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XFree86 4.3.0 Released
Dunkalis writes "The latest version of XFree86, 4.3.0, has been released! Release notes here, mirrors here. Enhancements include drivers for newer Radeons, better PS/2 protocol detection, the XRandR extension, better font support, and more!" Source tarballs are available, or wait for your distribution to package them...
They surely can't be as bad as the Windows ones... I thought I'd buy an ATI card to support the local economy, but the drivers are always wayyyy too scary... Anyone got the old All In wonder Radeon (not 7500, original) working fine in 3d and with the tuner btw?
So, are the nvidia drivers our for it yet... I'll give them a few more minutes.
.
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Previous: Introduction to the 4.x Release Series
Next: Drivers 2. Summary of new features in 4.3.0. 2.1. Video Driver Enhancements
- ATI Radeon 9x00 2D support added, and 3D support added for the
Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, and M9. The 3D support for the Radeon
now includes hardware TCL.
- Support added to the i810 driver for Intel 845G, 852GM, 855GM
and 865G integrated graphics chipsets, including 2D, 3D (DRI)
and XVideo. Support for the 830M has been improved, and XVideo
support added.
- National Semiconductor SC1x00, GX1, and GX2 chipset support added
with the "nsc" driver.
- Support added for the NVIDIA nForce2 integrated graphics, GeForce 4,
and GeForce FX.
- Major SiS driver updates for some of the latest chipsets. Unfortunately
the SiS 3D driver has had to be disabled because no one has yet
taken up the challenge to port it to Mesa 4.x.
- The s3virge driver now has support for double scan modes on the DX
(with XVideo disabled).
- Updates to the savage driver, including fixing problems with the
TwisterK, and problems with incorrect memory size detection.
- 2D acceleration added for the Trident CyberBladeXP/Ai1 chipsets.
- Support for big endian architectures has been added to the C&T
driver.
- Various updates and bug fixes have been made to most other drivers.
2.2. Input Driver Enhancements- The mouse driver now has automatic protocol detection for PS/2 mice.
- Several new input drivers have been added, including tek4957,
jamstudio (js_x), fpit, palmax, and ur98 (Linux only).
2.3. X Server and Extension Updates- Support for the RandR extension has been partially integrated
into the XFree86 server, providing support for resizing the root
window at run-time.
- The Mesa version used for OpenGL 1.3 and DRI
driver support has been updated to 4.0.4.
- The XFree86 server's hot keys (including those for switching
modes and virtual terminals) can now be configured via XKB.
Previously they were hard coded. An X server configuration
option has been added to allow the VT switching hot keys to be
disabled.
2.4. Client and Library Updates- An Xcursor library providing support for alpha blended (ARGB)
and animated cursors. Two Xcursor themes are provided (redglass
and whiteglass), as well as the default "core" theme (the traditional
cursors).
- Xterm updated to patch level 173, including the following bugfixes:
- Modify xterm to invoke luit.
- Add simple session management client capabilities.
- Add a modifyCursorKeys resource to control how the shift- and
similar modifiers are used to make a cursor escape sequence.
- Check if the printerCommand resource string is empty,
and use this to allow the user to disable printer function.
- Sort the options list which is displayed in help- and
syntax-messages at runtime to simplify maintenance.
2.5. I18N and Font Updates- Fix two infinite loops (special cases of mouse hilite tracking,
DECUDK parsing).
- Make repainting of the 256-color example work properly.
- Modify parser tables to improve detection of malformed
control sequences, making xterm behave more like a real
DEC terminal.
- Fix a problem with the blinking cursor which occasionally caused
xterm to pause until a key was pressed.
- Fix improper parsing of multiple items in the ttyModes resource.
and the following improvements:- FreeType2 updated to version 2.1.1.
- The "freetype" X server font backend has undergone a partial rewrite.
The new version is based on FreeType 2, and handles TrueType
(including OpenType/TTF), OpenType/CFF and Type 1 fonts. The old
"type1" backend is now deprecated, and is only used for CIDFonts
by default.
- A new utility called "mkfontscale", which builds fonts.scale files,
has been added.
- The Xft library has undergone a major restructuring, and is now
split into fontconfig (which deals with font discovery and
configuration and is independent from X), and Xft itself (which
uses fontconfig and deals with font rasterisation and rendering.
The format of the Xft font configuration files has changed in
an incompatible manner.
- Support has been added to the Xft library to do rendering with the
core X11 protocol. This allows clients using this library to
render to X servers that don't have support for the RENDER extension.
- There has been a significant reworking of the XKB support to allow
multi-layout configurations. Multi-layout configurations provide
a flexible way of supporting multiple language layouts and switching
between them.
