Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the let-the-games-begin dept.
sammy!! writes "Debian unstable now has XFree86 4.0, so use apt-get or dselect and start downloading the new packages!"
There are still a ton of issues with it, but I've been using the XF86 debs for several months on my desktop, with no significant problems.
i have been using the phase1 (starting at v12) debs and also apt-getting the phase2.
I currently rebuilt my system (testing, wanted to be super clean after) and i stayed at x3.when x4 came into woody (yesterday i believe) the problems started.
i needed to reboot my box do to hardware issues. nothing serious. then when i when to start X i found my backspace and delete werent working (guys on irc had a riot with my typing, mad props to #clan_gun:) ) the keyboard maps for X were gone.
so i wanted to look at the problem, noticed x3 and x4 installed on my box ( first time i used dselect in a while). i thought to my self "what a great time to upgrade to x4" i removed x3 and added the extra x4 that was missing.
shut down X when to restart, startx was missing.
i removed EVERYTHING x related and reinstalled x4 debs. now everything seems fine.
now. nvidia GLX drivers, i had test10, compiled with warnings about a INC and DEC pionter not right. and insmod NVdriver gave me "unknown symbol xxINCxx() and xxxDECxxx()
downgraded to test7, module compiled fine.
removed mesa conficts and restarted X couldnt start X.... su segfaulted. reboot worked
ran blender system locked (harshly) manually needed to run fsck./var/lib/dpkg/available was missing touched it and continued
changed xf86config-4 back to nv from nvidia
x wouldnt restart. removed x4 installed x4 everything khosher ( i am sure i only needed to remove/usr/X11/lib/modules/extension/*glx* but i reinstalled anyways)
now everything works minus closed source nvidia glx.
not fscking with anything else:)
-rev
normally i am not this lame, just wanted to share with others incase they ran into similar problems.
this is why my sources.list is pointed to 'stable' and 'proposed-updates'.
I'll admit sometimes the package maintainers screw up and install a package into 'proposed-updates' that breaks the system (like lprng 3.6.12-7 with buggy setuid kernel bug-check) but overall you get the same important package upgrades without the risk to production or important systems.
When X4 has support for the Savage4 chipsets (and it better be free) and it's in proposed, I'll upgrade, but horror stories I've seen and heard with X4 will keep my system in 3.3.6 for a while.
-- # debian/rules
Re:Font anti-aliasing is evil
by
Surak
·
· Score: 2
What's wrong with Windows' font antialiasing (other than the fact that it doesn't work all the time?:)
The 4.x X servers use a new style of configuration file. It's supposed to be automagically generated by running xf86cfg; however, this doesn't always work. Branden has written a tool to generate the config file, but it doesn't always work either. In lieu of this, it's probably a good idea to go to XFree86.org and brush up on the 4.0 series XF86Config file format before upgrading.
xf86config seems to work nicely, except that it generates/etc/X11/XF86Config instead of/etc/X11/XF86Config-4. And if you want any extra modules loaded, or you want to change some of the more obscure defaults, you'll still have to edit it.
Also, the new name for the config file is XF86Config-4 (I don't know if this is debian specific) instead of XF86Config.
If you have no XF86Config-4, then it looks at XF86Config. But (probably to support keeping 3.x on the system or something) the packages install XF86Config-4 by default.
Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences.
He's probably very busy;)
-----
--
--
perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Yes! Go here and checkout how anti-aliased fonts are being implemented in the new X. From what I can see from the spec, we may end up with really nice fonts after all.
-- A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Re:XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines
by
Fluffy+the+Cat
·
· Score: 2
The Debian packages are X from CVS.
Re:XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines
by
Sneakums
·
· Score: 2
You can do that in one step using dpkg --divert --rename.
--
"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
Re:Font anti-aliasing is evil
by
Fervent
·
· Score: 2
How is Windows antialiasing "evil"? It sure looks pretty on my box.
That's one of the major reasons I stay away from X in the first place (besides the fact that my new Mobility chipset in my new laptop really isn't supported). It just doesn't look as "finished" as it does in Windows.
--
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines
by
Yebyen
·
· Score: 5
I have been using the unofficial (phase2) debs of XFree86 4.0.1 for a while, and they are impressive. They actually work a lot better than compiling from source for me. In case it matters to anybody, the nv.o module even supports GeForce2GTS and other cards only supported in CVS as of now.
These debs seem fairly stable to me and are worth the download for most cards. Enjoy!
--
-- Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
Re:XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines
by
BLarg!
