics programmers now generally address consistency of applicatio
Read more

Nomenclature

The proper names for the system are listed in the manual page as X; X Window System; X Version 11; X Window System, Version 11; or X11. The term "X-Windows" (in the manner of the subsequently released "Microsoft Windows") is not officially endorsed – with X Consortium release manager Matt Landau stating in 1993, "There is no such thing as 'X Windows' or 'X Window', despite the repeated misuse of the forms by the trade rags" – though it has been in common informal use since early in the history of X and has been used deliberately for provocative effect, for example in the Unix-Haters Handbook . Key terms edit The X Window System has nuanced usage of a number of terms when compared to common usage, particularly "display" and "screen", a subset of which is given here for convenience: device A graphics device such as a computer graphics card or a computer motherboard's integrated graphics chipset. monitor A physical
Read more