Slashdot Mirror

dybvandal writes "Multi monitoring support for laptops is far is from perfect in the windows world even though it enhances productivty considerably and letting that laptop TFT go to waste while using an external monitor is also a shame. I found no support in Win2K and only limited support under WinXP (laptop tft is forced to be primary). Win9x actually does multi monitoring perfectly but it can hardly be considered a productive environment. But since my company is making the switch to Linux soon I was hoping that this episode would soon end. But according to the xfree page multi monitor support is still fairly limited in general and with no comments on laptops. There seem to be commercial alternatives (xig, metro-X) but I would like to hear about some first hand success stories before spending the cash on such a solution."

Ansgar Philippsen writes "XIG has released a first version of their hardware accelerated OpenGL X-Server. They offer a gamers edition (full screen only) and a professional edition (all goodies included). They support a wide range of chipsets. I would be very curious to see some comments if anyone has tested this product, especially under non-gaming conditions, e.g. a scientific OpenGL app running in a window. Additionaly, a comparison to XFree's upcoming 4.0 version will be very interesting. Unfortunately, I could not find any details on their implementation. XFree and PrecisionInsight have released a great amount of detail on their DRI/GLX implementation, and it sure would be nice to see how XIG did it." Interesting points: This is of course not open source, and at $99 for the game version and $250 for the pro version, its not cheap, but it does support several cards that aren't supported under XF86 (like my Number 9 Rev 4 for example).

Ansgar Philippsen writes "XIG has released a first version of their hardware accelerated OpenGL X-Server. They offer a gamers edition (full screen only) and a professional edition (all goodies included). They support a wide range of chipsets. I would be very curious to see some comments if anyone has tested this product, especially under non-gaming conditions, e.g. a scientific OpenGL app running in a window. Additionaly, a comparison to XFree's upcoming 4.0 version will be very interesting. Unfortunately, I could not find any details on their implementation. XFree and PrecisionInsight have released a great amount of detail on their DRI/GLX implementation, and it sure would be nice to see how XIG did it." Interesting points: This is of course not open source, and at $99 for the game version and $250 for the pro version, its not cheap, but it does support several cards that aren't supported under XF86 (like my Number 9 Rev 4 for example).

Ansgar Philippsen writes "XIG has released a first version of their hardware accelerated OpenGL X-Server. They offer a gamers edition (full screen only) and a professional edition (all goodies included). They support a wide range of chipsets. I would be very curious to see some comments if anyone has tested this product, especially under non-gaming conditions, e.g. a scientific OpenGL app running in a window. Additionaly, a comparison to XFree's upcoming 4.0 version will be very interesting. Unfortunately, I could not find any details on their implementation. XFree and PrecisionInsight have released a great amount of detail on their DRI/GLX implementation, and it sure would be nice to see how XIG did it." Interesting points: This is of course not open source, and at $99 for the game version and $250 for the pro version, its not cheap, but it does support several cards that aren't supported under XF86 (like my Number 9 Rev 4 for example).

Thanks to Jeremy Chatfield for poking me about Xig ^[?] 's recent press release regarding them being the first to market a commercial hardware-accelerated 3D X server. They will be showing at Comdex, next week, and shipping in December. Support for cards looks nice as well, with over 30 cards supported,from companies like 3Dlabs, ATI, Evans & Sutherland, Diamond, S3 and Matrox.

Roger Davenport writes "Got this in my e-mail today from graham. It seems that AlphaLinux is getting help in the Graphics Department. XI Graphics is releasing its AcceleratedX v4.1.2 for Linux on Alpha. This product will also dramatically increase the number of boards supported for Linux running on Alphas as it currently supports over 250 graphics boards from a wide variety of vendors. " It's now posted on Xi Graphic's website, with full benchmarks. It costs $149.

Roger Davenport writes "Got this in my e-mail today from graham. It seems that AlphaLinux is getting help in the Graphics Department. XI Graphics is releasing its AcceleratedX v4.1.2 for Linux on Alpha. This product will also dramatically increase the number of boards supported for Linux running on Alphas as it currently supports over 250 graphics boards from a wide variety of vendors. " It's now posted on Xi Graphic's website, with full benchmarks. It costs $149.