·
· Score: 3
Apt-get mesag3, mesag-dev, glutg3, and glutg3-dev if you don't already have them. Then download the NVidia driver. Then you have to do a little work to get things to work together. Move/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.a to/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.a.debi an,/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so to/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.debian ,/usr/lib/libGL.so to/usr/lib/libGL.so.debian, and/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 to/usr/lib/libGL.so.1.debian. After you rename those files you gotta telll dpkg to divert them. Do that with dpkg-divert --divert/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.a.debi an/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libGLcore.a, dpkg-divert --divert/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.debian/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so, dpkg-divert --divert/usr/lib/libGL.so.debian/usr/lib/libGL.so, dpkg-divert --divert/usr/lib/libGL.so.1.debian/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
After all that dirty work you should be able to install the NVidia GLX drivers by their instructions, and it will replace the libraries you moved with its own GL implementation. The idea here is that you can still develop OpenGL apps and you still have the GLU/GLUT libraries. Diverting those libraries will allow apt to update Mesa to newer versions without overwriting NVidia's implementation. After doing all that you shouldn't have any problem.
Re:XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines
by
psychos
·
· Score: 3
Don't forget to get the XF ree 86 4.0 drivers from NVIDIA, even if you're not using 3d; they're faster for 2d stuff than the open-source drivers included with XFree86.
the temptation to make really bad "woody" jokes is just way too much.
(So, would this mean XFree4 is sporting a woody?)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
-- "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky
by
StandardDeviant
·
· Score: 3
This isn't a Debian issue (I'm using 4.0.1 on my mongrel RH workstation), but I have noticed recently that the X server will SIG 11 at odd times. I haven't pinned down the common thread yet, but it seems to happen at the point of initial start up of some programs (e.g. the AnyJ java ide thingy from www.netcomputing.de, which gets to the splash screen and _blammo_, X server dies). When I first installed X 4.0, it would SIG 11 when I right clicked on a variable in DDD. So anyway, my point is be cautious, as for all the improvments in XFree 4.x (and don't get me wrong, it is nicer, especially in the font managment realm), it still has some odd stability issues.
Re:Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky
by
Chris+Pimlott
·
· Score: 2
I feel I should add my own datapoint, I've been using X4 since 4.0 and I have not experienced a single random crash. (P300, Intel i740 chipset video card)
Re:Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky
by
dbarclay10
·
· Score: 3
You know, I had noticed that X died on me fairly often, but I found out that it was Java that was causing the problems. I didn't really care, though.
This was a few months ago. A few days ago, I got the Java2(1.3;) runtime from java.sun.com, and now all the crashes have stopped.
Dave 'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
--
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Re:Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky
by
Fross
·
· Score: 5
but I have noticed recently that the X server will SIG 11 at odd times.
You mean it'll start flaming CmdrTaco then throw all its toys out of the pram and storm off?:)
Fross
So who among us held out?
by
John+Whitley
·
· Score: 4
We need a/. poll:
Did you "hold out" knolwedge of the XFree86 4 debs until you'd downloaded yours?
( ) Yes, bwahaha.
( ) No
( ) First post!
( ) What's a deb?
Re:So who among us held out?
by
Chris+Pimlott
·
· Score: 2
Don't forget
() What are you talking about, I've been using the 4.0 debs for weeks now
Re:So who among us held out?
by
Chris+Pimlott
·
· Score: 2
There are debs of 4.0.1 that someone has succesfully compiled on potato (from a slightly earlier version of the woody ones). Search the debian-x archives and you should be able to find it.
Re:So who among us held out?
by
jguthrie
·
· Score: 2
I routinely upgrade all of the computers that I have running Woody every few days. I first noticed this afternoon when, as a test of a new network card install (replacing an RTL-8139 with a 3Com-SOHO because the RTL-8139 drivers appear to be defective) I did a refresh and, lo and behold, there it was.
However, it would never have occured to me to submit it as news to/.. I mean, other than die-hard deb-heads, such as myself, who cares, and if you're a die-hard deb-head, then you already knew about it.
Re:Font anti-aliasing is NOT evil
by
tjwhaynes
·
· Score: 3
Because Windows has had it for 5 years.
And RiscOS had it in 1987. Your point?
Windows implementation of Antialiasing (known as Font Smoothing in the Windows world) is a long way away from the ideal Nirvana of text presentation. Antialiasing is really a problem with small text sizes - all those serifs and lines close together get confused when you try to render a vector object onto a grid with too few sampling points. As Windows only smooths the larger font sizes by default, this makes it a little irrelevent for text viewing. Nyquist would tell you more.
Therefore an advanced font renderer will help the eye perceive the real shape of the text better by shading the text with different shades between the text by understanding what proportion of the curve of the letter lies inside the pixel. This is particularly important when you consider sub pixel alignment both horizontally and vertically - with large passages of text with real micro alignment, this makes a huge difference to the readability of the text - enough that helvetica in a 5 pixel high font is vageuly intelligible. Speaking as someone who tend to use a 6x13 font for most things on a 21 inch monitor, antialiasing of the text in Type1 or truetype vector formats would be a huge step forward.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
-- Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I think that the debian packages (at least) are including some pre-realse work with this too. At least, it was noted in the changelog a while back that we were now 'including render extension'.