2.6. OS Support UpdatesA more complete list of changes can be found in the CHANGELOG that is part of the XFree86 source tree. It can also be viewed online at our CVSweb server.
Grabbed it, compiled it, installed it...
Mozilla's links are suddenly not underlined, and some of the truetype fonts don't render quite right.
Anyone else run into this? I haven't been able to find any information either in Mozilla Bugzilla or in mailing lists.
Curious.
I'm going to have to endure ANOTHER 15 hour build of XFree when I go to emerge something innocuous...
I REALLY need to remember emerge -p
Black and grey are both shades of white.
have had it emerged since yesterday ;)
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
So I just read that the GeForce4 has support. Does this mean true support (i.e. 3D as well)? Or do we still need modules from nVidia?
I know that usually companies are on top of these updates to keep the best updates on the shelves, but how long does it really take a company to go from reproduction with the new updates to shelf life, if at all?
Or, if they are too lazy to even re-release it, how long until they decide it's compatable and post it on their website?
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Not true transparency yet (waiting on Keith Packard's tranparency server for 5,0), but cursors can be colored, shadowed, animated, and themed.
A new utility, mkfontscale, is included with this version. This creates fonts.scale files. In the past, in order to install third party TTF fonts (such as MS corefonts), a utility called ttmkfontdir was often needed (except in distros like RedHat that took care in making everything "just work") to build the fonts.scale file. This program depended on Freetype 1.x libraries (which can't always coexist peacefully with freetype2), and was generally a PITA.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I can't believe how long it always takes for radeon support to get into X. I love my radeon 7500 (multiple monitor support with 3d acceleration under X), but I want to upgrade to a radeon 9700 pro. It took this long for it to get support, though, maybe I should just wait for a geforce fx or a radeon 9800.
Its about damn time. I mean what are these people just doing this in thier spare time or what? =)
I'm probably not alone with this problem, but I've always had problems with trying to get XFree86 3.x or 4.x to work with PS/2 mice with a KVM in between. Either the mouse isn't detected, the mouse cursor reacts erratically or can't get anything behind two buttons to work. As a workaround, I've always had to get another PS/2 (or USB) mouse and plug it directly into the machine rather than go through a KVM.
Has this been resolved in 4.3.0?
This is a sweet release esp. for a radeon user. (glxgears pumps out nearly 50% better frame rate!)
One gripe: Support for the media buttons on the logitech internet keyboard is broken.
Does X still communicate between the client and the server over a socket connection? I haven't checked in many yeas. If so, wouldn't it be better to have the client communicate using an API that's implemented by either the video card itself, a video card proxy, or a legacy X server connected by a socket?
back to compiling code...
Man, I'll probably spend so much time compiling and configuring this weekend without graphics, I'll ony get to wank to ASCII art on the console....
Hey anyone know if this version of X fixed the mouse problems for Quake 3? I know it's a long shot, but I have not been able to upgrade X in a long time, because everytime I do I can't play quake 3. The mouse simply binds to the upper left hand corner and doesn't move.
Anyone who upgraded see it fixed? Or know of a fix?
What system? What version? What version of X did it replace? What version of mozilla? What monitor and video card? What CPU? What compiler?
Infuriate left and right
Can I use the scrollbar button on my Sony VX88 laptop as the middle button?
Does anyone know if xfree provides the framebuffer support for the kernel ?? I am looking for framebuufer support for nvidia.
"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
I think you mean Yes.
They posted as AC so they get no karma. What are you talking about?
Hmmm, I'm kinda not sure about the new release and was wondering if there was a good way just to use the new drives without upgrading the entire framework.
I touch computers in naughty places
D'uh! Moderators, this was a gag, not a troll.
I compiled XFree86 4.2.1 a month or two ago, and it compiled fast enough, but I want to install my nice new shiny Gentoo before I install a new X.
No, I hadn't tried it yet. What were you expecting?
Anyone know how the performance compares?
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
This is excellently timed to the release of Nethack 3.4.1 - now I can play it in all of its black and white glory!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
This is a good thing(tm), however i'm using debian.
/*begin rant ;-)
we all know and love apt, but even in unstable we will have to wait for these cool new features. i guess one has to choose between bleeding edge and fairly secure/stable
*/
of course...i'm waiting for my favorite distro to realese them...duh...
-frozen
I'm not always the brightest pixel in the stream
Does this mean that I no longer have to use NVidia's third party video drivers for my GeForce4, (and fix all my problems with sw-suspend)?
I've been keeping an eye on XF86's ftp site since yesterday, the latest in the list of target dates for release of 4.3.0, and saw they only have the source up there. Actually, after seeing this article posted I checked again and now they have FreeBSD binaries. I'm still waiting for Linux binaries...
:) and XF86 because the few times I've tried, I didn't have any luck. Admittedly, the last time I tried was version 3.3.6, so I don't know if it's gotten any better since then.
