Canonical has pushed a new massive update (version 0.24.0) of the Mir display server used to power the Unity 8 user interface of the next-generation Ubuntu Linux operating system.

Mir 0.24.0 is a feature and bugfix release that adds lots of enhancements, resolves some of those critical bugs reported by users since the previous maintenance update, and bumps most of the ABIs to new versions. The improvements implemented in Mir 0.24.0 are currently relevant for Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet owners, and they'll be available to users through the upcoming Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 software update.

Prominent new features include the addition of a new tool called 'mirvanity' for measuring client-to-screen latency using a high-speed video camera, full support for desktop OpenGL servers, but disabled by default for GLESv2, new buffer semantics, logging for ANativeWindow events on Android, as well as two new mir_*_performance_test tools.

Other than that, it looks like the offscreen display functionality and TilingWindowManager component got removed, there's a pointer confinement to the client API (Application Programming Interface), XKBMapper is now used for handling server-side keymapping, support for software EGLStreams, a new input platform for the nested server, and support for configuring application_not_responding_detector.

Approximately 50 bugs were squashed in Mir 0.24.0

Mir 0.24.0 is also about bug fixing, and according to the release changelog, it appears that a total of 48 issues marked as critical, high, medium or low importance have been addressed, among which we can notice memory leaks in unit tests on Android, a problem with the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 6 compiler, and a screen distortion issue when rotated in Mir-on-X11.

Last but not least, Mir 0.24.0 bumps most of the ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces) to new version. The mirclient 9, mirserver 41, mircommon 6, mirplatform 12, mirprotobuf 3, mirplatformgraphics 10, mirclientplatform 5, and mirinputplatform 5 ABIs are included in this release. Mir 0.24.0 is available for download right now via our website if you want to compile it.