-- The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
Re:Read This Before Upgrading!
by
Turmio
·
· Score: 2
> 2. If you're planning on using a 3d accelerated graphics card i.e. (Rage 128, 3dfx, etc), you must have DRI support compiled into your kernel with the appropriate kernel module for your card. There is a new Mesa for XFree86 4.0.1 that has builtin support for DRI; however, there is a problem with this package. It does not include the libGLU(a subset of the Mesa library) static library or header files. This means that you must manually extract libGLU from the existing Woody Mesa package and copy it into/usr/local/lib/whatever if you plan on running 3d apps that depend on libGLU(almost all!). _Plase_ check your facts before posting.
See that? Thanks to the patch made by Craig Dunwoody, the latest phase2 package and the first package upload to woody contains the GLU library. Before that patch you had to do that ugly stuff you mentioned, though. But not anymore.
> 4. Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences. This is pretty natural reaction if you ask me. What would you feel if you'd receive a couple of dozens of mails daily all asking the same thing: when on earth are you going to do those XFree86 4.0 debs you lazy dog? But, for (sometimes) more intellectual conversation, there's an excellent mailing list available, debian-x@lists.debian.org . Folks over there, that includes Branden, are glad to help you with all the problems you may encounter regarding the XFree86 4.0 debs. Though be sure to crawl through the debian-x list archive before asking simple questions. It's pretty likely it has already been asked and answered. Especially if it has something to do with the 3rd-party 3D drivers.
What do cruft-encased UNIX old-timers get from preaching function over form? Does it make you feel 'leet? Humans are visual creatures. They appreciate things that look nice. Cars, magazines, furniture, people of the opposite gender (a bow to P.C;) computer cases, everything! Form should not take precedence over function, but form shouldn't be left out entirely either. If you leave out form, then you're blind. If you leave out function, you're an iMac. If you do both, then you are one of a rare breed of competent designers.
PS> Aliased fonts also cause headaches.
-- A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The codename for next release is usually picked by the release manager, at the point when the frozen tree gets created. Considering "woody" hasn't been frozen yet, it's not known how the next unstable will be called.
I've installed the X 4.0 from source and the only problem so far was that I had to bring back some shared libs from X3.3 in order to succesfully compile KDE 2.
Apart from that, it rocks.
-- --
look, cheese ahoy!
Re:OT: What are they on?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
and Buzz, and Bo, and Rex. The scheme is characters in `Toy Story.' (An exployee of Pixar was head of Debian at the first naming.)
As for what's next, I don't know either. Andy? Armymen?
(ragnarsedai)
Re:Read This Before Upgrading!
by
jkc120
·
· Score: 3
The blinking could be a side effect of not loading the "dbe" module in "Section \"Modules\"";) Try adding a line Load "dbe" (double buffering extensions) in XF86Config. I've read a couple of places that this will fix the flickering issues in some applications.
Well. I just finished recovering from
the upgrade to XF4.0 using
apt-get update
apt-get dist-install
It was not an altogether smooth experience.
I did have the presence of mind to exit
from X before attempting it.
apt-get claimed that task-x-window-core
was being kept back. Now I am rather
new to debian and wasn't sure what exactly
was meant by a package being kept back,
but as I had already determined to take the
plunge I went forward.
This was perhaps, not the wisest move.
A great many things where installed and
removed. At the end of it all startx would
not cause X to run. It failed because it claimed
it couldn't open display 0:0.
So I paniced and began searching on google
with lynx for someway to take it all back.
I discovered several kluggy suggestions involving
diff file of the/var/lib/dpkg/status and
/var/lib/dpkg/status.yesterday.0 files, but
nothing that looked very promising. (As
an aside, if anyone knows a good way to role
debian back to yesterday please let me know,
it looks like this is something that should be
quite doable.)
So I revisited the task-x-window-core problem.
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
revealed that it could not install because it
couldn't install xutils.
apt-get install xutils
informed me that it would have to remove
task-gnome and a bunch of other things
that I really didn't want to have to give up.
Being desperate however I agreed.
xutils then installed fine.
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
then complained that it couldn't install because
it couldn't get xbase to install.
apt-get install xbase
went off without a hitch however. Then finally
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
worked. Things installed and dexter was invoked
to generate the configuration file.
Everything is mostly fine now.
Hopefully my description of my experience will
help some other poor bastard who is reading this
in lynx.
One final note. The above is purely from
memory (I wasn't keeping a very good record
at the time) and so there may be some slight
inaccuracies.
I didn't have much luck with Debian... Redhat is nice, but moves too much stuff around IMHO.. Slackware was the very first distro of Linux I ever installed on any system, and it's still my favorite. I snagged XF4.0 a couple days ago and installed it, haven't had a problem yet.