Roger Davenport writes "Got this in my e-mail today from graham. It seems that AlphaLinux is getting help in the Graphics Department. XI Graphics is releasing its AcceleratedX v4.1.2 for Linux on Alpha. This product will also dramatically increase the number of boards supported for Linux running on Alphas as it currently supports over 250 graphics boards from a wide variety of vendors. " It's now posted on Xi Graphic's website, with full benchmarks. It costs $149.

A whole bunch of you have written in about multiple monitor (multi-headed) support in Linux. Is it possible? What's involved? Who supports it? These are all interesting questions, and one person made a point of noting that Windows could do it, and couldn't find out how to do it on Linux. There's also a nifty project in the works involving Linux and a "video wall"! Click below for more... Christopher Danz had this nifty project he's working on:

"My name is Christopher Danz and I'm part of a team in Washington State University that is building what we affectionatly refer to as a picture wall. It's bank of nine monitors placed in a three by three grid, each controlled by a corresponding 486 processor. Each "computer" consists of a mother board, CPU, video card, ethernet card, and our own homemade boot card (emmulates the boot disk). These nine computers must then in turn by controlled via the ethernet cards by a tenth computer. We've decided to use linux as the operating system on the tenth computer (as well as the nine slaves). The problem is we're having difficulty finding video controlling functions. Each screen is supposed to have the ability to fade, scroll, etc, as well as work together as a whole. Do you know of any locations on the Web we could look for such programming functions?" taliesen had this question to ask about basic multi-monitor support: "I'm looking into putting together a multiple monitor multiple video card system under Linux. The official word for XFree86 is that none of the current X servers support this. I was wondering if there are any patches or maybe even a commercial X server that would support two or three video cards/monitors. Preferably one AGP and one or two PCI, but all PCI would be better than nothing. Any information would be greatly appreciated."

Frag-A-Muffin asked something similar, but he mentions Xi Graphics' AccelX servers. He also thought that XFree86 did support multi-headed displays, but that you had to have two of the same card to do it.

and Aaron W. was looking for a HOWTO, and couldn't find one on this subject...(any volunteers?)

Will the folks with some answers for these please step forward? (grin!)

Jeremy Chatfield from xig wrote in to tell us that they are now working on an new version of their X Server that features accelerated 3d GL for several major chipsets, as well as several other nifty features like Wacom and Wheel support. Hit the link below to read the details.

Xi Graphics has scooped the prize for the first shipping OpenGL offering 3D hardware acceleration for Linux. The company has also shipped the product for UNIXware 7 and Solaris/x86. Five graphics chips are supported in the first release, a "Technical Demo" targetted at developers, prior to the delivery of the final release for end users.

The supported chips were selected to offer a wide variety of implementation rather than any other reason. They are:

• Number 9 Revolution IV
• Intel 740
• 3Dlabs Permedia 2
• 3Dlabs Glint Delta + MX
• SiS 6326

More chips will be supported before the product ships to end users.

The new product line, called "Accelerated-X/OGL" is offering the Tech Demo as a limited edition for developers. New features that are different from previous Accelerated-X releases include:

• X11R6.4
• Linux/glibc2 based
• OpenGL 1.1.1
• New 2D X Server core architecture
• Spaceball (Logitech Magellan) support
• Wacom support
• Wheel-button and IBM Scrollpoint support

Anyone interested in using this product should contact devrel@xig.com . Free updates and upgrades for a year and a free upgrade to the final shipping product are offered.

Speed? Xi Graphics is not quoting speed as it is expected to improve significantly with Evolution 2, now in development. The product may reach Evolution 3 or 4 before it beats the best of the IHV developed OpenGL implementations, but the company is pretty certain that barring undocumented chip tricks by IHV's, it will beat the speed of any other implementation on the same chip.

The first public demonstration of the technology by Xi Graphics will be given to the Manchester Linux User Group in the UK on Saturday 17th at 2pm BST by Jeremy Chatfield.

For more company details, check www.xig.com

Cheers, JeremyC.

Jeremy Chatfield from xig wrote in to tell us that they are now working on an new version of their X Server that features accelerated 3d GL for several major chipsets, as well as several other nifty features like Wacom and Wheel support. Hit the link below to read the details.

Xi Graphics has scooped the prize for the first shipping OpenGL offering 3D hardware acceleration for Linux. The company has also shipped the product for UNIXware 7 and Solaris/x86. Five graphics chips are supported in the first release, a "Technical Demo" targetted at developers, prior to the delivery of the final release for end users.

