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XFree 4.0.3 Released
XFree 4.0.3 is out. New features include (among other): Better ATI Radeon chip support, Anti Aliasing improvments (and supported on more chipsets), Geforce 3 support added (2D), as well as other fixes. Matrox G400/G450 users will be delighted to hear that the 3D has been improved. Enjoy.
Simply put.. It means we have to trust the vid card manufacturers(sp?) to keep the drivers up to date.
Lets pretend for a moment that XFree 4.x has just been released, but it breaks binary compatibilty. The open source servers can be upgraded and recompiled. If the vid card maker has decided to no longer support their 2-gen old card, who's going to upgrade the binary to make it work with the new ver of XFree 4.x.?
Also, lets remember that Open Source drivers are often faster then their closed source counterparts. For a while, the Matrox G200 open source drivers were outperforming the Win9x drivers. Also, remember when nVidia put out their first binary only drivers for the TNT. No DMA support, something the open source drivers of the time did. And the TNT drivers couldn't be easily fixed without the source and specs.
Since we're announcing minor revisions of major software, thought I'd let you know gcc-2.95.3 was released yesterday - First update in 1.5 years.
gcc.gnu.org
XFree 4 is not for machines more than a couple years old. My PCI G200 is no longer 3d accelerated because it's not AGP. I'm still working on getting XF3 to coexist on this machine so I can run a second X server for GL apps. Support for my 486's WD display has also been dropped, making X even more unnecessary and slow. Bleah.
F0 07 C7 C8
I'll also point out that Nvidia's latest driver offering, 0.9-767, does now support RENDER, thus, you can have 3D *and* anti-aliased fonts, woo! (GTK developers, get your butt in gear! :D)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
XFree86 will update your window as fast as the card can draw. There is no fps limitation.
There is full support for depth and resolution changing with direct graphics access to the frame buffer.
If you want to make your life easier, use SDL from www.libsdl.org. It has a simpler API than the X extensions you'd need to learn.
Sounds like the only X development is being done by one guy at nVidia. Hopefully he won't decide to move on.
However, a comparison with Win95 is totally irrelevant, only a comparison with NT is relevant. So, at least compare to NT3.5 or something.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Keep in mind that X allocates ram *ranges* for framebuffer, etc... that aren't subtracted from system memory. The ranges are added by utilities like top though. Try adding all of the supposed allocated memory blocks, subtract the cached, swap and application memory and then marvel at the unaccounted for ram that is used... :)
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
The links are wrong because they changed .2 to .3 in the text but missed the links. If you manually fix the links it's all there on FTP.
DGA/DGA2 in combination with XVideo lets you get fullscreen with mode switching, etc. The easiest way to deal with all of that and just do fast 2d drawing without worrying is SDL (www.libsdl.org) - it's fast, it's got an API that mostly makes sense, and it's portable and LGPLed (on Windoze it's infinitely more fun than dealing with direct DirectX code).
It's really very simple, but the Matrox support forum and people choose to make things complicated.
The only thing you really need is to recompile the stock XFree86 mga driver with the binary-only HALlib available. The instructions on the Matrox forum choose to say that that means you should reinstall all of X, from source, nuking everything your distro put in /usr/X11R6.
Of course, just going to the mga driver directory, hacking at it until you get two .o files and only moving mga_drv.o and mga_hal_drv.o to /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers is all that's needed.
My simplified instructions:
Can someone shed more light on the status of the G450 and XFree86 support?
4.0.3 is a bugfix release. XFree is now being more careful about bugfix releases versus feature releases. XFree 4.1 will be the next big feature release and you'll see a lot of improvements in 3D support as well as things like the RENDER extension.
The biggest problem with people mistaking Slashdot for Freshmeat is that there is rarely enough information given for a good software announcement. That said:
:: X11 :: System
XFree86 is a freely redistributable implementation of the X Window System that runs on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems.