Well, I've been running woody for a long time now, as well as using the XF4 debs since they were first introduced. Using the nv driver included with xf4, things are dandy. Using Nvidia's provided binary drivers is another story, completely. If you have an Nvidia card, and can live without 3d acceleration, stick with the XF4 provided driver. Unfortunately for us who like to play Quake3 and do various things which require 3d support (aka blender), you are stuck using Nvidia's drivers. Good luck...every time I use a OpenGL program, and exit, I have to completely exit X before I can run another OpenGL program. Oh...stability...maybe if you run a word processor...but when you are doing heavy 3-d work, things just die. Don't blame xfree86, blame Nvidia. No holy wars over open/closed models, I'm just letting people know.
David
PS - I have an Nvidia TNT...maybe GeForce cards don't have the same issues? I'm running the newest Nvidia binaries as well.
The problem is that the driver scheme is completely revised in XFree86 4, thus meaning that drivers effectively need to be rewritten.
Consider it granted that the existing code base will be very useful for reference, and possibly even code fragments, when writing the new drivers. That does not deny that the drivers need to be created afresh.
Drivers get written based on two things:
Developers wanting to do so, and
Developers being encouraged to want to do so .
It's not S3 that "sucks," and, it should be noted, by the way, under S3 driver support that it's only the S3V that is supported; my S3 968 board is not supported , with no plans for that to be upcoming.
To the contrary, it's closer to being you that suck. If you want S3V supported, then you should either be looking at the code, or doing something like sending a donation to XFree86 along with encouragement that they improve S3V support.
A 4MB S3V card is likely worth $10 these days; that is just not going to warrant a lot of work at this time when they're only available as surplus, and when efforts are concentrating more on supporting 3D hardware which an S3V "325" is just incapable of coping with well.
-- If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re:Font anti-aliasing is NOT evil
by
spongman
·
· Score: 2
The "Nirvana of text presentation" is not achievable on today's monitors. Windows does as good a job as I've seen anywhere at making fonts readable at both large and small point sizes.
Antialiasing at small point sizes is unhelpful on most display technologies as all it does it makes the text blurry - try it, it looks crap. That's why they don't do it.
The font renderer in RiscOS was OK, but it didn't handle things like asymetric sub-pixel alignment very well - it just relied on the antialising to 'blurr' our the errors at small point sizes.
For a good example of the difference between a good font rendere and a god-awful one, use notepad and AcrobatReader side-by-side with various fonts and sizes. Check by zooming the pixels, too.
What do cruft-encased UNIX old-timers get from preaching function over form?
Gee, I dunno, maybe because we like to use our computers to get things accomplished, instead of admiring them from across the room as objects d'art?
They appreciate things that look nice. Cars, magazines, furniture, people of the opposite gender (a bow to P.C;) computer cases, everything!
My car is a dirty green Toyota Tercel encrufted with bumper stickers, my furniture mostly second-hand, my boxen encased in plain beige (with various comic strips and the like plastered on, of course),and I don't judge printed matter by its cover. (Otherwise one would conclude that USA Today is a superior source of news to the New York Times.)
Now, in terms of persons of the appropriate gender, when it comes to sex form is a part of function. But in the other examples you site, some sophmoric designer's notion of form usually ends up getting in the way of using the damn thing - pretty chairs that are impossible to sit in, computer cases that impede repair and update,
PS& Aliased fonts also cause headaches.
Actually, I find that blurry "smoothed" fonts are more likely to hurt me, as my eyes try in vain to bring them into focus. OTOH, a lot of people here seem to be saying that they're most useful for small fonts, whereas my take is just to save myself the eyestrain either way and avoid small fonts completely. (Website and document designers who force them on me are, of course, idiots who should be strung up by their thumbs.)
-- Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog You cannot wash away blood with blood
Please also recognize that there are some problems w/NVidia's drivers in SMP systems. On my system, some GL app's crash - some much harder than others. Still can't get quake2 to run for more than 30 seconds w/out crashing. Trying a single CPU kernel makes the problems go away, but that is not the solution I was looking for.
If you have matrox with utah-glx or Hercules mono DO NOT apt-get yet.
I did (having both cards) and:
- XF86_SVGA no longer works so: bye bye 3d...
- XF86_Mono and fbdev are gone and X4 doesn't seem to have ANY hercules suport at all
- xf86cfg DIES with SIGILL
- xf86config generates the same'ol fscked up config-file (now for 4.x versions)
- empty man pages... lots of them... had to "strings input/wacom.so" driver to get some hints.
however - for 2d X4.0.1 on my g400 is smoother...
--
-- 1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq
Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Read This Before Upgrading!
by
Hornsby
·
· Score: 5
After using the apt repository on Branden's(the Debian X Maintainer) website to have XFree86 4.0.1 on two of my desktop machines, I have a few words of advice.
