Slashdot Mirror
XFree86 4.0 Now Available
YAH00 writes: "The 4.0 release of xfree is now available!!! I'm downloading it from ftp.xfree86.org as I type!!! " I've played around with the preview releases, and 4.0 looks to be a much needed improvement over the 3.3.x tree, with xinerama [?] features and improved performance for many graphic chipsets.
...will there be drivers for my GeForce?
http://garnix.unix-ag.u ni-hannover.de/~ingo/xf86-4.0.tar.gz
http://canadia.geecs.org/~mp3/xfre e86-4.0.tar.gz
score:-2(narmi, troll)
Is there a CHANGELOG? Does it have better support for my VooDoo3 3000?
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
makedepend stalled at some point during make World. Killing the it off with ps was the answer, compiled without any probs.
Running it now. Mozilla actually looks right, the menu fonts are the correct size. Woohoo!!!
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Oh, included xinerama support will be nice. As if E didn't look cool enough already. :)
Let's give the XFree86 team a big round of applause for all the hard work they've put into this. Thanks a lot - your hard work makes life all the better for us.
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
and it rulez0rez! I can't believe how much faster it is.. (voodoo III)
THANK YOU, XF86 WREKIN' KREW.
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
its about time
whats new with 4.0?
oh...15th post! or whatever it is now...
http://www.au.xfree86.org/4.0/RELNOTES. html
Enjoy. Congrats and thanks to the XF86 team
Eric
(here's the introduction/installation instr. for those with mirror probs):
XFree86 4.0 is the first official release of the new XFree86 4. XFree86 4 represents a significant redesign of the XFree86 X server. It is very important to keep in mind that XFree86 4 is still very much in development, and it contains a lot of new work. That means two things: there is a lot of new exciting stuff to try, but being new code, it hasn't had nearly as much of a workout as the stable 3.3.x releases. If you're looking for a well-tested, stable release, and can't afford the inconveniences that new software can sometimes cause, then you are probably better off sticking with the 3.3.x releases for now. If you have the resources to try out the new version and investigate its features, or if you just like being on the bleeding edge, then please try 4.0!
This release isn't quite as complete as we would have liked. The main missing pieces are a nice configuration tool and support for some of the hardware that 3.3.x supports. The first point means that configuring the server might be more painful than usual. The second means that your hardware might not be supported by 4.0, or it might be supported at a lesser level (conversely, some hardware is better supported in 4.0). We've attempted to provide some information about the second point in our Driver Status document. Please check there first before trying 4.0. Unfortunately that document is still fairly basic, but it should at least give you an idea of whether you're likely to be able to use 4.0 at all or not.
On the subject of configuration, we have updated the basic text-based tool "xf86config" to generate config files in the format required by 4.0 (3.3.x config files won't really work with 4.0). We're also working on some other configuration tools, including one that is built-in to the X server. An early version of this is included in the release, and it works well for some hardware. To try it out, just run (as root) "XFree86 -configure". Both of these configuration options will at worst give you a reasonable starting point for a suitable configuration file. We've put some effort into documenting the 4.0 config file format, and you can find that information in the XF86Config manual page. Please check that and the driver manual pages and related documentation for further information about that.
Oh, another thing you might notice is that our documentation is rather patchy. Most of what is present should be in reasonable shape, but there are gaps. We thought it better to leave out docs that were very out of date rather than providing inaccurate and misleading information.
Finally, before you download and install the binary distributions for this release, please have a quick read through the Installation Document. It may save you some time. If those cautionary notes haven't turned you away (and we certainly hope not), please read on... The sections below describe some of the new features and changes between 3.3.x and 4.0. There is a lot of new stuff, and we definitely don't have enough space to cover it all here.
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
ftp://download.sourceforge.net/ pub/mirrors/XFree86/
---
SourceForge Programmer Type - http://sourceforge.net
---
Drew Streib, dtype.org
Cool features in 4.0!! The 4.0 release is supposed to have support for dual head displays like the Matrox G400. Also, 3D support using Mesa 3.1, GLX and DRI.
Congrats to the XF86 Team for getting 4.0 out.
Has anyone used any of the pre-4.0 snapshots on an SGI 1600SW w/ the Number Nine TTR IV? Im considering buying one, and was wondering if anyone had had any problems with it?
And of course, I'll be the first loser to ask someone to build me RPM's! :)
in the meantime, we're downloading it to our little p75 multi-t3 server at ftp://soul.apk.net/ and we can mirror if it all comes down. No guarantees.
but i do want some rpms!
Mike Roberto
- roberto@apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
or should I say yahoo!? Since that's who posted it... Anyways, this is cool! Can't wait until Debian has it. Now maybe people in #slashdot can stop asking when it's gonna get posted!!!
rbf aka pulsar
Please resist using the canadia.geecs.org mirror unless you are on a reallly slow modem connection :) - that's my computer and its not exactly ready to handle a slashdot load :P (not to mention my resnet admins will get pissy :))
I'm setting a low limit on apache, so my appologies if you have trouble connecting.
thanks!
OFTC: By the community, for the community
Any news on the nvidia openGL drivers?
This was actually released a year ago!
;)
Xinstall.sh 20 Kb Tue Mar 9 23:18:00 1999 Bourne Shell Program
Oh no! How did we miss it? It was exactly a year ago today!
Maybe this is Y2K related.
Excite!
ftp://soul.apk.net/pub/xf4/
;-)
enjoy until we get slashdotted!
Mike Roberto
- roberto@apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
msn ;)
Hooray!!!!! Only True Geeks Revel In This Software....
:P*
and i don't know about you guys, but im proud to be one. Congrats to the xfree team, you guys did good.
*fires up the old k6-2 to give this a whirl..bah who needs to go to school tomorrow
snap
A sad thing about freedom it is, the we never realize how good it was until we lose it.
The nvidia drivers are going to be binary only. In fact, new 3.9.x drivers are coming out of ATI and 3DFX as binary only too. I'm sure matrox won't be far behind.
It won't be long until the day we are wishing back to the breif time we could completely debug, support, and repair the complete software systems of our personal computers, while still using cheap main-stream hardware.
Oh well.
Dear friend, I do not believe your writing will be appreciated here.
May I suggest alt.fan.furry as a more receptive audience?
How much does it cost?
I wonder if it's too late to include it in the RH6.2. Does beta mean no new stuff or major changes?
Will/does XF86-4 break anything that requires the Xlib or Xt libraries?
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
I'll bet that, since I already use xfstt and dont have a 3d card... that I wont notice a thing in 4 that I didnt in 3... except that i'll have to relearn how to set it up :) maybe i wont bother downloading it for a while... at least not until its a deb :)
Does Xfree86 4 have support 2-d transperancy? Is such support necessary for pulling transperancy in X? One of the things I like about Mac OS X is that it can do slick things with tranparent windows and menus and such. I'd like to some wicked cool enlightenment theme with such trasperancies all over. Even more, I would like it to have some hardware support so that it will be fast.
So, does 4.0 do this? Does anyone even care? Or is this really in the domain of toolkits to handle?
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
Infoseek
AllTheWeb
Anyone out there running 4.0 and have screen shots available?
I am about to download and install it myself, but I don't think I'll have time to do it today, but I'm SOOO curious.
Anyone feel like firing up a snapshot app?
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
How well is the NVidia Riva TNT2 supported? Am I correct to say that accelerated 2D is supported but hardware 3D is not (yet) included?
Cadê? (Brazilian Search Engine) Greetings from Brazil :-)
Those of you who've attempted to install the 4.0 release, did you encounter any problems that we should be aware of?
If only I could get KDE and Enlightenment to work together now....
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
"4.0 looks to be a much needed improvement over the 3.3.x tree, with xinerama features and improved performance for many graphic chipsets. "
And truetype font support . . . *diabolical laugh*
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
Nietzsche is Dead"
"God is Dead"
--Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is Dead"
--God
canadia.geecs.org is down 50 connections times 70 megabytes at any given time was too much. sorry!
OFTC: By the community, for the community
iwon.com (win some money mothafucka) :-)
Will my SiS 530 work now? Or am I still stuck in text mode? (which I'm quite fond of, but Netscape won't run for some reason...)
Netscape!
Moderate this down to (Score:-1,Troll)
Trollz rool.
Just when I thought I might be able to live with the Debian frozen/stable branch, this comes up. I've no choice but to upgrade to the unstable branch once again when the XF86 4.0 debs are built.
So, when is that Debian stable-with-current-xfree86 thing gonna happen anyways?
E and Xinerama do the occasional bickering match on my box, and it usually ends up that the server dies(if you run it as root) or Enlightenment stops responding(as user; sometimes 'restart' works sometimes not). This usually happens when you try to move a window across the boundary. Turning off 'transparent' almost eliminates it tho.. Blackbox behaves, as do fvwm, fvwm2, twm, and Afterstep.
.sig: Now legally binding!
