XFree 4.0 Moves into Woody

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.

Comments

some minor issues.

[Rev. DeFiLEZ]

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.

Re:Anti-Aliasing?

[Hornsby]

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.

XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines

[Yebyen]

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!

--

Re:XFree86 Debs from additional apt source lines

[BLarg!]

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

[psychos]

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.

Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky

[StandardDeviant]

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

[dbarclay10]

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,

Re:Xfree 4.x can be a little flaky

[Fross]

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?

[John Whitley]

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:Font anti-aliasing is NOT evil

[tjwhaynes]

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

Re:Anti-Aliasing?

[be-fan]

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.

Re:OT: What are they on?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

[jkc120]

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.

Who cares?

[fredlwm]

Please announce this too: KDE 2.0 is now included in slackware-current.

Driver Work At A Premium

[Christopher B. Brown]

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.

Re:XFree 4.0 Moves into Woody

[FiDooDa]

Taco doesn't use Red Hat or the others, that's why

Read This Before Upgrading!

[Hornsby]

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.

Experience with a Voodoo3 and X4.01 Woody

[Outlyer]

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.