I usually compile everything on my systems myself, with the exception of OpenOffice and XFree86. OO, because it's huge and I don't have the patience
I'm wondering: should I make the effort? X is one of those things like libc, that nearly everything depends on (ok, only graphical things in this case), so you can't afford to get it wrong. Any hints on compiling this from source?
I am a happy X user.
Since this is a story about X, all of the pre-programmed Slashbots are going to trot out and declare that X is broken, old, badly designed, missing features, whatever.
Meanwhile, the XFree86 team continues, release after release, to pound out great code that addresses all of the shortcomings people tend to cite. Faster direct rendering? Check. Anti-aliased text? Check. Multi-head? Check. Video extensions? Check. 3-D? Check.
Do you see a pattern here? X is versatile. X is extensible. X is the industry standard -- all Unix GUI programs use it.
And as always, X's killer feature is its network transparency. No "desktop-within-a-desktop" nonsense like you have to do on other platforms. Today I had the windows of programs from no less than three different computers running on my desktop. Transparently. Lots of X users do this every day, usually without even thinking about it.
Perhaps someday the tired old "X is obsolete and must be replaced" will finally cease. But today is probably not that day. Let the flames begin. I will ignore them and continue to praise the XFree86 developers for another job well done.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
One of the more incoherent troll responses to a troll on Slashdot. If you had mentioned linux this would have been modded up.
It's so true dood, windows rox0rz.
I think you mean "he", not "they".
"they" is plural, and this person is not plural.
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/xfree86/4.3.0/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Don't they have to finish working on XFree86 4.2 before they start on 4.3 ?
in the file ~/.Xresources, put a line like this:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/icons/
Xcursor.theme: bleu_rainn
where bleu_rainn is the name of your cursor set you want to use.
Cursor sets are in
More like Rage IIc
O_o
Does this mean i could go buy a Radeon 9x00 and get out of the box 3D support under xfree4.3 ?
:-)
What about getting up a dual-screen setup with 3D support on at least one screen?
(i heard people saying it was possible, i really dig a card that could let me do this under X
Debian is all volunteer efforts. Why not help them out, after all they've helped you out plenty. Then volunteer your time/efforts and compile yourself and make a package for others to use.
Or donate $$$ to the Debian project.
What goes around comes around.
Your own glowing testimonial is not exactly a balanced review of the real product.
But perhaps people like yourself, who are willing to give the X developers the accolades they so richly deserve, are necessary to counterbalance the people who only see the bad points of X.
There are good and bad things that can be said about X-windows, but I don't think anybody that is paying attention would have anything but praise for the people who have worked so hard to make it as useable as it is.
On the other hand, I can honestly say that Xwindows is the only piece of software that ever caused my monitor to literally catch on fire. Gave me a very strong incentive to RTFM, I must say.
Odd problem. I never had this problem. I have a 2-buttons Logitech mouse (ball).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I never thought the day would come. Watch out, Gnome and KDE, Athena is coming back! Er. Maybe not.
I thought maybe this was a joke... crazy.
Just to let you know, Dropline Systems will be releasing Dropline GNOME 2.2.1 on Saturday, March 1st. This will include XFree86 4.3 precompiled for Slackware Linux and Slackware-derived systems such as Vector Linux. Check it out at http://www.dropline.net/gnome.
I do believe you mean "boxen" not "box".
In Soviet Russia the error regrets YOU!
'He' implies male in gender, but not to say it isn't statistically most likely the case. And 'they' does not always imply plural. In fact, it is often used in circumstances where gender is not known.
Person one "who was just here, I saw someone run through the lawn"
Person two "Who ever it was they left the door open"
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
And just remember kiddies, that 4.2.99_902 and 4.3 break wine[x].
It is being worked on.
So, if you depend on wine[x], don't emerge, apt-get, rpm, XFree86 just yet.
You know you can get federal money to protect your home from Radeon.
wine (wine is naturally an emulator) has always been broken.
Mods, I noticed something odd. There are posts on here for "No War in Iraq" How did this happen? This has nothing to do with Iraq.
I had problems too when I ran FreeBSD on my desktop, through a 4-port KVM. I figured out that it had to do with what the psm(4) driver detected at boot time, and it wouldn't detect my wheel mouse as a wheel mouse through the KVM. It works fine in Linux though - because the Linux /dev/psaux doesn't interpret the data stream, whereas the FreeBSD driver does. Not sure of a fix - I just didn't use my KVM for my mouse :-)
X has handled by one man - Branden. It's DPL voting time, and he's running. I don't expect it for Debian at any time soon. Not even in Sid. Maybe some kind person will release some unofficial debs.