And this has exactly what to do with XFree86 4.0?
score:-4(qwerty4, God knows what)
Moderate this down to (Score:-1,Troll)
Trollz rool.
This is basically a problem in your browser. The ls command used by ftp servers has a policy of giving a year if and only if the file is more than x months old. I believe x is 6 for most FTP servers.
Your client, trying to be helpful, attempts to reconstruct the year by assigning a year in the last 12 months if the year is not given. This works well. Most of the time.
The analomous case is when the timezones differ so that the file looks like it's in the future to the client.
Fixing this is not hard, and I did forward it to the Mozilla team.
Moral of the story? Getting times and dates right is hard.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
Netscape runs on top of X, silly. I guess you don't know the answers. You should study.
E.g., try http://3432562195/.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
you forgot metacrawler and webcrawler
score:-1000b(troller,for being a fag using base 10)
Do you need to recompile ALL binaries using Xlib etc if you run the 3.3.x series?
we'll teach his dumbass !!! hehehehehehehehe.
ahem, thank you
Anyone find a step by step guide or anything close that explains how to setup Xinerama? I read all I could find, tried asking Mandrake(the enlightenment/xinerama developer), and guessing from what I knew with no success.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
Magellan (now a part of Excite)
3dfx drivers are fully open source.
There are open source drivers for the Matrox G200/G400 and ATI Rage chipsets here:
http://utah-glx.sourceforge.net/
but they haven't _yet_ been ported to work with XFree 4.0.
If everyone keeps hitting the main FTP site instead of one of the mirrors, the stuff'll never replicate.
Here's a hint: Mirror List
æeee!
Metadog!
just replace 'source' directory with 'dasource'
SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers
SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers
Yeah, except 3dfx is a has-been. From what I read from CeBit, their new cards suck trees. They've missed the ball, I doubt they'll ever get back in the game.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Northern Light
Welcome to the begining of the end for Linux.
:)
XFree86 4.0 represents the culmination of thousands of man-hours work. It is the peak of X windows development, and darn nifty software too.
It hosts a wide range of new and powerful features, and world class performance.
XFree86 4.0 means a lot of good things for a lot of people.
But, Xfree86 4.0 also means something bad, it means the end of the Linux system as we know it.
Not the Linux system as a piece of software, but as a powerful piece of Free Software.
Today, we enjoy the freedom of a completely free system. The linux system gives you freedom beyond what any complete server/desktop OS has ever brought you before. Not only the freedom to use, improve, and repair your system, but also the freedom to use it on common hardware.
A critical aspect of the freedom of the Linux System, that differentiated it from others before it is the ability to have freedom with all components of the system. As you can seldom completely diagnose, repair, or improve one part of a system without making changes to other parts. Thats part of what being a system means.
XFree has become a critical part of the Linux system.
Unfortunatly, many video card vendors wish to keep their source very closed. They feel that this gives them some competitive advantage, because often a smart driver can more then make up for dumber hardware. The fear that copyright is insufficent to protect their intrests, a fear well encouraged by the Microsoft enviroment most came from.
Keeping the source closed also helps them decieve the consumer. Closed drivers can help hide the real capabilities, bugs, and performance issues of their hardware. In the windows world, drivers often cheat to improve performance. Usually it doesn't effect quality very much, but people should have the right to know. In the low margin, highly competive video card market, the makers feel that every point counts.
In the past, Xdriver developers were effectivly prevented from producing binary only drivers because of the difficulity of tracking the codebase. This made them double-think the need for closed drivers. In almost every case, they decided that closed wasn't worth a little extra effort and freedom won out.
Now with XFree86 4.0, they no longer need to fear that. There is a VERY well written and modular API that should require little revision. When a revision happens, it will be VERY easy to track.
Several vendors are already working on binary only drivers for XFree86 4.0.
In the race to support every possible card at the highest speed, to compete with windows in certian markets (games, cad, etc), the XFree86 developers have decided to trade freedom and openness for a few more Xmarks or one more card with 3d support.
The XFree86 development has never been very open, it's developers could quite argueably be said to not understand the benifits of truely open development. In the future of binary only drivers, these gurus will probably have (NDAed) access to the code, they won't be affected personally.
Soon, most common hardware will not have open drivers. Linux developers will have to work harder to work around bugs in other peoples software. People on uncommon hardware, (alpha,ppc) or strange needs will usually be left out in the cold. You will no longer be the master of your computer, it's use will be contingent on your agreement to some Draconian UCTA enforced licence, your ability to improve, repair or hire someone else for that purpose will be signifantly reduced. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.
This is a terrible loss to ALL of us. In our race to compete with closed systems, we are giving up the one thing that makes Linux *better*.
Unfortunatly, most will never realize the loss. Years later, those same people who today revel in the 500fps brought out by their videoforce 1024's binary drivers will be wondering why Linux became what every closed system is today: Controlled, secretive, inflexible, restricted, and sometimes unstable.
Today, people are regulary ignored in bugreports on linux-kernel when they say they are running VMware. Privliged closed software makes it almost impossible to debug the kernel with any certanty.
Even Microsoft blames most of the windows crashes on buggy third party drivers, and I suspect MS would have much better luck at getting someones driver code then Alan Cox.
Please think twice before accepting a slightly superior closed solution. It's not really superior in the long term. While it may work for you today, someday *you* might be on the wrong end of the bargan. Please support your future needs, and tell the vendors that we wont take any more unnecessarily closed drivers.
Thanks for you time, sorry for the type-os (gotta post before I'm too far down to be read).
-greg@linuxpower.cx
BTW 4.0 finished patching for me right now, 3.9.18 works great, hope 4.0 is even better.
Hotbot
It's supposed to work with S3, Matrox and 3Dfx cards. I already have a Voodoo 3000 as my primary, digging up a PCI S3 ViRGE now. :)
If you were willing to be in the same spot as windows:
Not free and not Freedom.
Xig has provided multihead for Linux for years.
I don't care what your windows can do, my Linux serves my purpose and is free to boot. Those who would trade freedom for features deserve neither freedom nor features. -me (apologies Mr. B. Franklin).
i dont care what his motives were, but it was rather convenient. The xfree ftp server is so bogged down it took me a while just to get the mirrors list.
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thank you.
LookSmart
WTF are you talking about? since when does the Linux kernel have anything to do with X-windows drivers?
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Anyone got any natile portman Pictures
Wow, I never thought of it that way before. It makes me glad I bought a G400 and not a TNT2 ultra. :)
Ask Jeeves
I follow the news some and my understanding is that ATI has promised to opensource all (and is doing so) and 3dfx has already done "the full monty".
That is support, in my eyes, worth more to me by far than a company releasing a binary driver themsleves and pledging "great things" in partnership with another hardware vendor (VA). Y'know...I'm trying to escape exactly that proprietary workstation trip, what makes you guys think I'm intersted in your 3way jugfuck proprietary product. (???)
Christ Nvidia DO YOu suPPOrt LiNuX or don't you ?? IF yes, release drivers source; if no then, OK be closed. Don't try to have it both ways at my expence, OK?
Sleep sleeeep must sleep now
Some will blame the kernel developers who have their own bully-act going. Keep the programming interface changing constantly so closed-source free software (yeh, you read that right - free has lots of meanings) providers will (they scheme) have more incentive to open their code to everyone (including their competitors in M$-land). Maybe their right. Maybe M$ was too. They're both on my shit list now.
So what are the new features? I can't seem to find a webpage listing what all is new. Are there going to be any visual changes?
Congrats. I feel like a party.
-Oy Vey
Yup, the /dev/tdfx driver is quite available for 2.2 kernels. I believe you can get it from the DRI folks (dri.sourceforge.net).
And it's no wonder: PC video cards haven't played well with eachother (and still don't -- try some multi-vendor combinations sometime).
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
BOY are you misinformed. I've gone through a tnt2, G400, and a V3 in linux and I have to say that the V3 is the only acceptable card for gaming and all around usage. As far as the V5 sucking goes, you are a idiot. All the reports say that it looks just as good as the geforce and even better when AA is activated. NOt to mention the V5 is fast as balls. Anyway, Nvidia is still a bitch from back in the day and they will always be a bunch of bitches from here on out.
dmoz aka Open Directory aka gnuhoo aka newhoo
Bad fonts under Netscape is a solved problem };-)
While anti-aliasing isn't involved, I think you'll find these a significant improvement over X11's out-of-the-box look:
X: A Site for Sore Eyes
(go to the bottom of the page)
iSKUNK!
If i'm understanding the new features, It means that we will be able to have hardware acceleration in a window, and not only when running applications in full screen... Yes?
;-)
If yes, do I need to change something regarding my mesa directory? And when I compile some opengl programs?
What should I do to be sure to get the most of XFree86 4.0?
Actually, i'm running RH 6.0 with Mesa 3.1, 3dfx drivers and glide2 (Mesa was compiled, no rpms).
