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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...
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.
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 run the nVidia drivers, and have no problem. Why would anyone not use the nVidia drivers under Linux. I have a dual head setup (not Xinerama). One is a Gforce 4 Ti4600, the other is a GF2. I can frag with my first and keep an eye on slashdot and my e-mail on the second.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
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.
Sorry, the shitty Radeon driver argument under Windows died like a year a go. Nice try.
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?
XFree86 communicates with the local client over a Unix domain socket or a platform-specific transport (on SVR4 and Xenix, for example). In either case, there's no TCP involved.
It also uses shared memory to transmit images.
There have been some attempts to make XFree86 use a shared memory transport, but at least on Linux, it turned out that it's not worthwile. The kernel's Unix domain implementation turns out to be just as fast as any custom code that XFree86 could implement.
I've got the AIW Radeon working fine under Linux. I used the gatos drivers from gatos.sf.net, which have been ported to the new XFree 4.3 for a while now. Tuning and 3D support both work great, but capture is still an issue for the gatos project. They're working on things though.
"You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is...never try. Heh!" -Homer
Red Hat 8.1 beta (Phoebe) has xfree86 4.2.99.3 packaged... since then, XFree86.org has released several more snapshots (.4, .901 and .902)... I've been running the snapshots (.3 and most recently .902) for awhile now... .3 had a problem with the nvidia driver... once X came up, I couldn't Ctrl+Alt+F# to a terminal, but that was fixed fairly quickly.
:). Be patient! ;)
Anyways, RH is likely waiting to test all these newfangled toys. GNOME 2.2 came out, and now that X4.3 is out, RH8.1 shouldn't be too far behind
It is my understanding, based on reading of some xinerama docs, that xinerama does allow 3d acceleration, but only to the first monitor. Some drivers can supposedly handle it, if it is off the same card through Xinerama (or was planned.) NVidia's reportedly can, because the driver doesn't interact with Xinerama. The driver hides the interface from Xinerama, by claiming to be one screen at something like 1280x480 for example of two 640x640 monitors together.
(NVIDIA's supposedly can, but dispite being able to get almost everything else running I come across, a second monitor (TV) seems too difficult or something, even copying config files from people with the same setup. I think it just doesn't like me.)
Please note: this was a while back, and I am not sure of that. Please correct if wrong. I am pretty sure on the Nvidia stuff, not so sure on the Xinerama stuff.
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
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!
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/xfree86/4.3.0/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Since yesterday? You mean you got a head start yesterday. You'll still be emerging it when Debian Stable gets it. ;)
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
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.
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.
If I understand your request correctly, yes it does. there's an fb driver, and it worked for me on my laptop.
Vote for global prefs bug
Check out beyond.us.linuxfromscratch.org, there's a great section for compiling XFree. (Use the CVS version of the guide).
Vote for global prefs bug
I'm running X 4.3.0 with the nvidia 4191 drivers, I had to redo 'make install' before they would work, but they work well now!
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.
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.
thats what XRandR does. altought you cannot change color depth yet from what I understand.
GTA3 is like the Sims to me - MC Hawking
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.
Since yesterday? You mean you got a head start yesterday. You'll still be emerging it when Debian Stable gets it. ;)
Bah. I emerged rsync at 12:00 today, and then niced an "emerge -u --deep world" shortly after that. On my dell 8200 laptop (1.6ghz), by 4:00 I had a shiney new X, mozilla 1.3_beta, and a whole bunch of other neat stuff.
It's not for someone with a p266 who wants to stay bleeding edge (bad idea anyway), but I see debian users complaing all the time (scroll up) about how it's gonna take forever for this stuff to even get into the unstable branch.
give gentoo a shot, portage rocks
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.
Thank you Mandrake!
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
---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...
I bought a Gigabyte Maya (Radeon 9000 Pro) recently, to replace my aging TNT2 M64, and overall, I'm pleased with it...it's much faster and has better features than a GF4 MX440, which is what I was actually looking for, but the drivers have definitely been a problem.
I had my first XP Blue screen within 5 minutes - and the error message clearly showed the crash was in the ATI driver. It's not crashed since, but it still happened.
I've also noticed artifacts and weirdness in a number of places.
Overall, I'm happy with the card, but I think that If I was going to spend the money on a high end card, I'd be looking at an nVidia, not an ATI, even though the 9700 has an edge over the GF FX.
I've never had a problem with the GF2Go in my laptop, and my girlfriend's never had a problem with the GF2MX in her machine.
Advanced users are users too!
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.
They suck with a rather slow system (TNT2 / Celeron dual 333 / 512 MB). Once every while the cpu-load becomes 100% and X hangs for a couple of seconds.
:))
(but Tux-racer runs fine
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-
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?
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?
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
XRandR changes the virtual desktop size, hence no more ctrl-atl-[+/-] to get a 800x600 window on an1024X768 desktop
GTA3 is like the Sims to me - MC Hawking
Well, it did work insofar as the video was shown. It did not work because the video overlay caused artifacts all over the screen! Little chunks of the video image were drawn at random locations horizontally from the overlay window, which - needless to say - sucked. And I used config files from the same driver versions' utility, and yes, I did read the README.
I had this behaviour in every version. I reportet it to ATI in every version. I did never even get a reply. So to all those who cry "support DRI" and stuff: I'm right behind you in that matter. But those folks can't do shit about Via sitting on patents for S3TC/DXTC, and I don't have the time or knowledge to work around this myself. I've since given up on getting any commercial game to run too desperately. If it doesn't work after a sane amount of time, I just play it in Windows and the current DRI drivers at least allow me to do some basic GL hacking with some basic extensions.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Having said that, the cooker has been tracking XFree86 CVS for a while now, and many many people do use the cooker, so many people have been hammering on CVS builds.
Now that XFree86 is final, us cooker people will hammer on it for a bit to find the last few wrinkles before it goes into Mandrake's next release.
Many eyeballs, or something like that...
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"