Well, so tell us: in what way are Windows or Macintosh OS X supposed to be more efficient? Where are these great gains in efficiency in their architecture supposed to come from? I mean, it can't be the use of IPC or system calls for the application to communicate with a graphics server: Windows and Macintosh have that as well.
In reality, there is no fundamental difference in the client/server window system architecture between OS X and Linux. For NT, there is a difference: large chunks of the windowing code have moved into the kernel ad some point, but you still need system calls to talk to it. Of course, there is nothing to stop anybody from moving X11 into the kernel.
Overall, the idea that network transparency is some sort of special feature that one pays a high price for is nonsense: all major desktop operating systems run in protected mode, and most GUI applications run in a different context from the window system. X11 simply has been designed that way from the ground up, while Windows and Macintosh have evolved there from "direct mode" graphics. Network transparency in X11 is not so much an issue of IPC or how it does graphics--it uses IPC like all desktop windowing systems--but in having well-defined network transparent support for features like window management and configuration information. It's lack of those features in Windows and OS X that means that Windows and OS X are not network transparent.
In practice, XFree86 is a damned efficient window system that, when it has comparable drivers for the graphics cards, beats OS X handily in terms of performance and memory usage, and usually even beats Windows.
You need screen on another computer, use TightVNC.
TightVNC gives you a "screen on another computer". It does not give you network transparent windowing. If you are running a well-designed X11 desktop, you can run applications on any machine, and they will behave as if run locally. You can also move individual windows between machines and displays. Of course, Gnome and KDE both break this behavior, but that's not X11's fault.
MSWindows 98 is snappy, even on quite old hardware. XFree runs like shit. It feels klunky and laggy.
That's a ludicrous claim. X11 worked reasonably well on 1988 hardware already. X11 servers obviously can run like a charm on 1998 hardware, hardware that's more than an order of magnitude faster.
And that's also what one finds in practice: Windows 98 requires much more hardware (memory, CPU power) to run than Linux/XFree86. If you claim were having a problem with Linux/XFree86, either you are making it up, or you had a bad driver, or you misconfigured something.
XF4.2 has been in Sid for a while now. Hopefully someone will plonk 4.3 in soon. Woody won't ever see it though.
While I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff coming out in this release the thing I'm waiting for is the ability to change the resolution of the X-server without shutting it down. I heard that there was code to that respect in the works does anyone have any information on this?
I stole this Sig
I hope to the powers that be the poster meant PS2, because PS/2 ONLY means the mid 80's hardware abortion spewed forth from IBM.
What the fuck would anyone want to support THAT crap?
hehehehe, im typin this from an srx99 (total swank mini laptop) and i aint no fagort.
Alpha blended cursors, but not true transparency?
That's what transparency is. Transparency is normally implemented using alpha blending. An alpha value of 1.0 is a fully opaque surface. An alpha value of 0.0 is a fully transparent surface. This can easily be done on a per-pixel level either by using a separate alpha map or by using a alpha channel on the main image.
Normally a 32-bit, RGBA image is used. This gives you normal 24-bit color, with 8-bits per channel for Red, Green and Blue. The extra space is an 8-bit alpha channel giving you 256 different levels of translucency.
I guess I'm just confused as to how you can have alpha blending, but not "transparency," as they are the same.
Justin Dubs
There's support for DVI flat panels now so long as you POST on that head, as well as real acceleration on all the modern nvidia cards. Looks like no more grabbing and rebuilding the non-free kernel-invasive nvidia stuff. :)
Keep up the great work, guys.
So, which seems to perform better in the 3D department? I really would love to get a framerate higher than _5_ in UT2003 under linux; which is crazy since the UT2003 demo ran perfectly fine.
So, has anyone compared the two yet?
(XP 1900+, 1 GB RAM, Radeon 8500LE)
..this is but a fantasy..
Sure it has plenty of newer things... but what about doing things faster? is it faster in any way? are old features faster? is it faster in anything?
I sometimes get the mouse binding to the same corner, then after a while it unfreezes and goes fullscreen. Debian Stable.
Am I the first to say that xfree 4.3 was released 24 hours ago? Please post more news for the mods to accept because some things must be said first on slashdot for real reasons, not just for the sake of speed.(i.e. some people claim some problems that is good to be known before proceeding with the installation)
In correct textbook English, you default to the masculine form. Way back in the mideval times, when English was Germanic, the Church came in and huge parts of Latin got folded in over the years (including defaulting to the masculine).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
When I was a redhat user, I'd see a new version and sigh, knowing I'd wait weeks to find an rpm. But I'm ahead of the curve for a change! I did a 'emerge -u world' this morning and had it downloaded, built with optimizations, and running stable in an hour.
Thank you, Mr. Gentoo!