I'm actually (trying) to build this on my box, but would prefer binaries!
Thunderstone
I'm having to stick with 3.3.3.1 (maybe .3?) to get my SP-97V on-board graphics to work. Reading the pre-4.0 docs sounded like 4.0 would be really broken in this respect. The price of progress, I guess. It would be nice to know before going thru the grief of installing XFree86, but the documentation is, like he said, sketchy (and even contradictory), but given the price, one can't complain much.
Eries, thanks for posting the link.
However posting the text from the link is in bad taste.
Why you wonder? Because stupid moderators mark you up for it and it makes you look like a Karma Whore.
Guys please... cutting & pasting text from other sites is not informative... it's redundant.
Also I've noticed in your other posts you always post at 2, even when you know you are off topic.
stop that. You've been given the ability to post at 2 because SOME of your posts are good and people who read at with a threshold of 2 would want to see posts like that... not because all of your post are good and everyone needs to see everything you say.
I checked X's page, and it says this isnt Xfree4, but a pre! Did I read it wrong? Does the GUI look any different?
But that's not what I want to talk about right now. As it turns out, CowboyNeal is really fat. That's all I have to say. Further bulletins as events warrant.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The changes occure to make Linux better. It's much harder to make windows better because of all the closed crap they must stay compatible with.
Name one discouraged APPLICATION that kernel interfaces has hindered (other then VMWARE).
The changes almost never affect applications, and if they do it's because the app was depending on buggy behavior.
It's in the developers best intrest to have open drivers, you can't debug a kernel once a closed module is loaded, see how MS blames windows crashes on buggy drivers (usually video).
So get off it, or if you don't like it fork your own damn kernel.
Where can I get some RPMs for RH6.1?
:)
I know, its wrong and I'm a bad person for wanting them. Maybe the chemicals in the fabric of this fuzzy red foam sombrero I'm wearing are affecting my judgement, but I want my RPMs! I **NEED** RPMS! I cannot imagine another way that might allow the installation of software on Linux other than RPMs and that is why I need them SO BADLY!!!
Thank you
Could someone who's tried it already tell me if 4.0's ati driver is as fast as the 3.3.x Mach64 one, and if it still does the "I don't draw my Blackbox close-boxes right" thing that 3.3.x did on my RagePro at least?
Funny how www.xfree86.org mentions nothing regarding the release of 4.0...
perhaps they're hoping no one will think to try their ftp site...
Linux: When reboots are for upgrades.
SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers
SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers
Hi.
I am writing a 3D game engine, so I think I know what I'm talking about.
First of all, the only reason why your V3 is out-performing your TNT2 in Linux is because you are not using the DRI drivers for the TNT2. In Windoze, the TNT2 will kick the V3's ass any day.
Second, the V4 and V5 SUCK ASS compared to the GeForce. Why? Transformation and Lighting. The GeForce has on-board T&L, which means that it can pump out five times as many triangles per second as a V4/5, and use less CPU power doing it. High polygon counts are by far the best way to enhance image quality at the moment. It looks much better than AA. Trust me.
Now, if you are looking at benchmarks of current games, then YES, the V5 will be faster than the GeForce. This is because current games do not even attempt to draw high-detail geometry, which is what the GeForce is made for. That will change very soon, however, and I garentee you that the V5 will suck ass compared to the GeForce in games released a year from now.
There was a survey conducted of game developers a while back, asking if they thought T&L was more important than high fill rate. They unanamously said yes. It was at voodoo extreme, but I lost the exact link.
Anyhow, make sure you know what you are talking about before you call someone misinformed.
------
-Everything has a cause
-Nothing can cause itself
-You cannot have an infinite string of causes
If Nvidia is still a bitch then their a bitch laughing all the way to the bank. Meanwhile the stock for 3dfx has hit rock bottom and the new V5 card is just nothing but a V3SLI on one card. If you've ever bothered to read what the 3dfx people say about the direction their company is going with their products you'd know that they've lost the edge and that the V5 is only a feeble way to try and recapture lost glory. I'd suggest you keep quiet and not speak unless you're spoken to
So I can install X-Windows on my OpenBSD machine, plz send me the RPM programming language.
Thank you Sir.
Hi, I'm using FreeBSD 3.4 -stable and have never quite understood whether or not XF 4.0 supports 3d acelleration on non linux systems. I've got a Voodoo 3 and was just curious as to the matter. Mike
SGI has an extremely fast accelerated server for the geforce. It blows even Octane out of the water. Expect it soon if it's not released already.
HUH ???
ALL I CAN FIND ARE THE "COMMON" FILES LIKE FONTS AND SUCH (((NICE BUT HOLY CRAP GUYS WHERE"S THE REST ??)))
No, I don't feel like doanloading 40-60 megs of source and then compiling, like most mortals I am on dialup.
If anyone wants it, it's located at:
ftp://inept.rh.rit.edu/pub/XFree86-4.0/
This is great, "on the bleeding edge" isnt that accurate - it seems to do ok on mine. The speed is great, it feels like a nice improvement over my previous version. Congrats to the XF86 Team and all of the hard work you've put into it. We really appreciate it.
I've read the release notes and I have the feeling that buying a TNT was a really bad idea.
Any idea on how the work is comming on the glx drivers for the Matrox G400? The release said something about 2nd quarter 2000, but I wonder how realistic this is considering I haven't really heard much talk about DRI for the G400 on the utah glx mailing list.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
But will it support the ATI Rage LT Pro?
As far as I know, it does-- XFree86 4.0 supports cross-platform drivers (as a loadable, non-platform specific module), and I *think* that would mean that you would get the acceleration, too. But, I may be completely wrong...
Either way, its a worthwile upgrade!
The sun is going down, I say we follow it out of town- We've been here for far too long.
Still not dead.
There's really only one thing to say about this now:
GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce
GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce
GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForcGeForce!GeForce!G
GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce!GeForce
any questions?
to any doubters: check the calendar...it's March 2000, there's no reason to own ANYTHING OTHER than a Geforce video card. A DDR if you've got the cash, a SDR if you dont, or a 64 if you're dirt poor.
Everything else is hopelessly obsolete, pathetic crap.
...Especially 3dfx.
Does anyone know at what stage the support for 3D acceleration on ATI chipsets (specifically Rage PRO) is? I read along time ago that there were projects underway to support ATI chipsets with Mesa and GLX or DRI drivers. So I wonder, does Xfree86 4.0 come with drivers to do 3D acceleration on ATI chipsets? If not, is there somewhere one could get such drivers? Or will they be available anytime soon? thanks
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
a) The linux kernel isn't any more open a development environment than XFree is. There are a couple of gurus with commit rights. Everyone else sends patches. Most of those are rejected. It's not a formal process of approval like becoming a FreeBSD developer. But you're equally free to fork the code in any of those cases -- the unwashed public always has full access to everyone's latest stuff.
:)
b) Hiding behind cruft is not a way to fight closed source drivers. They've been offered before, many times. And the response has been increasingly negative. I think we'll continue to write our own, open drivers, and write better ones. I want code I can review running with priviledges on my machine. How about y'all?
c) A cleaner driver model will make it easier to write Free drivers too.
d) Let's keep things positive here, huh?
e) "uncommon hardware, (alpha,ppc)" will rise to crush puny pathetic PCs once and for all
This is assuming that DRI drivers for the GeForce come to life. Is there work in that direction?
--
Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi
I've been following the 4.0 release for a few months now...as i have a vested interest in it concerning one Voodoo3 3500. The reason 4.0 was so widely anticipated was because of the additional capabilities it has - especially in the arena of 3d acceleration. To my knowledge XF86 4.0 is going to be fully OpenGL compliant which means that you're gonna frickin' love it!
:) - but for my money..i'm fucking getting me a Voodoo 5 when they hit the market! Kiss my ass GeForce owners!!! :P
If not - don't worry...SGI and Nvidia are working on an API for Linux that will be as fast, if not faster, than any other API out there...including OpenGL and DirectX
-FluX
-------------------------
Your Ad Here!
-------------------------
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I've heard others drool over the onboard T&L of the GeForce. What I haven't seen is _one_ game that has a substantial benefit from onboard T&L of the GeForce. Perhaps you could direct us towards some benchmarks?
Maybe I'm missing something here....but all I see in the directory is FreeBSD binaries. Now, I'll admit I'm no genius, but it looks to me like the linux glibc, etc binaries aren't up yet. I could easily be wrong, but I am quite confused.
--Stupid Sig Here--
I'm in the middle of compiling source now.. actually it's compiling the programs/ now so I'm almost done.
anyhow, X now comes with libGL and libfreetype and stuff.. does this mean I should uninstall those libs?
--
rm -rf ~/.signature
Perhaps you could direct us towards some benchmarks?