1. The 4.x X servers use a new style of configuration file. It's supposed to be automagically generated by running xf86cfg; however, this doesn't always work. Branden has written a tool to generate the config file, but it doesn't always work either. In lieu of this, it's probably a good idea to go to XFree86.org and brush up on the 4.0 series XF86Config file format before upgrading. Also, the new name for the config file is XF86Config-4 (I don't know if this is debian specific) instead of XF86Config.
2. If you're planning on using a 3d accelerated graphics card i.e. (Rage 128, 3dfx, etc), you must have DRI support compiled into your kernel with the appropriate kernel module for your card. There is a new Mesa for XFree86 4.0.1 that has builtin support for DRI; however, there is a problem with this package. It does not include the libGLU(a subset of the Mesa library) static library or header files. This means that you must manually extract libGLU from the existing Woody Mesa package and copy it into/usr/local/lib/whatever if you plan on running 3d apps that depend on libGLU(almost all!).
3. There are still serious issues with 3d acceleration on the Rage 128 cards and 3dfx cards. If I run tuxracer(or any GL app) with certain WindowMaker apps running(from inside of Blackbox), I get constant blinking inside of the 3d application. The solution(for now) is to shut down any WM applet that refreshes constantly. Don't even try to use 3d acceleration inside of enlightenment(horrible blinking).
4. Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences.
Other than that, the new X is really nice and noticably faster than the 3.3 series. Enjoy it.
-- A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Experience with a Voodoo3 and X4.01 Woody
by
Outlyer
·
· Score: 4
Well, I upgraded to X4 yesterday via apt, and the packager did an amazing job. First of all, there is a nice dialog-style configuration tool called Dexter which builds a config file easily. However, there are a couple of caveats:
(1) If you're using DRI with a Voodoo3, you need to modify your XF86Config-4 to use a default depth of 16... maybe it's obvious to some people, I didn't make the conclusion instantly. (Voodoo3's only support 3D in 16-bit color)
(2) You need to find ttmkfdir if you want to use Truetype fonts, mkfontdir doesn't do it. I don't know if there is a Debian package either.
(3) Voodoo3 support is buggy, I don't know if it's the Glide, the DRI modules, or X itself, but some things (like a few xmms plugins) crashed my box HARD, as in, I needed a hard reboot.
Anyway, those issues aside, this is a remarkably well-packaged version of X4, and most people will have little or no trouble with a smooth upgrade via apt. Much props to Branden for packaging them so well.
If you do upgrade, believe me, there is a noticeable speed increase, and Tuxracer is playable:) Don't forget to build that 2.4-test10 kernel too.
-- -----------------
"I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused
-------------------
Slashdot Mirror
I;ve been using the phase2 ones for a while now with no problems at all.
Just make sure your card is supported, and it should work well. The config files are different, but it uses a dialog setup tool that works ok.
Its actually a really nice config file, so if there are any problems you shoud be ok.
I currently rebuilt my system (testing, wanted to be super clean after) and i stayed at x3.when x4 came into woody (yesterday i believe) the problems started.
i needed to reboot my box do to hardware issues. nothing serious. then when i when to start X i found my backspace and delete werent working (guys on irc had a riot with my typing, mad props to #clan_gun :) ) the keyboard maps for X were gone.
so i wanted to look at the problem, noticed x3 and x4 installed on my box ( first time i used dselect in a while). i thought to my self "what a great time to upgrade to x4" i removed x3 and added the extra x4 that was missing. shut down X when to restart, startx was missing.
i removed EVERYTHING x related and reinstalled x4 debs. now everything seems fine.
now. nvidia GLX drivers, i had test10, compiled with warnings about a INC and DEC pionter not right. and insmod NVdriver gave me "unknown symbol xxINCxx() and xxxDECxxx() downgraded to test7, module compiled fine.
removed mesa conficts and restarted X couldnt start X.... su segfaulted. reboot worked
ran blender system locked (harshly) manually needed to run fsck. /var/lib/dpkg/available was missing touched it and continued
changed xf86config-4 back to nv from nvidia x wouldnt restart. removed x4 installed x4 everything khosher ( i am sure i only needed to remove /usr/X11/lib/modules/extension/*glx* but i reinstalled anyways)
now everything works minus closed source nvidia glx.
not fscking with anything else :)
-rev
normally i am not this lame, just wanted to share with others incase they ran into similar problems.
What's wrong with Windows' font antialiasing (other than the fact that it doesn't work all the time? :)
My journal has hot
xf86config seems to work nicely, except that it generates /etc/X11/XF86Config instead of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. And if you want any extra modules loaded, or you want to change some of the more obscure defaults, you'll still have to edit it.
Also, the new name for the config file is XF86Config-4 (I don't know if this is debian specific) instead of XF86Config.
If you have no XF86Config-4, then it looks at XF86Config. But (probably to support keeping 3.x on the system or something) the packages install XF86Config-4 by default.
Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences.
He's probably very busy ;)
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
I would recommend using 4.0.1, which is what is in debian.
I find it very good, it even has a smaller footprint.
apt-get install fttools
It includes mkttfdir.
Yes! Go here and checkout how anti-aliased fonts are being implemented in the new X. From what I can see from the spec, we may end up with really nice fonts after all.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
The Debian packages are X from CVS.
You can do that in one step using dpkg --divert --rename.
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"Where, where is the town? Now, it's nothing but flowers!"
That's one of the major reasons I stay away from X in the first place (besides the fact that my new Mobility chipset in my new laptop really isn't supported). It just doesn't look as "finished" as it does in Windows.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
These debs seem fairly stable to me and are worth the download for most cards. Enjoy!
--
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
(So, would this mean XFree4 is sporting a woody?)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
This isn't a Debian issue (I'm using 4.0.1 on my mongrel RH workstation), but I have noticed recently that the X server will SIG 11 at odd times. I haven't pinned down the common thread yet, but it seems to happen at the point of initial start up of some programs (e.g. the AnyJ java ide thingy from www.netcomputing.de, which gets to the splash screen and _blammo_, X server dies). When I first installed X 4.0, it would SIG 11 when I right clicked on a variable in DDD. So anyway, my point is be cautious, as for all the improvments in XFree 4.x (and don't get me wrong, it is nicer, especially in the font managment realm), it still has some odd stability issues.
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News for Geeks in Austin, TX
We need a /. poll:
Did you "hold out" knolwedge of the XFree86 4 debs until you'd downloaded yours?
( ) Yes, bwahaha.
( ) No
( ) First post!
( ) What's a deb?
Because Windows has had it for 5 years.
And RiscOS had it in 1987. Your point?
Windows implementation of Antialiasing (known as Font Smoothing in the Windows world) is a long way away from the ideal Nirvana of text presentation. Antialiasing is really a problem with small text sizes - all those serifs and lines close together get confused when you try to render a vector object onto a grid with too few sampling points. As Windows only smooths the larger font sizes by default, this makes it a little irrelevent for text viewing. Nyquist would tell you more.
Therefore an advanced font renderer will help the eye perceive the real shape of the text better by shading the text with different shades between the text by understanding what proportion of the curve of the letter lies inside the pixel. This is particularly important when you consider sub pixel alignment both horizontally and vertically - with large passages of text with real micro alignment, this makes a huge difference to the readability of the text - enough that helvetica in a 5 pixel high font is vageuly intelligible. Speaking as someone who tend to use a 6x13 font for most things on a 21 inch monitor, antialiasing of the text in Type1 or truetype vector formats would be a huge step forward.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I think that the debian packages (at least) are including some pre-realse work with this too. At least, it was noted in the changelog a while back that we were now 'including render extension'.
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
> 2. If you're planning on using a 3d accelerated graphics card i.e. (Rage 128, 3dfx, etc), you must have DRI support compiled into your kernel with the appropriate kernel module for your card. There is a new Mesa for XFree86 4.0.1 that has builtin support for DRI; however, there is a problem with this package. It does not include the libGLU(a subset of the Mesa library) static library or header files. This means that you must manually extract libGLU from the existing Woody Mesa package and copy it into /usr/local/lib/whatever if you plan on running 3d apps that depend on libGLU(almost all!).
/usr/lib/libGLU.so.1.3
_Plase_ check your facts before posting.
~ $ dpkg -S libGLU.so.1
xlibmesa3:
See that? Thanks to the patch made by Craig Dunwoody, the latest phase2 package and the first package upload to woody contains the GLU library. Before that patch you had to do that ugly stuff you mentioned, though. But not anymore.
> 4. Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences.
This is pretty natural reaction if you ask me. What would you feel if you'd receive a couple of dozens of mails daily all asking the same thing: when on earth are you going to do those XFree86 4.0 debs you lazy dog? But, for (sometimes) more intellectual conversation, there's an excellent mailing list available, debian-x@lists.debian.org . Folks over there, that includes Branden, are glad to help you with all the problems you may encounter regarding the XFree86 4.0 debs. Though be sure to crawl through the debian-x list archive before asking simple questions. It's pretty likely it has already been asked and answered. Especially if it has something to do with the 3rd-party 3D drivers.
Hope that helped.
What do cruft-encased UNIX old-timers get from preaching function over form? Does it make you feel 'leet? Humans are visual creatures. They appreciate things that look nice. Cars, magazines, furniture, people of the opposite gender (a bow to P.C ;) computer cases, everything! Form should not take precedence over function, but form shouldn't be left out entirely either. If you leave out form, then you're blind. If you leave out function, you're an iMac. If you do both, then you are one of a rare breed of competent designers.