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
I am a happy Windows user.
o ot-window" nonsense like you have to do on other platforms. Today I had the windows of programs from no less than three different commercial applications running on my desktop. Productively. Lots of Windows users do this every day, usually without even thinking about it.
Since this is a story about Windows, all of the pre-programmed Slashbots are going to trot out and declare that Windows is broken, old, badly designed, missing features, whatever.
Meanwhile, the Windows team continues, release after release, to pound out great code that addresses all of the shortcomings people tend to cite. Faster direct rendering? Check. Anti-aliased text? Check. Multi-head? Check. Video extensions? Check. 3-D? Check.
Do you see a pattern here? Windows is versatile. Windows is extensible. Windows is the industry standard--all commercial GUI programs use it.
And as always, Windows's killer feature is its application base. No "desktop-on-top-of-a-window-manager-on-top-of-a-r
Perhaps someday the tired old "Windows is obsolete and must be replaced" will finally cease. But today is probably not that day. Let the flames begin. I will ignore them and continue to praise the Windows developers for another job well done.
Ooh, you are _so_ lying. _SO_ _SO_ lying.
No such thing under Mandrake 9.1
Now aren't you glad you don't have to write HOW-TOs?
Is there any improvements to processor useage, or adaptability for embedded environments in this release (over 4.2)?
..don't panic
32 bit color mouse pointers with support for transparency and animation.
:)
This is very kewl...I am actually trying to do my own pointer set...if I'm not mistaken, this is a first for those using the X86 platform...
It seriously brings back memories of the Amiga...
Of course, the performance enhancements are kewl too
---Usually when there's complaints from a wide amount of people, it's "the people" you trust. Not the few who complain about the complainers. If anything, it has too many features. I believe we insult/harass/jeer at MS for doing the similar thing to Windows/Office. Called something like creeping featurism....... BUT it's different when we're talking about XFree86 cause it's LINUX stuff.
You know having fully featured infrastructure components, which X is, is damn nice when writing applications. Feature creep is bad in a word processor, good in your display system.
X has little to do with Linux. X has been around for a long time.
---Yeah, it IS getting faster...
This goes directly to the network transparency myth. X window systems tend to be a little slower on login because things run in user space. Once things are running however, there is no performance penalty at all. With X you can choose a lot of things that can affect display performance. Seems to me that other display systems don't have this option. Want a blazing fast X system? Choose reasonable window managers. A machine running TWM these days is very fast yet will still do everything needed in a nice clean minimal way.
As a comparison, I have an older SGI IRIX machine running at a blistering 30Mhz. Scrolling text in a window, minimize, raise, lower and resize are all nice and fast. X is clearly not the problem here as it has been proven to be effective for years. That machine was manufactured in 91 and will still display 3D applications in a usable way.
---Yeah right. 3-D on linux/Xfree SUCK ASS. Want compairsons? Go play X game (with port to linux) on windows and then play it on Linux. You get shit for framerates, and dont tell me you're different.
I don't think so. OpenGl based games run just as well if not better than they do under windows. My current 3D machine used to be a windows machine and I ran the game in both environments. latency was a lot lower in the X environment than it was in the win32. Lots of people see this so you can forget your one guy argument. Running programs like Maya or Pro Engineer work very nicely as well. This used to be the case, but is not anymore. So, 3D, check.
------Do you see a pattern here? X is versatile. X is extensible. X is the industry standard -- all Unix GUI programs use it.
---Yeah, and all good games are out for Windows. Windows games are the industry standard. (sound dumb? same way you sound with X)
Yeah this does sound dumb. The X window environment has been setting the bar for display systems for years. Just think, they got it right long before win32 environments were even stable. X is the industry standard in many areas. Games are a niche. An important one, mind you, for the overall consumer market, but this does not make an industry standard all by itself. High end scientific applications, Mechanical CAD, Visualization are just a few of the true industry standard applications that have all ran under X for years. Ask users of any applications in any of these areas what the transition was like when moving to the win32 platform. It took a long time for things to work as well as they did under X. Very few things are really better.
Games? Direct X? These both sound dumb to me if they are to be considered the way of the future. Games will eventually end up on whatever platform has both power and marketshare to sell copies. Linux + X can do games very well right now, but marketshare is smaller. As that changes, you will see the games same as you did for win32.
I think it says something when the best graphics guy around continues to invest in OpenGL. Direct X is a capable, but clearly dead end API. Hardly competitive at all really. Got your killer application running under Direct X, but want to run it on higher end graphics systems? Sorry, win32 only. Maybe the next revision, that they make damn sure you keep paying for, will have what you need. Using OpenGL avoids this problem nicely.