There is an article on Tom's Hardware Guide that does a bechmark of the GeForce256 against most other common 3D cards using a program that can take advantage of hardware transform & lighting. The graphs on page 5 pretty well sum it up. The GeForce is about 25%-30% faster than the other cards.
0 1 - just my two bits
This is exactly what he was saying: that the V5 looks good on current games, but T&L and high polygon counts will become more important in the near future. I'd agree with him (or I hope it comes true), personally.
Well, this is good timing. Tomorrow I was about to order a new box, and was planning on putting in the hardware for screaming 3D.
Since I've been running an old ET4000 for the last seven years, I'm kinda out-of-date on what 3D cards do well. Asking around, I heard great things about GeForce.
However, for both practical and philosophical reasons, I want a card with good, open source drivers. It looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon. Does anybody have contradictory information?
What are people's opinions about 3D cards for which drivers are available?
--
Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi
Here. There are several others in the same directory.
I have waited for this for so long!!! Thank you xfree86!!!
I tried to compile the 3.9.*, but didn't know what went where... And RPM or a tarball with an install script for Linux would be nice. So far I only saw FreeBSD binaries. Ok, I will try to compile it, I know I won't fall asleep before I do :)
It is probably a troll but in either case it is completely OFF-TOPIC. Thanks.
I have a question...
When, eventually, they reach 5.00 will there be any sort of attempt to distinguish casual references from X.500?
Mojotoad
Gnustep is working on Alpha channel features in the Ghostscript and Display Postscript backends. Display Ghostscript communicates withthe X server using an "agent". There's also a DGS/DPS X X extension being worked on (as a pluggable module) - see
;-)
http://dps.sourceforge.net/
Then there's Berlin.
How soon will it be before we can get XF4 in RPM form? I could just download the tarballs and roll it myself, but I'd like to try to keep everything all rpm kosher on one of my boxes.
NH
Yes, that's right. That's what the computer manufacturers will pay for a graphics card. Twenty Dollars. The Gaming geek who buys his own card for $150 is the *exception* to the rule. All of the real money is made in high-volume. So if the vendors - Packard Bell, Dell, Gateway 2000, Compaq, HP, IBM - pick a card, they will usually get it into systems, test it, and crank out machines for the next 6-12 months with that card as a standard feature. Meanwhile, a product that didn't get picked - if a schedule slipped or a competitor did better with resources, misses the boat and all of that Research and Development is wasted. The card cannot be sold, for by the time the next window comes around, the card is obsolete.
So, if a video card manufacturer believes that they may be able to protect some of their intellectual property by not providing the source for its drivers, then I believe we as a community must accept that decision. For they are having a tough enough time as it is. No reason to give the competitor who may put you out of business an edge.
NT has had suck-ass multi-head support for years. Windows98 and Windows2000 support MIGHT be better, but they ain't exactly OLD are they?
Hey, you can always stick with 2 revisions back + updates. I'll take my chances with the fun stuff.
---
The GeForce's are good cards, I cannot argue. Personally, buying a card based on what is hoped the gaming market to do, seems like a bad idea. Polygons with more models do look good, but I've heard of some problems with Nvidia's T&L. I wish I were more educated. The problem has to do with something static vs. something dynamic. If I have a chance I'll try to dig up some info.
Since you brought it up...
/. years. It holds no water. You, as an obvious repeat AC, know of something called the "Slashdot Effect", it's the strange phenomenon of 100,000 info-crazy quadrapeds stressing the laws of physics and the capabilities of silicon based counting machines. Sometimes this "effect" breaks stuff. Chains being only as strong as the weakest link and all that, bottlenecks and such.
/..(nitpick that punctuation)
I've seen this lament a number of times in recent
So to bring it to a point, sometimes it is, in fact, "informative" to cut and paste some electrons, as such action makes this information more available to all, utilizing the vast resources of a billion dollar corporation who's mouthpiece is affectionately known as
I await your inevitable retort.(and my Karma protects me from flames like Goku's many Dragonballz)
--
+&x
Anyone know?
Who's email box should we FLOOD to get this done?
The TNT2 is for the price a very nice card (some of us can't afford a huge amount of money for graphics cards).
Remember, NVIDIA's mail servers can only take so much. Let's remind them that they can move quickly if they want to.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
It's fun to read /. on Friday and Saturday nights when the trolls come out from under their bridges. Not me of course, I'm in a different time zone.
W95 was good enuf for my daddy & DOS was good enuf for my grandaddy so I ain't gonna be usin this new fangled furrin OS frum Scandahoovia.
Heh, do you have one of the notorious SP97-V's with the "cmos battery wont last two months" problem? I'm at a small OEM "screwdriver" shop that went NUTS with all the customer complaints from bad SP97-V motherboards with faulty circutry that led to bleeding of the battery. Asus never really owned up to the problem either, they just released a "lick and a promise" bios update that didnt do jack. Stuck with them though, and then they pulled that P3B-F thing with the funky CPU autodetect bug, and the paranoid temp sensor that always reports the cpu temp at near lava tempatures. We switched to Microstar and after 6 months we have NEVER had a bad board or MB related issue (exept for some idiot who didnt use standoffs and screwed the MB right into the case bottom!!)
Would be interesting to know how many of you had trouble similar to above with the two aforementioned motherboards?
--AROS is an Open Source AmigaOS clone, and source compatible with AmigaOS! Try the x86 build at http://www.aros.org
Matrox is paying Percision Insight to develop G400 and G200 drivers. This will include OpenGL and eventually dualhead using a G400 dualhead card.
Check out www.matrox.com or www.matroxusers.com and look for Linux related press releases for more information.
--- polarbear
Any word on support for the Intel i810 chip set? Has anyone gotten the Xserver up and running on 3.3.6 or 4.0? I know that you need a kernel module for sharing the system RAM with the video card.
In all the binaries dirs (From the mirrors, ftp.xfree86.orgis full) I only see Common, FreeBSD3.x and FreeBSD4.x... The Common dir also isn't complete, tarballs as xlib.tgz and xbin.tgz are missing. Am i the only one that has this? Does anyone know a _good_ mirror? TIA
I'll just choose to use code I know has been well tested, reviewed by a community of people other than the authors, and is therefore a better bet than the cruft that passes for Windows drivers these days.
On machines I depend on for day-to-day activities, every bit as much as for production servers, my primary concern is stability. I have every intention of sticking with 3.3.6 since they don't really need my bugchecking effort, and I need my computer working right. Similarly, I'd gladly take an Open driver that I trusted but was a little bit slower over a flaky-but-fast closed driver (as long as we're talking about small differences in speed, say 15%).
will rh 6.2 include xfree86 4.0?
Quite a conspiracy theory
530- Australiasia
530- -----------
530-
530- Japan
530- ftp://ftp.netlab.is.tsukuba.ac.jp/pub/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/X/XFree86
530-
530- Korea
530- ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/Linux/xfree86
530-
530- Australia
530- ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/XFree86
530- ftp://x.physics.usyd.edu.au/pub/XFree86
530-
530-
530- US
530- --
530-
530- ftp://phyppro1.phy.bnl.gov/pub/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/X/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.varesearch.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86
530- ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86
530- ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/mirrors/xfree86
530-
530-
530- Europe
530- ------
530-
530- Austria
530- ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/hci/X11/XFree86
530-
530- Finland
530- ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/X11/XFree86
530-
530- France
530- ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/X11/XFree86
530-
530- Germany
530- ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/xfree86/XFree86
530- ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/X/XFree86
530-
530- Italy
530- ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/XFree86
530-
530- Norway
530- ftp://sunsite.uio.no/pub/XFree86
530-
530- United Kingdom
530- ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/XFree86
I invite you to lick my balls and fondle my cock.
Or vice versa.
I'm for one is amazed at how fast the 4.0 release came. I'd expect many more 3.9 pre-releases. I fear it probably hasn't been tested as well, and it is a fact that it doesn't support all the hardware that 3.3 does.
I do hope that 4.0 is usable, and if so, perhaps new distributions may pick it up. Linux projects (with a few exceptions) have traditions of releasing software "when it's ready", no matter how much delay that means. This has given Linux it's reputation as a solid OS. I hope xfree86 4.0 will be no exception...
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Why on earth should 3dfx release
binary only drivers, when they have already
given up all the "secret" information about
their hardware by releasing opensource-drivers.
This would be like CIA wen't out and published
all of their secret codes, and then started
to use them again.
If you're talking about the NEW 3dfx-cards, you
could be correct, but I don't really beleive
that either.
ATI I know nothing about, but they have already
released full specs, so it's no point for them
either to release closed drivers, at least
not for existing products
Hopefully companies like Creative Labs will set a good example for others to follow. Creative released a closed-source driver for the soundblaster live. It worked (just) but MP3 playback was noticably worse than in Windows. They got a lot of flack from the Linux community over their refusal to open-source the driver and eventually gave in and released the source under the GPL. The soundblaster live driver suddenly improved beyond recognitions (thanks Alan & everyone else) and now plays MP3's better than the Windows driver on my PC.
