The X.org Foundation has announced the release of X11R7.7, version 7.7 of its reference implementation of the X Window System (X11), well in time for its 25th birthday. The standard window interface for Unix and Linux systems had its first release – X Window System version 11, release 1 (X11R1) – on 15 September 1987. The development team plans to celebrate this anniversary at the X.Org Developer Conference 2012 (XDC2012) taking place in Nuremberg from 19 to 21 September.

X11R7.7 is a distribution of libraries, programs and drivers for graphics chips and output devices. It is based on X Server 1.12, which contributes the biggest change to X11R7 in the form of multitouch support. There are also a range of enhancements and bug fixes relating to drivers and multiple monitor support. The developers have also improved the project's documentation. Details of further changes can be found in the release notes and the change log.

The X11R7.7 source code is available to download and is licensed under various permissive open source licenses (BSD, MIT and the X11 licence). The window system runs on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, GNU Hurd and, via Cygwin, on Microsoft Windows.

Because new versions of X11 are released only at widely-spaced intervals, most Linux distributions include the latest versions of the X Server and its drivers, rather than shipping an X11 release in its entirety. X11R7.6 was released in December 2010 and the next version, X11R7.8, is not due until 2013 at the earliest.

(fab)