If you want do discuss other aspects of the interface, you might equate OpenGL to X in that they have the same core design ethics. OpenGL has also set the bar in its way for years before Direct X was even a consideration. To get Direct X where it needed to be Microsoft had to thrash and almost kill SGI through their Faherienhit (sometimes spelling sucks --sue me) project.
Finally, if you want to again consider industry standards, consider this:
Every last high end scientific and engineering application that actually matters uses OpenGL for its display engine. Why? Because it is accurate, stable, scaleable and just works well. Microsoft would love for this to change, but creators of these applications know all to well the dead end nature of the Direct X API.
---And you're 1 out of how many??? You need screen on another computer, use TightVNC. Uses a bunch of less bandwidth too.
I will agree with you about the bandwidth issue, though this can be mitigated with ssh and compression. However you totally miss all the points here while showing that you really have no idea why people, who know what X does, use it this way.
X is a big part of why UNIX systems are true multi-user systems and the network transparancy is the key feature making this a reality today.
Any X window user can basically run any application from any machine they want from the machine they are on. Lots of people do this. It is called multi-user computing. Most people not doing this really just don't know it is an option.
This feature has some interesting ramifications when it comes to systems design and implementation. Not having it eliminates many choices that could reduce administration and costs.
Example:
Company uses high-end MCAD product; namely, EDS I-DEAS. This is complex and powerful software with included data managment.
If you are running win32, then you have only one choice. You load that software onto every machine that will ever use it. Outfit every machine that will ever use it with high end CPU, video, disk and RAM. To administer, you must deal with each and every machine all the time. Service packs, driver changes and other things like applications that change core system shared library code hose things up on a regular basis. Heavy users as well as light duty users must possess all necessary resources on their local machine.
Upgrades to software must be deployed locally on each machine. Complex scripting is needed to really get things done in a reasonable manner. Upgrades to hardware get quite expensive over time as each user gets new hardware which means new OS which means new display and drivers along with the reloading and rebooting that comes with that.
Now consider your options when you are running a real multi-user OS and the X Window display system.
You configure one multi-cpu server and remote display on just about any 3D capable PC. Machines can be new or old just as long as they have a good network interface and graphics engine. Almost any recent vintage machine made in the last 3 years or so will perform this task nicely. Because the application is running directly on the server, many data intensive applications that used to bottleneck on the network now run smoothly. Cost per user is low because the OS is multi-user. Properly sized shared resources make for a good computing experience for all the users. For the occasional power user, go ahead and give them local compute if you need to. The choice is yours with X, you don't even get to consider it with anything else.
Now upgrade time. Add CPU or RAM to the server, all users benefit. Want to change software revisions? Great, it will take a fraction of the time because of shared code and configuration data. This leaves plenty of time to deal with those power users computing locally. Users local machine gets hosed up, what do you do? Give them a replacement one with the standard applications loaded and fix theirs as you have time without impacting their workflow at all. Since their critical data is in a shared stable environment, they will hardly notice.
When Open Office gets just a bit better, this will be possible for more mundane applications as well. The savings and advantages are obvious --if you know you have the option.
BTW, Apple is now beginning to ship an Aqua supported X server. Wonder why that is? Could it be because X has some advantages? Maybe they are interested in high-end applications being ported to the Mac. Not sure of the reason, but I am sure they would not do it if X really was as you say...
Schools all across the country are all working on implementations of the Linux Terminal server project. This project depends on X and its features. Administration will be remoted and centralized to save costs and improve response time.
At home here, I run win32, Linux and SGI irix. Each of the machines have applications I am interested in running. All the UNIX applications are avaliable on every machine with just two clicks and can be used by anyone at any time. My wife is currently watching a DVD as I type this. That same machine is providing Evolution e-mail to the win32 machine via X at the same time. Why bother running more than one mail client. With X, I can choose any client I want and use it anywhere I want.
It is easier than you think and very well worth it.
Finally, Tight VNC is pretty cool for what it is, but it is not multi-user. Sure, it will save you a trip to a machine, but will not allow any sort of multi-user action of any kind. Limited and totally non-competitive compared to X.
Network transparancy is *huge* and most of the industry is blind to it because Microsoft and Apple do not provide it. Their loss really.
---How about modularizing the obsolete crap (like the XT module in the linux kernel) or pulling the garbage out altogether? MSWindows 98 is snappy, even on quite old hardware. Now take that nice dual cpu motherboard and slap linux on that with a well-supported XFree video card. XFree runs like shit. It feels klunky and laggy. And no, I'm not using KDE to use as a test. I'm using TWM. The smallest gui manager out there.
I will give you points here. A lot of OSS software has been gaining in functionality in trade for speed. I wrote an article about this a while back titled "Where Is the New Linux Experience?" When I wrote that, I had the same experience you did.