If companies realise that there are real benefits to open-sourcing drivers, then they might just do so.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
yes, you can see this mirror of the readme on DRI to see which cards are supported for 3d now. As a TNT 2 owner, I was dissapointed to see the 3d part isnt done yet. Only Voodoo3 cards and 3dlabs oxygen cards are supported right now.i reckon nvidia, or Precison Insight, should be done soon with the drivers? I think the 2d performance is completed.
How long until Carmack gets the new X working on Darwin, or MacOSX?
All this means is that we need to use a different means of keeping the pressure on. Personally, I'm *glad* I'll be able to have a little more flexibility in using binary drivers and at the same time I'm *sad* that this means of pressuring harware vendors to open their specs is now going to be weakened.
There are a few factors working in our favor:
The binary video driver api doesn't give hardware vendors cross-platform access - they wind up having to build and distribute drivers for every platform, multiplying their headaches and workload. This is work than can much more efficiently be done by the distributions and platform maintainers, including making necessary adaptations, for example, byte swapping - a much bigger issue than you'd think.
It doesn't give hardware vendors access to the power of open-source development, and the quality improvements resulting therefrom. Oh, and don't even *think* about trying to pass of a binary version of someone's open source driver as your own.
Closed-specs hardware vendors don't get the "coolness" bonus from, for example, us, the Slashdot community. Don't underestimate the effects of this: we've now become the "brand specifiers" for a huge part of the PC market, especially the games market. I'd say that we had a lot to do with 3Dfx's decline (because of closed-api concerns) and NVidia's rise (because they opened *part* of their specs).
The embedded market XFree is just too big and bloated for the embedded market - anybody care to argue this? Or for installing on old 486's and P90's. I know - I've tried it. We absolutely have to have an alternative, and there are already several projects underway on this. Let's not build in a binary driver api in these new video systems for at least 2 or 3 years, ok? That will keep the pressure on: if you want your card used in the embedded market (possibly much bigger than the desktop market) you'd better open the api. Do it sooner and get a bigger piece of the market. Do it later and become a historical footnote.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
So, where's the joke?
I've got a Matrox Millennium II card on my old dual Pentium Pro system. I'd like to know if the drivers in XFree 4.0 for this card will be a lot faster than the drivers in XFree 3.3.6?
Cheers,
Alex the Banana
--
http://www.tahallah.demon.co.uk
The next release of RH will _NOT_ include XFree86 4.0. It has been confirmed by RH at CeBIT recently. I fully agree with RH to not include the new XFree. Actually the new version won't matter that much from the old one since DRI isn't finnished yet, so If I understand the thing correctly, only 2d acceleration is supported. The next thing is drivers, I believe it doesn't have all the drivers that the old version have. The next thing is stability, how do we know that it is as stable as the previous version... Just lets wait for a XFree4.0 in RH-7.0 /sam
As near as I can tell (and I am very tired at this point, so I might have missed something), the argument here is that by making the API for graphics drivers more standardized and easy to follow, we increase the risk of having people produce closed source drivers...
Does no one else think that this is the very definition of "Cutting off one's nose to spite the face?". I would personally think that helping programmers of open source graphics card drivers would be potentially a LOT more helpful than the risk of more closed source drivers popping up.
What level of risk is acceptible? None at all? I can't believe anyone would argue that we should hold back innopvation in programming just because someone, somewhere, might create a closed product for it.
Besides, well written API's are there to help insure that if you don't like the closed source alternative, it's as easy as possible to replace it with one you or someone else wrote.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All my friends here say I would be mad to compile from source.
:-)
They seem to think it will take hours. I can't see that as a problem, I'll just run it overnight anyway.
So, can anyone who has compiled from source tell me roughly how long it took and their machine specs please?
I have a P2 450 with 128MB RAM so it can't be that bad can it? Can it???
2) -- Read the REALNOTES for XFree 4. Thay spoke about ATI, 3Dfx, Matrox, S3 and others BUT NOT OF NVIDIA for today and future releases of XFree. Why ? Have a look on recent news from Slashdot saying that NVidia dropped Mesa and want to develop their own implementation.
Today, NVidia is the only one that don't want to help OpenSource Developpers. They don't understand what means OpenSource and are proud to release scrappy drivers. If someone successed in using NVidia GLX with moonlight or others 3D software without having a crash, tell me ! I wonder if someone still tries to go to their OpenCloseSource site in order to have informations or to try to develop something for their card.
3) --A proof of Nvidia doesn't want to release their specs: ATI annonced to help programmers for developping drivers for their cards 6 months later than Nvidia. Today ATI has better support than NVidia. No comments ...
Usualy, I don't like to say that but ... NVIDIA YOU SUCK ONCE MORE.
To NVidia: your future is in the hands of consumers not in your cards' specications.
Yeahhhh, let's Quake ;)
Any support for 3DLabs Oxygen VX1?
You're all wusses - I used to compile X11R6 on my old SparcStation IPC (25MHz, 24MB RAM, 16 bit bus) and it only took a day or so...
I think your extreme attitude helps marginalize Linux rather than support it. A future where open and closed software intertwine (for various values of closed) is not to be feared. Yes, some vendors will gain temporary advantages through concealment, but you show little faith in the power of open source if you believe that its advantages will vanish as soon as such hybrids appear. Other vendors will go the open-source route, and profit from its advantages.
You mention several advantages of open-source, such as better stability and intregration. These are real, solid advantages that potentially give one vendor a leg up over another. In the face of this, it would be unlikely that no vendor would take advantage of those things. Many won't--old habits from the MSWindows domain will die hard--but a few will, and from their success more will be encouraged to do so.
Look at it from another perspective: we're going to get vendors involved in Linux who otherwise wouldn't be involved. Then we'll convert 'em. Not all of them, but the fact remains that opening up a middle ground like this gives us more of a chance of pulling them into the open-source way of doing things than an all-or-nothing attitude will.
Tear down the walls!
NATALIE-PORTMAN.ORG
The post was replying to one of the trolls, who had stated "didn't windows have this years ago?". Wheras I felt the need to point out gently that the Mac in turn had multi-head support before Windows. It wasn't a retort to the original "Support for multiple displays" post. Thus I suppose the trolls "claim" another victory...ah well, who needs karma anyways..
--
Behold the wisdom of Forest Grits: trying to get something nice from a Slashdotted server is like having a cookie jar just a few inches out of your reach.
Slashdotted. Nightmare for networks. Servers that shatter.
it has been often bitched that linux, and open software in general, has jack shit for innovation in the user interface department. i say nuff o dat, and i hereby make a motion to go where no windowing system has gone before, etc etc etc... of course, it needs coders. get busy, ya lazy evercrackheads, and ye, in the corner, oh wretched ut whuppers of ass, arise! produce cool shit!
berlin owns ya. it has the potential to beat down os-x with jackie-chan-style grace. down with x! all hail the new windowing thingy, berlin!
-- sayke, v2.3.05
The DRI readme states that DRI will only be
for i386 at the moment. Us lucky alpha owners
will have to wait to get decent 3D acceleration.
WTF? Games released a year from now ? In a year there will (most likely) be two more generations of nVidia cards and one more generation of 3dfx cards. And the lower-endish processors in a year are probably approaching the 1GHz mark (im not even talking about the higher end) and perhaps they are not as fast as GeForce in T&L but you will still be able to play on them at least because in these games you will be able to reduce the polygon count (to support all these owners of non-T&L cards (not only 3dfx
Im not a 3dfx zealot but i know the past and drew yome conclusion for the future
Sorry to sound like a luser, but where is the extract or extract.exe found at? I have looked all over the ftp site and not found it yet.
http://www. matrox.com/mga/press_room/lat_press_rel/matroxg400 _linux.htm
Dualhead is announced for soon, although their site isn't very informative.--
An excellent point, but all this means really is that instead of flooding the video card companies, we really need to flood the computer vendors, and let them know that you will not be buying one of thier systems if they use a video card that does not have open source drivers. (also send a CC to the video card vendors). Hit em right where it hurts. Once the computer vendors start getting spooked about using a closed source video card, just watch those video card companies *leap* to the forefront of the open source movement. "Why, we were with you all along don't you remember?"
Oh, yeah, and don't sound so bleeding heart for the video card companies. They don't get any pity from me. They want to make money. We want open source. The Law of Supply and Demand says if they want our money bad enough, they will give us what we want. No "poor video card company just trying to make a decent living" crap for me, thank you. That's just not the way it works.
Also, believe me when I tell you that when we hold out on buying that new card until one of them opens their source, and then they can't keep that opensourced card on the shelves, which card do you think will get put in the computer vendor's systems? Yep you guessed it, the one that SELLS. The one that OPENS THEIR SOURCE.