The supported chips were selected to offer a wide variety of implementation rather than any other reason. They are:

• Number 9 Revolution IV
• Intel 740
• 3Dlabs Permedia 2
• 3Dlabs Glint Delta + MX
• SiS 6326

More chips will be supported before the product ships to end users.

The new product line, called "Accelerated-X/OGL" is offering the Tech Demo as a limited edition for developers. New features that are different from previous Accelerated-X releases include:

• X11R6.4
• Linux/glibc2 based
• OpenGL 1.1.1
• New 2D X Server core architecture
• Spaceball (Logitech Magellan) support
• Wacom support
• Wheel-button and IBM Scrollpoint support

Anyone interested in using this product should contact devrel@xig.com . Free updates and upgrades for a year and a free upgrade to the final shipping product are offered.

Speed? Xi Graphics is not quoting speed as it is expected to improve significantly with Evolution 2, now in development. The product may reach Evolution 3 or 4 before it beats the best of the IHV developed OpenGL implementations, but the company is pretty certain that barring undocumented chip tricks by IHV's, it will beat the speed of any other implementation on the same chip.

The first public demonstration of the technology by Xi Graphics will be given to the Manchester Linux User Group in the UK on Saturday 17th at 2pm BST by Jeremy Chatfield.

For more company details, check www.xig.com

Cheers, JeremyC.

An anonymous read wrote in to say that Red Hat Software will no longer carry TriTeal CDE for Linux. They instead recommend either GNOME or CDE from XiGraphics

dave methvin from XIG, the guys who make Accelerated-X, Laptop-X, and a host of other X based products for x86 Unix machines wrote me recently about the XBF and related projects. I really meant to post this yesterday, but, well, higher powers had other things in mind. Anyway, click the link to read what he has to say about these projects. the following was written by dave methvin from xig.

At the risk of taking some shots from the freeware crowd (of which we are a part), I am puzzled by the adulation of free software even when it is rather poor stuff sometimes. As an example - two examples, actually - we have run benchmarks on a Laptop servers published by Precision Insight - distributed by RedHat - and one distrubuted by S.u.S.E.

Besides problems of stability, incorrect drawing and so on, the raw performance of these two servers are less than sterling. The XBF NeoMagic one throws away over half of the notehook's graphical performance at 24 bit color depth. The S.u.X.E.- supplied server for the VIRGE MX notebook tossed away aboout 80% of the notebooks graphical performance at 24 bits. Both servers had some drawing problems, but we won't go into that here.

Free is fine, but at what cost?

The X server is a huge piece of engineering. It is over twice the size, in bin executing code, as the Linux kernel It is central to a properly functioning GUI-based Linux operating system. When the X server "falls over," it is usually Linux that gets the blame. In the Corporate World, which I think we all believe Linux must win if it is ultimately to be successful, will throw out the entire setup if it is unstable, or trashes graphical performance IMHO.

In other words, a shaky X server means a shaky Linux. Why do we risk the success of Linux by pushing such poorly performing X servers?

dave methvin

dave methvin from XIG, the guys who make Accelerated-X, Laptop-X, and a host of other X based products for x86 Unix machines wrote me recently about the XBF and related projects. I really meant to post this yesterday, but, well, higher powers had other things in mind. Anyway, click the link to read what he has to say about these projects. the following was written by dave methvin from xig.

At the risk of taking some shots from the freeware crowd (of which we are a part), I am puzzled by the adulation of free software even when it is rather poor stuff sometimes. As an example - two examples, actually - we have run benchmarks on a Laptop servers published by Precision Insight - distributed by RedHat - and one distrubuted by S.u.S.E.

Besides problems of stability, incorrect drawing and so on, the raw performance of these two servers are less than sterling. The XBF NeoMagic one throws away over half of the notehook's graphical performance at 24 bit color depth. The S.u.X.E.- supplied server for the VIRGE MX notebook tossed away aboout 80% of the notebooks graphical performance at 24 bits. Both servers had some drawing problems, but we won't go into that here.

Free is fine, but at what cost?

The X server is a huge piece of engineering. It is over twice the size, in bin executing code, as the Linux kernel It is central to a properly functioning GUI-based Linux operating system. When the X server "falls over," it is usually Linux that gets the blame. In the Corporate World, which I think we all believe Linux must win if it is ultimately to be successful, will throw out the entire setup if it is unstable, or trashes graphical performance IMHO.