Author:
The XFree86 Project <XFree86 at XFree86 dot org>
Homepage:
http://www.xfree86.org/
Tar/GZ:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.0.3/
Changelog:
http://www.xfree86.org/4.0.3/RELNOTES.html
Trove categories:
Old Appindex
Summary of updates in 4.0.3.
Some temporary file-related security vulnerabilities are fixed.
Screen corruption problems and palette saving problems with some Neomagic chips are fixed.
'XFree86 -configure' problems are fixed in some drivers (including sis and i810).
A problem with some plain S3 ViRGE cards is fixed.
Some Xaw incompatibilities with Xaw6 are fixed.
Some XKB files are updated.
Some trident driver updates, including fixing acceleration for the Cyber9388.
A palette saving problem in the vgahw module is fixed.
Support for the wsmouse protocol is added for OpenBSD/i386.
A load problem with the sis driver module, and some depth 24 problems are fixed.
Support for the "PD" variant of the ATI Rage 128 is added.
Support for GNU Hurd is updated.
Some TrueType font problems are fixed.
The mga driver doesn't attempt to drive the G450 if the "mga_hal" module isn't available.
A problem with bold font simulation in xterm is fixed.
The (DPS) stub files created by pswrap are now compatible with the Adobe version.
Some glint driver problems are fixed.
Support for building on OpenBSD-current, and multi-thread support for OpenBSD are provided.
A problem with the ThinkingMousePS/2 protocol is fixed in the mouse driver.
Support for the Render extension with Xinerama is added.
A DGA-related server crash is fixed.
Some Chips & Technologies driver bugs are fixed.
Some tseng driver bugs are fixed.
Some Alpha platform updates are included.
Support for the GeForce3 is added to the nv driver.
Misc build-related issues are fixed.
Various documentation updates, including a reworked XFree86(1) manual page.
nVidia released new XFree86 drivers for their line of chipsets, including the GeForce 3, on March 15th. They should work with any XFree86 4.0.x, so you needn't be upgrading just for GeForce 3 support, especially since these drivers include 3D, while 4.0.3's are 2D-only.
Get your redhot drivers here.
What are you talking about? There's no radeon_dri.o in the files list!
It looks like we've got to stick with DRI's CVS for quake on a radeon...
lib/modules/drivers/chips_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/cyrix_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/glint_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/i810_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/mga_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/neomagic_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/nv_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/r128_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/s3virge_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/savage_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/sis_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/tdfx_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/trident_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/tseng_drv.o
lib/modules/drivers/vga_drv.o
lib/modules/extensions/libextmod.a
lib/modules/fonts/libfreetype.a
lib/modules/input/mouse_drv.o
lib/modules/libvgahw.a
lib/modules/libxf8_16bpp.a
that's it... (rage 128 looks updated tho)
only mention of radeon in release notes is in the 4.0.2 section...
but renderer extension on Xinerama!
check out Metro X's server... I believe that they post Quake 3 benchmarks as good as in windows... unfortunately I'm 300 miles from home stuck on a winblowz box (IE crashes every time I try to use google... must reboot)... or I'd post a link...
Hey, but at least the build is automatic! Give it a low priority and let it build in the background. No muss no fuss.
(unless of course you're using a modem. with close to 30 megs of sources, that would suck...)
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Btw, you are comparing apples to oranges. Skip Win95, which is two versions behind what MS puts out now, and compare linux v. NT. But just for grins, the minimum requirements for WinME is 32Meg and a P150 or higher. Getting your MCP would require you to know that the min requirement for WinNT was 12Meg and, fwiw, Win2K Pro requires a minimum of 64Meg.
OS X will require 128Meg and Mac OS 9.1 requires 32Meg. Overall I think Linux+XFree isn't that bad with its memory requirements.
And I'd love for you to put a machine running Mac "Runs in a Meg" OS and a machine running OS 9.1 in front of Joe Average and see which one they want to use. So much for those "pure and uncrufty" GUIs of yore.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Which means - if G450 is detected and the closed-source module "mga_hal" is not found, don't try to use the "mga" driver - it won't work.