Have no fear my fellow slashdotters, you WILL get your open source drivers. They can't afford not to give it to us.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
Not to mention like how 3dfx treats their customers in relation to drivers.
New card released, all supported dead for old card. Look at banshee and GL drivers. Crapo
I hope it supports my trident cyber 9688 that's in my laptop
(no, i didn't read the article... Yet, no time =)
--
Lab test show that use of micro$oft causes deadly cancer in lab animals.
IF you read the glx-dev list as of Jan. one of the XFree developers was on there saying that open wasoverrated and they want bin only drivers.
This is all Apple's fault.
and
Precision Insight has expressed its intent to release source. I think we should give them a chance to make good on their promise.
You can never equivocate too much.
I'll overlook the childish outbursts in your post and address your enthusiasm for 3dfx instead.
Since few people have seen the V5 or any other new 3dfx hardware in the flesh, I'm basing my opinions on what the guys at Tom's Hardware say. If they don't know what they're talking about, YOU certainly don't stand a chance. Go read their CeBIT report and then talk again. Besides, you don't have to be even reading any third party's opinions: check out NVidia's and 3dfx's business health and you've got it right there.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I do not believe your writing will be appreciated here.
Nothing is appreciated here. That's the way it goes
alt.fan.furry
Are you being deliberately offensive? I have no desire to hang out with winnie-the-pooh idiots.
I tried to build the 4.0 release, but I don't have the modules (/usr/X11R6.4/lib/modules).
I've read the INSTALL file, but what i am missing?
Will it help me process insurance claims faster?
Will it run my warehouse more efficiently?
The answer is: NO.
If you want to waste your time playing games, boot windows, buy a console, or an iMac. I am sick to the teeth with the useless crap ordinarily smart programmers waste their time on. If these geniuses had a clue they'd spend time making sendmail easier to admin.
Oh, by the way...
Have you tried Powdermilk Biscuits?
My, they're tasty, and expeditious...
thank you.
Yes, definitely.
I have do disagree with you. I have about 4 computers that I run, but only two I would even try to run the latest games on. The first one is a Athlon 550 w/ 256 Meg o' RAM and a Voodoo3 3500. The second one is a Athlon 650 w/ 256 Meg o' RAM and a GeForce 256 SDRAM. I turn 32 bit color, the highest texture detail and all the bells and whistles on the second system and it cruises like a champ. On the first system of course it only does 16 bit color (trust me there is a differance) and I have to set everything off and it still chucks at times. I trust me I don't this its the extra 100 MHz that does all that. Plus NVidia has T&L which is great. I just waiting for a geometery engine as well, and more light sources (I'll be happy when they stop at 256 :)). As far as the V5 goes, it will be fast but odds are it willn't be competing with the GeForce, it will be competeing with NV15, and whatever Ati puts out (Charisma engine thingy). As far as NVidia not playing fair "back in the day" I'm not sure. Remember it was 3dfx that put out Glide and threatened to so whatever college student reverse engineered it as well as having very little OpenGL support. They still have their own MiniGL thing to try to fix that. Oh well back in the day doesn't matter in this industry or I'd still be on my C-64 with my 300 baud modem. NVidia has support for Linux, BeOS, and a buch more on their web site, and 3Dfx has support now to. As to why 3Dfx probably has more complete drivers for XFree 4.0, the answer is simple. If you remember last year they hired someone to write Linux drivers for them. So life goes on. I hope 3Dfx can say competative so NVidia and ATI has some competition. - Killjoy
One game : Quake III Arena Others have posted hyperlinks so I willn't. BTW T&L and Geometery engines have been on professional level cards for years. Of course these cards have costed $1000 - $4000 US. So I wouldn't complain, it's not a gimmick, just the natural progression. - Killjoy
Brand new to linux, I got a new box w/ Rage Fury MAXX and a new KDS Trinitrom moniter... When I startx, I get a screen flicker and an error saying "no screens found" boot detects my card as a Mach64, anyone if xfree 4 will take care of this.
Promise of better fonts. hmm.
I've just installed 4.0 from source on a redhat 6.1 box. xfs won't load on start up and all the fonts in netscape and kfm are buggered. I'm having trouble reading this as I type!
ideas anyone?
They finally updated their web site 15 minutes ago.
---
What I'd like to know is how fast really is the transformation engine on that card? Is it able to surpass the current generation of CPUs? Will it be able to out perform the boxes that come out in six months? Let's get real here. Transformation is only useful when it is substantially faster than the using the CPU. How many games can progress with non-rendering aspects of the gameplay without user input? So what good does it do to offload the job onto the vid card if the CPU still has to wait until the frame is displayed and the player has had a chance to provide feedback?
Well, despite the many hours of yeoman service provided by my Matrox Mill II, it looks like it's time to grab me a 3D accelerator for my PCI-only P233MMX XFree 4.0 plus Mesa sounds nifty-keen.
So given that I'm limited to PCI as my graphics bus, what's a good card to pick up?
I can get a Voodoo3 PCI, retail, for not a whole lot of cash, but is there a better choice?
Quality of support within Linux is a bigger issue for me than raw screaming 3D horsepower. 2D performance is not allowed to be impacted by the choice!
Suggestions?
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86.ht ml. html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-libs.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-devel.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-doc.html
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/XFree86-75dpi-fonts
Of course, they could be named differently, but who knows?
This
Does anyone know for sure that Quake2+DRI does NOT work with this release? I seem to recall that we were waiting for an update of Q2 before it would...
No mention in the release notes: Is there decent native support for scrolling wheel mice now. I can use my scrolling wheel with X3, but I thought there was a real standard coming that all apps could use.
The joke's on us dude, evidently /. doesn't mind butt-heads doing some advertising for M$...
/. effect?
Hmmm, I wonder if I could link to some porn sites and make some $$$ out of the
Ok, Here's (possibly) the first problem to be posted with output:
/usr/include/math.h:348, ../include/misc.h:181,
this is on make in the Xserver dir:
making all in programs/Xserver/include...
make[1]: Entering directory `/tmp/X/xc/programs/Xserver/include'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/X/xc/programs/Xserver/include'
making all in programs/Xserver/dix...
make[1]: Entering directory `/tmp/X/xc/programs/Xserver/dix'
rm -f atom.o
gcc -c -O2 -fno-strength-reduce -ansi -pedantic -Wall -Wpointer-arith -I../include -I../../../exports/include/X11 -I../../../include/fonts -I../../../include/extensions -I../../../programs/Xserver/Xext -I../../.. -I../../../exports/include -Dlinux -D__i386__ -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199309L -D_POSIX_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE -D_BSD_SOURCE -D_SVID_SOURCE -D_GNU_SOURCE -DSHAPE -DXINPUT -DXKB -DLBX -DXAPPGROUP -DXCSECURITY -DTOGCUP -DXF86BIGFONT -DDPMSExtension -DPIXPRIV -DPANORAMIX -DGCCUSESGAS -DAVOID_GLYPHBLT -DPIXPRIV -DSINGLEDEPTH -DXFreeXDGA -DXvExtension -DXFree86LOADER -DXFree86Server -DXF86VIDMODE -DX_BYTE_ORDER=X_LITTLE_ENDIAN -DSMART_SCHEDULE -DNDEBUG -DFUNCPROTO=15 -DNARROWPROTO atom.c
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h: In function `__signbitf':
In file included from
from
from atom.c:49:
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:117: warning: ANSI C forbids specifying structure member to initialize
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:117: initializer element for `__u.__f' is not computable at load time
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h: In function `__signbit':
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:122: warning: ANSI C forbids specifying structure member to initialize
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:122: initializer element for `__u.__d' is not computable at load time
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h: In function `__signbitl':
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:127: warning: ANSI C forbids specifying structure member to initialize
/usr/include/bits/mathinline.h:127: initializer element for `__u.__l' is not computable at load time
make[1]: *** [atom.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/X/xc/programs/Xserver/dix'
make: *** [dix] Error 2
Ok, it's not that I don't agree with the whole open source movement. In fact, I think it's pretty slick. BUT.....what are the chances I'm actually going to go in and support and rewrite the code in any of the programs I use? Slim to none. In fact, I can bet that 95+% of people can say the same thing. There are a lot of computer users out there that not only don't have the foggiest idea how to program to fix their own programs/drivers/etc, they don't care! As long as it works, that's all they care about. So in that environment, it wouldn't really matter if it's open source or not.
I can see that in the Linux community, open source is pretty much a neccessity because in most cases, there is no single organization behind and given program or driver. What this means is, if someone who had been writing a driver for an obscure brand of video card (for instance) upgraded his vid card, he would no longer have the need or desire to support the old driver. That's where open source comes in handy....someone else can pick it up and work on it.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, even though a binary seems like a loss of freedom to you, to many MANY people it doesn't matter. Why? Because whether it's closed or open source, a majority of the people still don't understand it....so what does it matter as long as it works? I suppose if it really came down to it, those people not in the know can consult those that are in the know and get a third party to fix it.
