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Fedora Prepares For Xorg Instead of XFree86
ZuperDee writes "I noticed in the development branch of Fedora today that they appear to be in the process of creating new xorg RPMs, and from the looks of the changelogs in those RPMs, it looks like their ultimate plan is to switch from XFree86 to the XOrg Foundation's implementation of X11. Anyone else here think this could signal the beginning of a new trend in Linux distributions, and that XOrg could end up becoming the new de-facto X11 implementation?" (See this earlier story,too.)
I don't know enough about Xorg to know if this is good or not.
Is the driver support there? Will NVidia's and ATI's binary drivers work with the Xorg server? It could be a real problem if FC2 won't be able to do accelerated 3d under NVidia or ATI cards.
"There is exactly one thing holding Linux back from mainstream corporate and personal use: the lack of any unified and consistent message."
... um... more Linuxish."
And thus it should stay. No, really.
Linux -- aw hell, just for the ability to distinguish between the kernel and the OS in this post, let me throw my lot in with RMS and say, "GNU/Linux" -- is not a platform, it's a concept. The concept is "you take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and add it to the Linux kernel and it looks a whole lot like UNIX, but
That's all GNU/Linux is. Now let me ask you a follow-up question: What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Aha! You know that, don't you? You can point at a THING and say "I know what this is, and what its message is." Red Hat Enterprise Linux should have a message. GNU/Linux should not. Get the difference?
It's good, therefore, that GNU/Linux is targetted by both Gnome and KDE (as well as other desktops of varying quality, scope and goals). It's good because the operating systems that start with GNU/Linux (e.g. FC1, RHEL, SuSE, Debian, etc.) can take from those what they please, and leave what they do not. Red Hat, for the most part, stresses Gnome as the desktop where, for example, Mandrake does not.
This is what defines a distribution: what tools it includes, what it emphasises and what it contributes to. You may think Debian is too generic and will never gain mainstream adoption. That's cool, because that's not Debian's goal. Debian's goal is to be a haven for free software. It does this admirably. And you can say that about every distribution, only it's a different set of priorities which are and which are not met by each.
"I must say to everyone that if you really want to see Linux take off on the desktop"
No one wants to see GNU/Linux on the desktop any more than Microsoft wants to see Spyglass Mosaic on the desktop. That just happens to be the software that IE started out life as, but it's not MS' goal to put Spyglass on the desktop. It's not Fedora's goal to put GNU/Linux on the desktop, just Fedora.
PS: Posted from a Linux desktop in a company staffed almost entirely by people who use nothing else. We're fine with the state of affairs today, thanks. Oh, and no the only thing holding back Linux on the desktop is distribution and supply channels which are locked in by MS and will take a decade or more to unlock.
Get a whole bunch of Linux advocates in a room together with a bunch of BSD advocates. Casually mention licensing. Shortly before all hell breaks loose, one or two people will mention that Linux has not forked because it's under the GPL, while laissez-faire BSD has at least a dozen forks in it. Whereupon Alan will hit Theo over the head with a copy of the GNU Manifesto, rendering him unconscious.
On a more serious note, while this is not official dogma of the FSF, and never will be while they possess at least two brain cells, it has unfortunately become an uncommon but tenacious myth among the GNU discipleship. Peruse any Slashdot story on BSD and you're likely to discover an instance of it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
You must be looking for GNUstep then.
It doesn't have many developers but it's just as well since although hoards of developers have made not one but two half-assed clones of Windows the small number of developers working on GNUstep are nearly finished implementing OpenStep true to specifications.
What's exciting about GNUstep is that Cocoa is also an implementation of OpenStep with some additions. With a little spit and polish GNUstep running on Linux would make a great clone of OS X.
However, OS X is not all about the GUI. OS X also has some kernel facilities and user tools to go with it which make the OS more suitable for desktop use. For one thing, Apple has a devfs so devices show up in a sane manner and there are no extraneous entries. There is also the automounter and associated tools (comamnd line and GUI) to go with it.
Probably the most important thing about OS X that should be brought to Linux is the BSD style of an administrators group. On OS X you can have multiple admin level accounts which can sudo things as root. The root account doesn't even have a password and is entirely disabled. This makes it easier for joe user. Joe can run as an "administrator" which is actualy a fairly unpriviledged account which can gain access only if Joe enters his own password. That makes one less password for Joe to remember and prevents Joe from just giving up and running as root all the time.
[A] good explanation for it that I read at osnews.com was that the XFree86 and the Distros (commercial and community alike) started to increasingly have differences in priorities and culture. The license change was a like message from XFree86 to the distros that they didn't care one way or another for their support. The distros response is logical.
Yup, there is only one development team that is more of a pain in the ass than XFree86. But in mplayer's case they actually have kept up with the evolving needs of their users and developers. XFree86 seems to have been stuck in a timewarp for a few years now. That's not to belittle the past accomplishements, but standing still is not an option. The licensing change is just something concrete to point to when recruiting developers for your fork. I for one have been waiting for a good fork for a few years... um, now I gotta get back to coding... and then deciding which fork to patch...
I felt the same way about David Dawes: he seemed arrogant, obstinate and difficult to carry a meaninfgul debate with. He even admitted that he doesn't even run X anymore: he uses Windows. Therefore it seems reasonable to suggest that his opinion on X is of less significance now than it was a few years ago.
But before jumping all over DD, have a quick look at the CVS commits for XFree86 over the years. He certainly has contributed a lot to the free X Server we have been using for years. Despite his abrasiveness I don't think it's fair for all his hard work to be disregarded.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"