;-)
This certainly qualifies as an improvement, especially if the error message if clear enough and mentions where to get "mga_hal".
But should I really enjoy it?
Well, let me put it this way:
Do you enjoy women even though you don't have clue what the operating software looks like?
Closed source - it's nature's way!
I guess somebody needs to take a look at the fact that there have been TWO releases of the NVidia drivers since then. SMP support has been greatly improved, as has performance and stability.
wolf31o2 Developer, Gentoo Linux Games Team
Do you enjoy women even though you don't have clue what the operating software looks like?
:)...
Um, actually, I quite enjoy examaining womens internals. But that's probably for to much information than you needed to know
full and comprehensive support for *all* Voodoo cards in XFree86 4.0x
Voodoo 3s run at about seventy percent of their Windows performance. Voodoo 4 and 5s (effectively V#s in SLI mode) only support 1 GPU per chip. 3DFX have been promising better drivers for ages now, but neither the company or the Open SOurce community had made them.
In contrast, both ATI and NVIDIA have drivers that peerform between 95 and 105% of Windows performance - check the linuxgames.com benchmarks. ATIs are Open Source, NVIDIAS are closed. However, even with the weak Australian dollar, the Australian distributor of ATI products charges twice as much as their US counterpart so Radeons are basically unaffordable. 3DFXs drivers might be Open Source, but NVIDIAs still allow me to get more fucntionality out of my card. I use Linux because its good, and it happens to be good because its Open Source. I use NVIDIAs drivers because they're good, despite being closed source.
Skip Win95, which is two versions behind what MS puts out now, and compare linux v. NT.
/Menus / Pointer type GUIs (as opposed to lightweight Window Managers, X desktops are larger and need more RAM). As a Linux user who started using computers in the days of Atari and GEM, and expects a slick GUI to do their work in, I think its a reasonable comparison to make.
I think the reason for the comparison of WIndows 95 with modern Linux is that both are the earliest releases of their OSs with complete working Windows / Icons
Yah... but how long will it be before we get good and proper support for the GeForce 3?
I mean, I still hear people complain about TNT/TNT2/GeForce 2 support under X.
(Not that I've had any problems, cuz I haven't... but...)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I've just finished "make" and started "make install" on one of my FreeBSD boxes, fucking crap.
You sound quite the fool to anyone who has actually compiled X from source. Especially a BSD style build.
Remember that the nVidia XFree86 3d drivers only support XFree86 versions 4.0 and 4.1.
I'm running them in 4.0.2 just fine. Haven't tried 4.0.3 yet.
------
I purchased a Voodoo5 5500 not because I saw 3Dfx commercials (I'm in the U.K. and we don't get them); but because they allowed Daryll Strauss (who implemented Glide for Linux) to open-source his code and 3Dfx provided XFree86 developers with full documentation for the whole Voodoo range.
Which is more than nVidia have done; and which is why you will find full and comprehensive support for *all* Voodoo cards in XFree86 4.0x - and that is more than you get with nVidia; who are always a full XFree86 release behind with their 'closed-source' drivers!
I got rid of my TNT2 when I found out that nVidia couldn't even be bothered to support the XRender extension with their 0.9.5 driver release and nobody at nVidia would reply to my e-mails asking if/when it would be supported. The XFree86 2D-only support provided support for XRender but then I couldn't use the 3D acceleration of the TNT2 for anything.
Indeed, my computer doesn't crash now while playing Unreal Tournament using OpenGL with the Voodoo5 - why ? - because nVidia's drivers don't fully support SMP and freely admit in the driver README file that it can cause random lockups on SMP machines.
Add to that the number of problems people have been experiencing with these drivers, enough to add comments to the Freshmeat project page here.
If I am going to experience random lockups while using my machine; then I might as well be running Windows :-P
P.S. No, j00 d0n't 0wn a11 u5 3Dfx u53r5, nVidia does (seeing as though they bought out 3Dfx), so get yer facts straight!
"Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wuntime ewwors!" - Elmer Fudd
(Although I must admit that I've been digging some of ATI's stuff lately. Too bad they lost Apple... nVidia now effictively dominates the consumer, gamer, and low/mid performance graphics markets.)
--
--
I like to watch.
There has been an option for this since 4.0
Matt Newell
Yes, X only takes 30MB. But your GNOME session adds another 30MB, and your window manager adds anywhere from 10MB (for FVWM, the Fuckingugly Virtual Window Manager) to 512BM (for Enlightenment; the window manager which proves that enough eye candy can make up for any lack of usefulness).
Provided you believe top, which double- and triple-counts shared memory. For example, when some drivers map video card memory three times, top counts it three times. GNOME isn't as bloated as you think; a lot of the memory that GNOME programs appear to use is in .so (shared library) files (which also are multi-counted). Mozilla isn't a hog either; top overcounts any multithreaded app.
If you think a WM is ugly, design a new color scheme and post it somewhere. You bash GNOME for being bloated, but is KDE any better? (Please take this flamewar to the NES if you must continue it.)
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Also, X is ugly as sin, and no Window Manager can hide that.
What's so ugly about X11? It's just a graphics subsystem (equivalent to Win32's GDI). I can see your point if you're talking about Motif and CDE, or the default configuration of a particular distribution, but slap a decent theme onto GTK+ and Sawfish and it's no longer ugly. If you really want it, there's a theme that looks almost pixel-perfect like Microsoft Windows. (Are Windows's widgets any less ugly than Motif's?)
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In fact, you have answered your own question. There is nothing wrong about doing 2D-stuff in OpenGL. (Of course, XFree doesn't support OpenGL but Mesa, but most people will never notice...)
Most likely 4.0.2 is in Woody right now and works great and it did not take that long to go from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2. So I would assume that this will be there pretty soon.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Every time I try to read illicit scientologist texts, X seg faults. They got to the CVS tree. I bet 4.0.3 is just a patch to remove all that scientology code. Or maybe 4.0.3 will make yr monitor explode when you say bad things about scientology...
I think it's the first one. The scientologists won't let XFree 4.0.3 into the tree for Woody.
dds:~#apt-get install scientologyReading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Lists...Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
free-speech libfree-speech0 reason freedom task-individual-thought
The following additional packages will be installed:
fear uncertainty doubt libfud11 libfud-dev harrassment task-intimidation-core
0 packages upgraded, 13 newly installed, 17 removed, and 6 not upgraded
Need to get 234GB of archives. After unpacking you will be brainwashed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Now let's look in the release notes:
Which means - if G450 is detected and the closed-source module "mga_hal" is not found, don't try to use the "mga" driver - it won't work.This certainly qualifies as an improvement, especially if the error message if clear enough and mentions where to get "mga_hal".
But should I really enjoy it?
... and displaying this page on the second display, I'm quite happy with it. I've not played with output to my TV, but I plan to soon. Also, since the version of the drivers that I downloaded from Matrox was from late january, I'm not exactly worried about downloading a new X for features that might already be implemented in my driver.
Regarding the drivers being closed source, they are perfectly entitled to do that if they would like, I'm personally glad that a large company is providing such good support for such a new product. If they want to make it closed source but keep the development going, I'm all for it. If someone else wants to engineer their own drivers that are GPLed, that's great too, but in several respects I'd rather have the hardware manufacturer's code than something that was reverse engineered, because the manufacturer is less likely to be missing important pieces. I've been running X for a couple of weeks straight without switching out, and I haven't had any problems. They are doing a wonderful job.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
I can assume that many people submit these things and that the editors have to avoid lots of duplicate posts from fans of the software.
This raises an interesting question. How many people ever upgrade X on their systems? (I am really asking this. Not a retorical question.)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
from XF4.0.3 release notes
Support for building on OpenBSD-current, and multi-thread support for OpenBSD are provided.
Some Alpha platform updates are included.
Support for GNU Hurd is updated.
if you've been having problems compiling XF4 on minority architectures/operating systems this might be a good time to try updating.