But at last, I think in the big picture, most people would, whether they know anything about it or not, would prefer open source. Even though the majority doesn't know much if anything about it, the option is there for them to learn it and change their environment if they so choose. So I think open source is here to stay, and will continue to grow. Who knows, perhaps our children, or our children's children will live in a world where all software is open source. There will be a lot of opposition to it, I'm sure. There are a lot of people that stand to lose a lot of money if open source becomes wide spread. Greed is a powerful force. Perhaps one day we'll see a Shadowrun type of environment where people hack into corp computers to free code! Instead of releasing poor lab animals, they hack into corp computers and distribute the closed source code into the mainstream. An interesting concept, actually. Could that become reality? I guess only time will tell.
"When you gotta shoot, SHOOT! Don't talk." Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
I have XFree86 functional on a 386 with 8 megs of old style ram. Previously I had it running on a slower 386 with 6 megs of old sytle ram. I can't run anything big, and lots of patience is required, but given how inherantly slow the machine is performance with IceWM or Windowmaker isn't bad. I can run multiple xterms, xcoral, emacs after a bit of a wait, and if I get really crazy I can sort of run abiword. (Not recommended, but possible.) Xcoral works just fine for a lot of stuff. Plus, those type of machines shouldn't be used for X - use them as terminals or file servers or something similar.
Get rid of that substandard ASUS crap and get yerself a SOYO SY-6BA+ IV . Best single-cpu BX chipset mobo on the planet right now. Ultra stable and an overclocker's dream, though the Highpoint HPT366 ATA/66 controller on mine doesn't like to overclock over 110MHz very well. I switched to wide ultra SCSI with an Adaptec controller and now can run all day long at 6 x 124Mhz for a total of 744MHz (or 6 x 126 = 756 with some instability) with my retail boxed P-III/600 that's had the stock heatsink replaced with a GlobalWin massive dual fan cooler. Oh, yeah make sure you use good PC-133 SDRAM dimms, I'm running 2x128M Corsairs for 256M total.
Mozilla's ability to do alpha PNG has nothing to do with X's ability, just like the gnome-canvas can do alpha pngs without X server support.
You may add the Voodoo Rush to that. When the Voodoo 2 came out, 3dfx acted like the Rush never happened. My opinion only.
jm
Thanks, but I'll pass.
es, I consider those stupid and out of context cites rather annoying at times 8|
A proper scowling emoticon uses an upper case 'B' for the eyes...., gives a "furrowed brow" appearance. The 8 just looks like a goofball. B| or B{
Any answers?
What do you know? PLease tell us.
So, where's the joke?
The joke is the "It lowers cost..." and "And it's the best operating system..." bits. Sarcastic humor, ya know, like SNL used to be back in its heyday (It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!)
>I am writing a 3D game engine, so I think I know what I'm talking about.
We'll see.
>Second, the V4 and V5 SUCK ASS compared to the GeForce.
Hmm, this sounds like flame bait to me. Excuse me but who sent you a V5 to make such an an educated assumption like that?
>Transformation and Lighting......image quality at the moment.
You seem to regurgitate what websites have been saying for months very well. On-board T&L is a great feature developers should take advantage from, but in the future, right now fillrate is more important with games currently available. And games are what ultimately drive the PC industry.
>the V5 will suck ass compared to the GeForce in games released a year from now.
Hey genius, the project cycle for these 3d card companies is to pump out 2 new card every year. Considering that games like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament don't really take strong advantage of on-board T&L, and will be the most used engines in games to come for the next 2 years. T&L is almost a useless feature presently where anti-aliasing is very pretty and reflective shadows and lights makes a much better environment to play and to view.
Overall I think both cards are great. I think both companies are great at what they do. I for one am sick of all this "xxxx wil suck ass. The yyyy will rule the xxxx" I think T&L is as over-hyped as the T-Buffer.
My $.02.
-John
Nvidia is working on full DRI drivers for 4.0 for TNT2 and GeForce. Yes, they will be closed source and yes they will use a licensed SGI OpenGL implementation and not Mesa. That's fine with me, MESA is great but it is NOT a complete feature implementation of OpenGL and there are many known bugs with it.
Pesonally, I'm going to wait to see the performance and stability of their closed source drivers before I condemn them. Arguably, Nvidia has the best OpenGL drivers for Windows of any of the consumer boards. (By this I mean that the Nvidia cards work flawlessly with professional application like Maya and 3D Studio MAX even though they were not designed for that market) They also have a lot of ex SGI employees and know how to design a good opengl pipeline and then drive it hard.
IMHO, as long as their drivers are fast and reliable I don't care if they are open source or not. If any company can make a stable and fast linux driver without the help of the Open Source community it's Nvidia so I'm willing to give them a chance at least.
Several postings on the Utah-GLX dev list have hinted that Nvidia has an inhouse developed SGI OpenGL GLX driver for X Free 86 ready to go. They were waiting for the final release of XF86 4.0 so that the API for DRI would not change anymore. Now 4.0 is out I reckon there will be a Nvidia XF86 4.0 driver out within 2 weeks.
Tom has been in the back pocket of nVidia for a while now. It's common knowledge that he has a clear pro-nVidia, anti-3dfx bias.
Anyway, I don't think there is all that much value in predicting the future of the V4/V5. The V4/5 will certainly outperform the GeForce on current games because of its extremely high fill rate. The GeForce T&L engine is not used at all by current D3D games and current GL games don't have high enough polygon counts to get much benefit from it. It's hard to say whether future games will ship with sufficiently high polygon counts to give the GeForce an advantage over the V4/5, just as it is hard to say whether any developers will bother trying to take advantage of the V4/5's anti-aliasing or the G400's bump mapping. The only things that seem to be certain are that nVidia will release the successor to the GeForce before 3dfx releases the successor to the V4/5, and that the v4/5 will be overpriced.
However, RIGHT NOW, at this point in time, the V3 is a better choice for a Linux gamer than a GeForce. First of all, the DRI drivers for the GeForce are way behind the V3 and G400 DRI drivers. The current GeForce drivers are no where near fast enough under Linux to support playing in 32bit color, so you're stuck playing in 16 bit color at frame rates well below the V3 cards or the Matrox card. Second, the V3 supports Glide, which allows you to play Unreal Tournament in Linux. Even on Windows, many games with Glide support run better using Glide on a 3dfx board than D3D or OGL on GeForce boards.
If you are strictly a Linux gamer, and don't care about the GeForce performance under Windows, why spend the big bucks on a GeForce when it will be whipped by a cheap V3 2000 (at least in the near term). If you've got the money to burn, a Matrox G400 is also a better choice than the GeForce under Linux.
Give Me Slack (or, give me food (or, kill me...))
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
People trying to compile and install from source are invariably going to have missing files, too many things Error and fail out, but regardless make World will keep going and going instead of stopping. I personally had five critical errors that I had to search the build log for, trudge through the source and hack it into submission :) Got it all to build, now all I need is to go home and try it :)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Which leads me to another question: just why do you use Linux or BSD anyway?
Now tell me, how is this "Funny" enough to be rated to a 5?
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I just did, on my 2x466 Celeron + V770/32MB system, and the 2D performance improvements are startling.. You'll probably have to regenerate your XF86Config but it's definitely worth it, unless you want to use glx (though utah-glx might work, I have yet to try)..
BTW, the DDC stuff is way cool, helped me put in the ideal modeline for 1920x1200 on my Sony W900 24" widescreen, and bring it up to 76Hz refresh!
That modeline, btw:
ModeLine "1920x1200" 245.500 1920 1984 2240 2584 1200 1203 1206 1250
Your Working Boy,
I just compiled and configured it (which went really smoothly, apart from makedepend hanging once during 'make world' - just kill the makedepend process and it'll go on compiling.) Feels really fast, and I haven't had any apps fail yet, except one, Enlightment. It refuses to start saying "your x server does not support the Shape extension", and says it's probably because I'm running an old X server. Hmm, right, must be it. :)
Seriously though, stuff like that was bound to happen, and I'm sure it will all be fixed soon enough. Big congrats to the XFree people for pulling off such an ambitious project so well.
I believe that he meant that the "entire Linux system" is not as free or open-source with the inclusion of XFree86 4.0
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
"Considering that games like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament don't really take strong advantage of on-board T&L [...]"
There is a simple reason: both games were and still are in direct competition, now imagine if one game had to be delayed a couple of months so the game could take a real advantage of T&L - excuse me but the other game would have died..
Now imagine a game using the Quake3 engine, but with LOTS of curves everywhere. Jaw-dropping scenes. Everything is curved. Including the models. They are human (or alien, or whatever)-shaped. You've never seen anything like this.
Now tell me if AA will do this.
NO.
And, since looks can sell, trust me that this guy is right when he says that in a year, games are going to kill 3dfx.