In other words, a shaky X server means a shaky Linux. Why do we risk the success of Linux by pushing such poorly performing X servers?

dave methvin

dave methvin from XIG, the guys who make Accelerated-X, Laptop-X, and a host of other X based products for x86 Unix machines wrote me recently about the XBF and related projects. I really meant to post this yesterday, but, well, higher powers had other things in mind. Anyway, click the link to read what he has to say about these projects. the following was written by dave methvin from xig.

At the risk of taking some shots from the freeware crowd (of which we are a part), I am puzzled by the adulation of free software even when it is rather poor stuff sometimes. As an example - two examples, actually - we have run benchmarks on a Laptop servers published by Precision Insight - distributed by RedHat - and one distrubuted by S.u.S.E.

Besides problems of stability, incorrect drawing and so on, the raw performance of these two servers are less than sterling. The XBF NeoMagic one throws away over half of the notehook's graphical performance at 24 bit color depth. The S.u.X.E.- supplied server for the VIRGE MX notebook tossed away aboout 80% of the notebooks graphical performance at 24 bits. Both servers had some drawing problems, but we won't go into that here.

Free is fine, but at what cost?

The X server is a huge piece of engineering. It is over twice the size, in bin executing code, as the Linux kernel It is central to a properly functioning GUI-based Linux operating system. When the X server "falls over," it is usually Linux that gets the blame. In the Corporate World, which I think we all believe Linux must win if it is ultimately to be successful, will throw out the entire setup if it is unstable, or trashes graphical performance IMHO.

In other words, a shaky X server means a shaky Linux. Why do we risk the success of Linux by pushing such poorly performing X servers?

dave methvin

dave methvin from XIG, the guys who make Accelerated-X, Laptop-X, and a host of other X based products for x86 Unix machines wrote me recently about the XBF and related projects. I really meant to post this yesterday, but, well, higher powers had other things in mind. Anyway, click the link to read what he has to say about these projects. the following was written by dave methvin from xig.

At the risk of taking some shots from the freeware crowd (of which we are a part), I am puzzled by the adulation of free software even when it is rather poor stuff sometimes. As an example - two examples, actually - we have run benchmarks on a Laptop servers published by Precision Insight - distributed by RedHat - and one distrubuted by S.u.S.E.

Besides problems of stability, incorrect drawing and so on, the raw performance of these two servers are less than sterling. The XBF NeoMagic one throws away over half of the notehook's graphical performance at 24 bit color depth. The S.u.X.E.- supplied server for the VIRGE MX notebook tossed away aboout 80% of the notebooks graphical performance at 24 bits. Both servers had some drawing problems, but we won't go into that here.

Free is fine, but at what cost?

The X server is a huge piece of engineering. It is over twice the size, in bin executing code, as the Linux kernel It is central to a properly functioning GUI-based Linux operating system. When the X server "falls over," it is usually Linux that gets the blame. In the Corporate World, which I think we all believe Linux must win if it is ultimately to be successful, will throw out the entire setup if it is unstable, or trashes graphical performance IMHO.

In other words, a shaky X server means a shaky Linux. Why do we risk the success of Linux by pushing such poorly performing X servers?

dave methvin

vasquez was the first to tell us that X inside, now Xi Graphics, the makers of Accelerated X, will be releasing a new Linux distribution targeted at Fortune 500 companies. As they already sell and support their own commercial software to the above companies, they know what level of support to provide, and how not to get sued. What's funny is that they were asked to do this by the said companies... what's wrong with Redhat? Suse? Dld? Caldera? Maybe Xig will produce updates at a slower rate. Let's hope they also contribute to all Linuxes, like Redhat, Caldera and Suse have done.

vasquez was the first to tell us that X inside, now Xi Graphics, the makers of Accelerated X, will be releasing a new Linux distribution targeted at Fortune 500 companies. As they already sell and support their own commercial software to the above companies, they know what level of support to provide, and how not to get sued. What's funny is that they were asked to do this by the said companies... what's wrong with Redhat? Suse? Dld? Caldera? Maybe Xig will produce updates at a slower rate. Let's hope they also contribute to all Linuxes, like Redhat, Caldera and Suse have done.