PS> Aliased fonts also cause headaches.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The codename for next release is usually picked by the release manager, at the point when the frozen tree gets created. Considering "woody" hasn't been frozen yet, it's not known how the next unstable will be called.
-- Josip Rodin
I've installed the X 4.0 from source and the only problem so far was that I had to bring back some shared libs from X3.3 in order to succesfully compile KDE 2.
Apart from that, it rocks.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
and Buzz, and Bo, and Rex. The scheme is characters in `Toy Story.' (An exployee of Pixar was head of Debian at the first naming.) As for what's next, I don't know either. Andy? Armymen? (ragnarsedai)
The blinking could be a side effect of not loading the "dbe" module in "Section \"Modules\"" ;) Try adding a line Load "dbe" (double buffering extensions) in XF86Config. I've read a couple of places that this will fix the flickering issues in some applications.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
Sorry to break it to you, but there aren't going to be any official XFree86 4.0 Potato debs. See this for details.
Dodger_
Well. I just finished recovering from
/var/lib/dpkg/status and
the upgrade to XF4.0 using
apt-get update
apt-get dist-install
It was not an altogether smooth experience.
I did have the presence of mind to exit
from X before attempting it.
apt-get claimed that task-x-window-core
was being kept back. Now I am rather
new to debian and wasn't sure what exactly
was meant by a package being kept back,
but as I had already determined to take the
plunge I went forward.
This was perhaps, not the wisest move.
A great many things where installed and
removed. At the end of it all startx would
not cause X to run. It failed because it claimed
it couldn't open display 0:0.
So I paniced and began searching on google
with lynx for someway to take it all back.
I discovered several kluggy suggestions involving
diff file of the
/var/lib/dpkg/status.yesterday.0 files, but
nothing that looked very promising. (As
an aside, if anyone knows a good way to role
debian back to yesterday please let me know,
it looks like this is something that should be
quite doable.)
So I revisited the task-x-window-core problem.
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
revealed that it could not install because it
couldn't install xutils.
apt-get install xutils
informed me that it would have to remove
task-gnome and a bunch of other things
that I really didn't want to have to give up.
Being desperate however I agreed.
xutils then installed fine.
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
then complained that it couldn't install because
it couldn't get xbase to install.
apt-get install xbase
went off without a hitch however. Then finally
apt-get install task-x-windows-core
worked. Things installed and dexter was invoked
to generate the configuration file.
Everything is mostly fine now.
Hopefully my description of my experience will
help some other poor bastard who is reading this
in lynx.
One final note. The above is purely from
memory (I wasn't keeping a very good record
at the time) and so there may be some slight
inaccuracies.
I didn't have much luck with Debian... Redhat is nice, but moves too much stuff around IMHO.. Slackware was the very first distro of Linux I ever installed on any system, and it's still my favorite. I snagged XF4.0 a couple days ago and installed it, haven't had a problem yet.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Ummm....What's the big deal here? RedHat 7.0 lets you use Xfree 4.0.1 or 3.3.6 and others use Xfree 4.0 as well.
Well, I've been running woody for a long time now, as well as using the XF4 debs since they were first introduced. Using the nv driver included with xf4, things are dandy. Using Nvidia's provided binary drivers is another story, completely. If you have an Nvidia card, and can live without 3d acceleration, stick with the XF4 provided driver. Unfortunately for us who like to play Quake3 and do various things which require 3d support (aka blender), you are stuck using Nvidia's drivers. Good luck...every time I use a OpenGL program, and exit, I have to completely exit X before I can run another OpenGL program. Oh...stability...maybe if you run a word processor...but when you are doing heavy 3-d work, things just die. Don't blame xfree86, blame Nvidia. No holy wars over open/closed models, I'm just letting people know. David PS - I have an Nvidia TNT...maybe GeForce cards don't have the same issues? I'm running the newest Nvidia binaries as well.
Apparently you don't.
But if you're not interested in Debian news, why haven't you excluded Debian in you preferences?
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
Slink, Potato, Woody, ...
In the IQ test of "which word comes next" I'd fail.
My guess would be "plectrum" or "orifice", can't decide which.
FatPhil
(again with all due respect)
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Please announce this too: KDE 2.0 is now included in slackware-current.
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html
Consider it granted that the existing code base will be very useful for reference, and possibly even code fragments, when writing the new drivers. That does not deny that the drivers need to be created afresh.
Drivers get written based on two things:
It's not S3 that "sucks," and, it should be noted, by the way, under S3 driver support that it's only the S3V that is supported; my S3 968 board is not supported , with no plans for that to be upcoming.
To the contrary, it's closer to being you that suck. If you want S3V supported, then you should either be looking at the code, or doing something like sending a donation to XFree86 along with encouragement that they improve S3V support.
