Back in July we reported on driver work done by Intel’s Chris Wilson to add back user-space mode-setting support to the Intel X.Org DDX driver (xf86-video-intel) to allow those with older Intel (i8xx) chipsets where kernel mode-setting can be buggy to at least have a decent experience with UMS. Intel was quick to strip out user mode-setting support from their X.Org driver once their KMS support was stabilized, but it turns out that old Intel hardware with UXA (the GEM-ified EXA) and kernel mode-setting was buggy and could lead to artifacts and stability issues. These problems had led Ubuntu and other distribution vendors to use old Intel drivers so that they wouldn’t be shafting a small percent of their users with vintage Intel hardware…