Things are changing now. The feature growth is needed to capture users interest and get things done. Truth is, hardware fast enough to run most things is very cheap now so this is becoming less of a problem. Development is now starting to address speed issues and it is showing results. Compare KDE 3 to KDE 2 and you will notice the difference.
Given the cost savings of OSS over software you pay for, and you do pay for all that win32 or Mac software don't you? The price of a newer machine is easily justified.
The parent post is dead on. Every time X gets mentioned, people like you, who really have little grasp of the bigger picture, bitch and moan about how X doesn't do exactly what their older and inferior system does.
Get over it, X kicks ass and the rest just don't.
Blogging because I can...
The only thing giving me constant problem are the nvida drivers, and if I use the nv driver (no 3d acceleration) my son cannot play tuxracer.
I'll stay clear from nvidia in my new machines, heck if there were a good (and cheap) alternative I'd trash my current nvidia card.
Will Apple update X11 for Mac OS X to this new XFree86 release anytime soon?
And what about Red Hat Linux 8.1, will it ship with the new version?
Thanks!
1) Get the latest XFree86 binaries excepting the config package (I tried with sources but had more luck with binaries). /usr/X11R6 to /usr/X11R6.debian /usr/X11R6 /usr/X11R6 to /usr/X11.4.3.0 /usr/X11R6.4.3.0 /usr/X11R6
2) Rename
3) untar the binaries into
4) Rename
5) ln -s
6) Restart X.
I've been using this for six months now (due to the latest gatos drivers eternally needing a version of X that wasn't in debian). The good news with doing this is it's relatively easy to unfsck if things don't work. It sounds as though they've changed the font server configs so you may have problems with this in the latest version (I haven't done this yet).
I'd recommend changing the link back to the .debian dir before doing a apt-get upgrade or things may get really pear shaped in a hurry.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
There are two choices for dealing with transparency: either applications redraw their layers when any layer changes, or the server keeps bitmaps or vectors around and does the drawing compositing itself. Those are the same choices you have for any kind of redrawing.
X11 has always offered both choices, and it will likely also offer both for transparency. That is, if you tell the server to keep the bitmaps around for window contents, it won't ask applications to redraw--it will just do the compositing itself. If you tell the server not to eat up resources by keeping bitmaps around, it will ask applications to redraw.
Berlin simplifies its world by only giving you the simpler version of the two, where the server does the work. That's nice for many uses, but it isn't always the best choice.
Berlin also abstracts the pixels on the screen and lets developers deal with sizes in plain distance measurements. An icon that is one inch tall will always be one inch tall (it may be x or y pixels high though). SVG icon support will go into KDE, but XFree86 will still be pixel-based.
Again, you are confusing levels. At some level, Berlin has to deal with pixels as well: that's what the hardware has. At a slightly higher level, it provides rescaling and anti-aliasing. Those two levels are what X11 provides. Beyond that, it's not X11's business, it's the toolkits business. Some X11 toolkits provide resolution independence, although it hasn't been very popular because screens still aren't high resolution enough to make it work well.
Great, so the input drivers support old Xqueue. What is it? Google can only find umpteen Xconfig files, and the occasional mention of SysV.
You need more RAM to get a better framerate
Waiting?
What for?
I'm running Gentoo Linux.
{{.sig}}
Just informational.. I've been running an XFree86 4.3.0 beta on my OS X desktop for a while now and it is MUCH more responsive than 4.2 .. I can run KDE in full screen mode and it is actually usable. With 4.2, it was slower than using VNC over a T1. So, for all those who wished apple would have included a full screen mode in its X11 betas, 4.3.0 is what you're looking for. I believe the changes they incorporated were actually from Apple anyway (they released the source back).
Cheers,
-JD-
They leave out a lot of imho useful options, while there is an "input methods" menu item for every input box, which you can accidently set to "cyrillic" or "amharic" or ... and fsck up your input box. Yes, I can correct it, but a newbie can't. And yes, these things _do_ happen. A few weeks ago, my mom saw a secretary in a hospital who accidently lost a toolbar. She had to wait until the next day, when the tech guy was around. These things shouldn't be removable by default. Experienced users, the ones who use it, can turn the option on in a matter of seconds, but a lot of people who don't use it can't turn it off.
That's the price of getting the most STABLE and CONSISTENT linux distro.
I'm happy to wait, because I know when XFRee4.3 is availible i won't have a single problem.
aybe I should give it a try, don't take so long to compile.. and hey, who the hell use precompiled? :))
:-\
strange thing tho, XFree86 4.2.0 compiled faster than Mozilla 1.3a
The main issue is that if the Linux system isn't selected during a reboot then sometimes anaconda (it is a Red-Hat Distro) barfs during the hardware recognition of my mouse and monitor.
