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XFree86 4.3.0 in FreeBSD Ports Tree

Posted by michael on from the eye-candy dept.

Dan writes "Eric Anholt has committed the long awaited XFree86 4.3.0 to the FreeBSD ports tree. Please report any issues, bugs, etc. directly to him. The port appears to have support for popular cards such as NVidia, ATI, etc. Eric suggests that you use portupgrade to ensure you update fully from an earlier version of XFree86."

23 comments

  1. agp support? by RLiegh · · Score: 0

    I have a weird gateway astro that freebsd wouldn't do x in, I wonder if this version of FreeBSD will fix that.

    Oh well, if not, there's still [b]vmware[/b]. ;)

    1. Re:agp support? by essdodson · · Score: 1

      This is not a new version of FreeBSD. This is an update to a port. However you can expect FreeBSD 4.8 to be released in the coming week.

      --
      scott
  2. Portupgrade is my hero by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    n/t.

  3. A pleasant surprise... by CoolVibe · · Score: 3, Informative
    Heck, I did a portupgrade after cvsupping my ports and hey presto, new X. Woohoo! What a nice present.

    Oh, I have to remark that the nvidia drivers for FreeBSD work surprisingly well under Xfree 4.3. So far no problems. My Geforce 4 is happily screaming away at 1600x1200. Life is good :)

    1. Re:A pleasant surprise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      do you exploit the GeForce's 3d powers in any way?

    2. Re:A pleasant surprise... by CoolVibe · · Score: 1

      well, the opengl screensavers in kde 3.1 are quite snazzy, yes. :-)

  4. matrox g550 didn't work for me by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 3, Informative

    I had to use the linux tarball of the matrox supplied *drv.o files.

    the bsd ones (from the ports) just kept giving weird errors.

    the port maintainer knows this now, but if you are running a dual-dvi system (which NEEDS the matrox HAL lib) then maybe try getting the linux .o files and putting them in the /modules/lib... area instead of the port-built ones.

    fyi.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    1. Re:matrox g550 didn't work for me by CoolVibe · · Score: 1
      Hmm, odd. I seem to remember that the Xfree86 port had an WITH_MATROX_GXX_DRIVER (or somesuch) knob you could twiddle, but looking at the port Makefile, it seems to be gone.

      Basically, what it did was download the Matrox Gxx source drivers and build them with X11. It's how I got my dual-head Matrox G400 working under FreeBSD on my other workstation.

      Oh well... Guess I'd have to wait with updating X on that box.

    2. Re:matrox g550 didn't work for me by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

      that knob DID produce a few .o files.

      but those files DIDN'T WORK! don't know why - its beyond me - but I know for a fact they didn't work and that the 'linux' .o files (from the matrox site) did work.

      weird. but true.

      also, dualhead and dualhead DVI are quite diff. I run dual dvi. for that, you need the HAL lib. for regular dual, you don't (AFAIK)

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  5. Why no DRM? by Piquan · · Score: 1

    From the article:

    graphics/drm-kmod isn't going to be updated for 4.3.0.

    Anybody know why not? And why no HAL support?

    1. Re:Why no DRM? by Arandir · · Score: 1

      Anybody know why not?

      Because graphics/drm-kmod is sort of deprecated. It only exists for the 4.x tree, because the drm stuff is now in the kernel sources for the 5.x tree. I noticed that the kernel sources weren't updated either, so maybe an update just isn't needed.

      --
      A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
    2. Re:Why no DRM? by anholt · · Score: 1

      The kernel sources were updated on 2003-03-09, two days before 4.3.0 hit the ports tree.

      I'm not updating drm-kmod because it's annoying to have these open-source, mit-licensed kernel modules outside of the tree. It means that as the port maintainer I have to apply patches to it every time someone changes the kernel API and all the users have to manually update it. If it's in the tree, there's no synchronization problem (except in DRI CVS).

  6. Is XF86-4.3.0 compatiable with NVIDIA's drivers? by KiwiSurfer · · Score: 1

    Does the new version of XFree86 work fine with NVIDIA's offical drivers?

  7. Broken FreeBSD Alpha port !!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are the FreeBSD 4.7 Alpha port boofloppies broken ?

    They do not boot at all.
    4.62 boots, but fails, 5.0 works.

    It makes me think that FreeBSD on Alpha is poorly done, is this the case ??

    1. Re:Broken FreeBSD Alpha port !!! by minektur · · Score: 1

      Because code sizes are much larger on the alpha architecture, boot-floppy support was dropped a while back - at least I think this was the conclusion of the long thread. It is less of an issue than I thought it would be for me as my miata boots just fine off of an ide cdrom drive...

      --
      Free Online Dark Fantasy RPG - http://www.blackmud.com
  8. Re:Is XF86-4.3.0 compatiable with NVIDIA's drivers by CoolVibe · · Score: 1

    Yes, so far no problems here with the drivers for nvidia in the FreeBSD ports.