3dfx has little future right now, and soon or later they will have to support T&L too.
Does XFree86 4 suport OpenGL on 3dlabs boards? I have a Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro, with a 3DLabs Permedia 2, and I can't figure out if I'll be able to play Quake. The docs say it has "acceleration," but don't say anything about 3D or GL.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
The growing number of users of the Linux other Open Source operating systems is growing. No longer can the hardware providers ignore the consumer demand for hardware support on diverse platforms.
Actually the prognosis even better than that. True, in the sort run xf86v4 might lead to a slight an open-source drought, but it's the cost of migrating in new manufacturers.
However, the far-sighted hardware manufacturers don't want to get stuck in a business model that's going to put them out of business - they can see the writing on the wall: in the not-too-distant future Linux is destined to become an end-user consumer-oriented operating system.
While these future users may not know Open Source from open sores, the people building or selecting these systems (including some of us) will be able to "vote" with our customers dollars. That's a lot of constituents to beat closed-source manufacturers over the head with -- to the benefit of all operating systems.
TangoChaz
--------------------
"It's not enough to be on the right track -- you have to be moving faster than the train." -- Rod Davis, Editor of Seahorse Magazine
TangoChaz
"It's not enough to be on the right track -- you have to be moving faster than the train." -- Rod Davis, Editor of Seahorse Mag.
TangoChaz
--------------------
Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because the
I logging in to what is suppose to be the busiest ftp site on the net and what do I find. Nothing. X11 is empty and so is Xfree86. Not only that all the linux distros are gone too. Also freebsd netbsd mozilla. What the hell happened? Someone mentioned somewhere that it moved somewhere else. Where? A message on the ftp site would be nice.
I do wish you Linux people would stop insulting nVidia about bad X support. I all reality, it makes perfect business sense to write closed source DRI drivers. First, they are interested in the mainstream market. They really couldn't care less if the drivers are open source. If you don't like it, they don't need your business. I hear people saying they should boycott nVidia, and some other people telling a guy to stop talking about the power of the GeForce. Well..
1) The GeForce is the most powerful consumer card available, so there!
2) It doesn't have open source X drivers and I don't care.
3) Go ahead and boycott nVidia, they probably don't care either.
4) I use windows and have better 3D acceleration, sound acceleration and hardware support than Linux will have for another year. Now how you deal with that is up to you. You can be like some people and bitch about it, or you can be like the majority of the OSS movement and write it yourself.
Hardcore source mongering Linux users don't number nearly enough to matter. Go ahead and say all you want, but don't insult them because they don't support Open Source. Thats just as bad as the people who call Open Source communist. Strong words, sure, but I am seriously pissed of at the attitude some people have. They are the reason that so many people think that Linux users are just hot tempered 13 year olds. As for their X support, it really does make business sense to keep the drivers closed. Look at all the companies that are releasing Open source drivers. Either small companies, dying companies, or companies that are irrelevant at the high end. The sheer fact that people would actually buy a Voodoo 3 over a TNT 2 just because its the only card supported in X proves it. If Voodoo 3 had no linux drivers, nobody would still consider it relevant. Matrox is building up, but are still tiny compared to nVidia. ATI never really was relevant at the high end market where linux will first penetrate. nVidia is a good company, they make great products. Sure you have to use windows to appreciate them, but to most people it doesn't matter. And when the nVidia 3D solution for Linux comes out, we will be sitting here enjoying increadible 3D accleration while the Open Source fundementalists wonder how they can overclock their Voodoo 3 to squeeze that out extra frame in Quake.
PS) 3D support isn't even coming to BeOS (my prefered platform) for a while. (But when it does come, watch out!) I don't bitch. I still love nVidia. If they become corrupt like 3Dfx, then I'll ditch them. Until now, I'm sitting happy over my TNT and waiting for my GeForce.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I first saw it when they said that 3.9.18 was going to be the last pre-4.0, they should say this. If the stable kernel development coordinator had said that 2.2.15pre13 was going to be the last 2.2.15pre, it would be the same thing. (For those of you that don't know, that was a relatively buggy pre). If something was needed to be fixed in XFree86 3.9.18, they should fix it, not just shove it out the door. Otherwise, they're not better than Microsoft.
Right on the XFree86 homepage, it says of the 4.0 release:
If you're looking for a stable version of XFree86, you might be better off with the latest 3.3.x release.
Now I ask you this: isn't this supposed to be a stable release?
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Don't go getting big-headed. Whatever /.-ers may think of themselves, they're still a fairly insignificant bump on the Consumer-o-meter.
(Yeah - like this'll get moderated up!)
Are you an idiot or just stupid? IP in the DRIVERS??? That implies that most of the work is done in the drivers, where in reality it is the HARDWARE doing it...the drivers just tell the hardware what to do. And why should the card makes care if other people can write drivers for the card? They are selling a board, not software. And if someone will write drivers for their board for free, i think they'd be thrilled. I seriouly doubt that the drivers being open source would give the competitor an advantage. Wake up.
Just thought I'd drop a line and let everyone that Multihead support is working pretty well for me.
/usr/local/X11R6/lib/modules - anyone have a hint here?
I've got a 16m Voodoo3 AGP connected to a PanaScope S700 17" Monitor at 1280x1024, and a 4m off-brand S3 ViRGE PCI connected to some crappy 14" at 640x480.
WindowMaker doesn't quite know what's going on (heh) - so even though I can move the pointer from one monitor to the other, I can't move a window once I've launched it on that display. It also looks like it has lost my dock/clip setup and all the apps I had docked there. In addition, I have one dock and clip on each display.
The Voodoo support seems good, as was the 3.3.6 driver.
The ViRGE driver sucks rocks. Even with no accelleration, I get snow and other graphical inconsistencies.
Also, even though xdpyinfo reports that I'm running at 16bpp, Netscape (4.7, standalone) has that can't-get-enough-colors look. XV/Gimp looks normal, though. Odd.
Odd, I don't see the Xinerama extension in xdpyinfo, and there doesn't seem to be a module for it in
You'd be surprised. These days, it seems like companies suffer from ADD. They'll say one thing, make a few gestures towards it, then give up entirely when whoever in the higerups who was infatuated with the ideas moves on.
NVIDIA has basically made a commitment to supporting their cards under linux, with their first release. We now expect them to do it. If they are reluctant, they can simple claim there is no demand or some such.
Reminding them, forcefull, that there is demand, is a good way of doing it.
Oh, when I said FLOOD I meant the slashdot effect. If everyone who read slashdot and had one of the cards in question mailed, it would make a good reminder.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
As it turns out, there isn't that much support for it.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
There's something I've noticed about companies that behave as though they don't need my business: They invariably end up bankrupt or marginalized. The only exceptions to this are companies with significant monolopy power like Microsoft or the cable company. nVidia is not in this position. I've currently got a TNT2-based card in my linux computer, and I'm far from impressed by the current weak support and even less impressed by the vague promises for full OpenGL support. I expect I'll be buying a Matrox or 3dfx card soon. They may not be as good (I don't know), but at least I know they'll work, and continue to work through new versions of the Linux kernel. And they'll probably work on FreeBSD too, which I'm really starting to like. nVidia can bite me.
Search the web for "TTFGasp" for Windows, a small freeware program that enables antialiasing for 10pt and smaller fonts. I beleive it works but has a few limitations or bugs and is only recommended for advanced users. I personally haven't tried it but did read quite a bit about it.
Technicaly Dos had it before Mac.. a technical side effect.
Basicly the IBM PC could have a mono-text card and a CGA card in at the same time with no conflicts. It was up to the programmer to accually use this.
The Tandy/Radio Shack PCs did make use of this and instore demos would have graphics on one screen and text on the other.
Also some early Dos multitaskers would only run two tasks (limited PC memory made it difficult to run more) some of thies would asign one task to one screen and one to the other. (this way elimiating a lot of technical issues reguarding video interfaces)
To bring this full circle... Xfree 4.0 only just now has this support however Unix has had this for a few years predating the existence of Window, Mac, or even X.
Lacking any kind of GUI people working in graphics or CADing would need a graphic terminal and a text terminal. The commands would be entered into the text terminal and the results would show up on the graphic terminal.
Xwindow had this support for quite some time (not knowing who of the GUIs had this first).
Macs first multi-display was on the early Macs where one screen was built in and one on a card. Not very helpful however as the built in screen wasn't that great to start with.
Windows NT had this for a while but I havn't seen it used in any practical way. Mind you I havn't seen NT used in any practical way.
But while Xwindow had this for a while.. Xfree did not. If you wanted this feature you had to get a commertal Xwindow manager.
Windows 9x as far as I know still dose not support more than one monitor... But then Windows 9x dosn't support more than one sound card.. They are unqiue in this. (while I only need one monitor I use two sound cards and plan to install a third.. one for my Window Manager, one for SpeekFreely and one for MP3s)...
I don't actually exist.
---
gmp