Yeah, but you shouldn't Just because it's technically correct doesn't mean it's right. Some credible people should get together and invent a new word to be the gender neutral s/he for english, and then decree it to be valid and correct. It might not get into common usage for some years, but I'd use it pon day one.
I want my Cowboyneal
For some reason, switching from virtual consoles and x server is a lot slower in this version.
It was already pretty slow with 4.2, now with 4.3 it takes like 5 seconds to switch from a Virtual Terminal back to X Server.
Any way i can boost up the speed?
in my opinion, each new version of x server just makes it slower to switch from VCs back to X does anyone know a away for faster switching from virtual terminals to x server?
Actually, the singular neutral-gender usage of "they" and "them" made it into the newest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Unlike french, there is no "official" british-english language, but the OED comes close - so "they" it is in british english since about 2000, however strained it initially sounds...
in my opinion, each new version of x server just makes it slower to switch from VCs back to X does anyone know a away for faster switching from virtual terminals to x server and vice versa?
OK, so multi-head is mentioned seperate (though just above) xinerama. I've been a long time xinerama user.. very pleased with it. At work however, I have wanted to to do multi-user setups in the lads (2 seperate X instances for 2 seperate users on their own monitor, keyboard, mouse). This would be a great cost and administrative savings for labs and some of the places I work with internationally.
Has any progress been made with this new release that would allow for the this multiuser type of system to be done?
The source for NeWS is not available, unfortunately.
Run your VCs in a framebuffer that is the same rez as X, preferably run X in a fb to.
X sucks in a FB, as does VCs in my not so humbe oppinion, But that would make it almost instant.
The biggest delay on switching X->VC is the rez change.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
How long does it take to compile XFree86? I'm stuck with a 500MHz CPU. :-(
Hell yeah! Gentoo is by far the best desktop distro! Stable, feature rich, and easy to administer.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
In correct textbook English, you default to the masculine form.
My OED disagrees with you and says that the plural can be used as the neuter, but notes that some people disagree with it.
What would Lemmy do?
"Odd, I was playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein through WineX this morning on my box..."
Well since it's ported to Linux there is really no need to run it under WineX, is there?
Check it out here: http://www.idsoftware.com/games/wolfenstein/rtcw/
You need these to files: wolf-linux-1.33.x86.runand wolf-linux-update-1.41.x86.run.
I do not understand what is X? How do you use it, how do you run it? Commands?
I know what XFree is, a GUI server? Now what is X!
Please, someone tell me.
I have Debian packages at penguinppc.org, as well as several mirrors (look at the link, folks), that work on sid i386/powerpc/ia64/alpha (woody and sarge backports coming soon), and will upload 4.3.0-0ds1 today (and hopefully -0ds2 by Wednesday). These will be the base for Branden's 4.3 work.
:)
Mike Harris, RedHat's maintainer, has some RPMs for RawHide (I think, might be 8.0) here. Don't say we don't do anything.
-MDL
Happy meals fund terrorism
As others have found, vmware 3.2 hangs really badly when going fullscreen in xf86 4.2.0, and the vmware support claims that this is a problem with X.
I was wondering if anyone has had any success running vmware 3.2 fullscreen on this new version of X.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
My monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 500b) takes a whole second to switch modes, and most of it is spent by the hardware (some switch or relay, I guess), yet I don't feel too uncomfortable. So, if you switch VT's under X so often, what are you doing?
That's the only one that works well with my setup (2 screens, xinerama).
I also found a patch for windowmaker that made things bearable, but I got tired of applying it each time there was a new version (for some reason the maintainers didn't like it). I don't know what the situation is with that WM as it was aeons ago (around version 0.60).
Let ME repeate: I WAS using DRI. Let me simplify this for you as I can see this is very difficult for you to understand:
1. I install Linux.
2. I use the nv open source drivers.
3. I enable DRI.
4. I run tuxracer and I get 1-3fps.
5. I disable DRI.
6. I download nvidia's official drivers (nvidia)
7. I install the nvidia drivers
8. I run tuxracer and I get 60-70fps.
Let me repeat: I enable DRI, just in case you didn't see that, I enable DRI, then, after I have enabled DRI, and DRI is running and enabled, I start tuxracer, meanwhile DRI is enabled, I get about 1-3fps in tuxracer while DRI is enabled and I am not using the official nvidia drivers, this is all while DRI is enabled, and through the process discussed in this particular paragraph DRI happened to be enabled the whole time. Also, DRI was enabled.
P.S. DRI was enabled in the last paragraph.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Does that mean that we can use the newest LCD monitors in portrait mode?
I would like to get one LCD monitor (Voodoo 5 card) but it seems wasteful to do so if I can't use the portrait mode that many of them have available.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get
rid of rutabagas which nobody ever bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that
was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer
question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?"
Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion.
-- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
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