A 4MB S3V card is likely worth $10 these days; that is just not going to warrant a lot of work at this time when they're only available as surplus, and when efforts are concentrating more on supporting 3D hardware which an S3V "325" is just incapable of coping with well.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Antialiasing at small point sizes is unhelpful on most display technologies as all it does it makes the text blurry - try it, it looks crap. That's why they don't do it.
The font renderer in RiscOS was OK, but it didn't handle things like asymetric sub-pixel alignment very well - it just relied on the antialising to 'blurr' our the errors at small point sizes.
For a good example of the difference between a good font rendere and a god-awful one, use notepad and AcrobatReader side-by-side with various fonts and sizes. Check by zooming the pixels, too.
Now, in terms of persons of the appropriate gender, when it comes to sex form is a part of function. But in the other examples you site, some sophmoric designer's notion of form usually ends up getting in the way of using the damn thing - pretty chairs that are impossible to sit in, computer cases that impede repair and update,
Actually, I find that blurry "smoothed" fonts are more likely to hurt me, as my eyes try in vain to bring them into focus. OTOH, a lot of people here seem to be saying that they're most useful for small fonts, whereas my take is just to save myself the eyestrain either way and avoid small fonts completely. (Website and document designers who force them on me are, of course, idiots who should be strung up by their thumbs.)Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I believe that statement is trademarked by the manufacturers of Yugo automobiles.
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Please also recognize that there are some problems w/NVidia's drivers in SMP systems. On my system, some GL app's crash - some much harder than others. Still can't get quake2 to run for more than 30 seconds w/out crashing. Trying a single CPU kernel makes the problems go away, but that is not the solution I was looking for.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
YES !
...
If you have matrox with utah-glx or Hercules mono DO NOT apt-get yet.
I did (having both cards) and:
- XF86_SVGA no longer works so: bye bye 3d
- XF86_Mono and fbdev are gone and X4 doesn't seem to have ANY hercules suport at all
- xf86cfg DIES with SIGILL
- xf86config generates the same'ol fscked up config-file (now for 4.x versions)
- empty man pages... lots of them... had to "strings input/wacom.so" driver to get some hints.
however - for 2d X4.0.1 on my g400 is smoother...
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1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
After using the apt repository on Branden's(the Debian X Maintainer) website to have XFree86 4.0.1 on two of my desktop machines, I have a few words of advice.
/usr/local/lib/whatever if you plan on running 3d apps that depend on libGLU(almost all!).
1. The 4.x X servers use a new style of configuration file. It's supposed to be automagically generated by running xf86cfg; however, this doesn't always work. Branden has written a tool to generate the config file, but it doesn't always work either. In lieu of this, it's probably a good idea to go to XFree86.org and brush up on the 4.0 series XF86Config file format before upgrading. Also, the new name for the config file is XF86Config-4 (I don't know if this is debian specific) instead of XF86Config.
2. If you're planning on using a 3d accelerated graphics card i.e. (Rage 128, 3dfx, etc), you must have DRI support compiled into your kernel with the appropriate kernel module for your card. There is a new Mesa for XFree86 4.0.1 that has builtin support for DRI; however, there is a problem with this package. It does not include the libGLU(a subset of the Mesa library) static library or header files. This means that you must manually extract libGLU from the existing Woody Mesa package and copy it into
3. There are still serious issues with 3d acceleration on the Rage 128 cards and 3dfx cards. If I run tuxracer(or any GL app) with certain WindowMaker apps running(from inside of Blackbox), I get constant blinking inside of the 3d application. The solution(for now) is to shut down any WM applet that refreshes constantly. Don't even try to use 3d acceleration inside of enlightenment(horrible blinking).
4. Try to avoid emailing Branden at all costs. He's been less than friendly to me, and I know other people who have had similar experiences.
Other than that, the new X is really nice and noticably faster than the 3.3 series. Enjoy it.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
Well, I upgraded to X4 yesterday via apt, and the packager did an amazing job. First of all, there is a nice dialog-style configuration tool called Dexter which builds a config file easily. However, there are a couple of caveats: :) Don't forget to build that 2.4-test10 kernel too.
(1) If you're using DRI with a Voodoo3, you need to modify your XF86Config-4 to use a default depth of 16... maybe it's obvious to some people, I didn't make the conclusion instantly.
(Voodoo3's only support 3D in 16-bit color)
(2) You need to find ttmkfdir if you want to use Truetype fonts, mkfontdir doesn't do it. I don't know if there is a Debian package either.
(3) Voodoo3 support is buggy, I don't know if it's the Glide, the DRI modules, or X itself, but some things (like a few xmms plugins) crashed my box HARD, as in, I needed a hard reboot.
Anyway, those issues aside, this is a remarkably well-packaged version of X4, and most people will have little or no trouble with a smooth upgrade via apt. Much props to Branden for packaging them so well.
If you do upgrade, believe me, there is a noticeable speed increase, and Tuxracer is playable
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------