Slashdot Mirror
Mandrakelinux Goes X.org
dvalin writes "With Mandrakelinux now going for X.org it seems like every big linux distributor now has officialy dumped XFree86.
First release for cooker was announced on the changelog list the 7th of June:
http://archives.mandrakelinux.com/changelog/2004-0 6/msg00799.php
Nice to see for all us cookers out there:)
Also on another note, Mandrakelinux has also switched to gcc-3.4 now"
Looks like XFree86 has a bad management staff. If companies and people all start jumping ship you fix why they are all doing it. It's simple business.
Evolution or ID?
The main advantage (IMHO) is that they have developer momentum (i.e. lots of developers cast away from xfree, and also new developers with enthusiasm for the project).
Nowadays?! It has always been this way, and it will always be this way. These are the dynamics of a lot of intelligent, strong willed people working together, albeit in a loose an relatively disconnected manner.
feh. stuff.
The XFree86 process has been dysfunctional for quite some time with politics dominating. A fork was probably imminent either way. This is natural selection at work, and shows why open source is an effective model.
Well, I think switching to X.org sooner rather than later allows for more progressive changes. Switching from the latest XFree86 with the "correct" license to the first X.org release, is a matter of changing a few scripts, paths and names.
Architectural changes that could happen later will very probably be transparent to the use. Changing from XFree86 to X.org 6.9.0 (or any other upcoming Xorg release) will cause broder changes to take place and as such will make bug reporting and chasing harder.
Also, I think switching fast is meant as a strong political message from the distros to XFree maintainers.
blah
when i ran netbsd on my good ol' macintosh lc520 i believe the x server was in fact called xfree68.
it only ran in black and white.
perl took two days to compile.
i couldn't figure out how to add a user so i did everything as root.
it seems like every big linux distributor now has officialy dumped XFree86
But is XFree86 actually dumped? Surely their future work (even if it does come out slowly) will continue to be utilised by X.org. And right now all they've done is fork a version of XFree86 anyway. In effect everyone is still using XFree86, and unless X.org has some kind of wild new direction planned, it doesn't look like much is going to change for users. Bah. It's all too political and boring.
Which is less than a week away jackass. Of course they're going to switch to 3.4.1.
Is it compatible with the XFree86 config files?
God knows we don't want to have to write another X server config file by hand after finaly getting one to work.
Or perhaps, X.org is just better so we won't have so much trouble.
I've not used X.org yet, so I can only ask others.
Less look fast, more go fast.
and shows why open source is an effective model
Not so, it only shows that open source is an effective model IF these transitions occur smoothly and the destination is found to be worthy the journey.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
It shows how open source is effective for the consumer, not for nessesarly for the producer. It also shows basic market economy, company makes bad product, consumers switch. This is how things should work, but generally don't in a more locked in system that is generally produced in closed source.
Just after Duke Nukem Forever hits the shelves :)
Not true, because through the process of natural selection if the fork is -not- worthy very few if any will switch to it and the product will wither and die.
... far more effective than bying a commercial product that decides to make changes that aren't compatible with your setup and then saying "too bad, you have to upgrade, you might want to change you setup".
If the transition isn't smooth then selection will be slowed until the transition has taken place. If the destination isn't worthy after transition, people still won't switch.
Sounds effective to me
Is it perfect? Nope, I think the Universe has an if() loop that states if anyone finds the perfect one-size-fits-all business model it then transfers the rights to the supreme being and ends the experiment. However, it is still quite effective.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Uh .. X.org dictate the damn X protocols. And they've always been backwards-compatible.
Right now X.Org is mostly a code cleanup of the last GPL-friendly XFree86. That will change eventually. I'm running X.Org at home, and there were very few changes. The advantage right now is that you're running something somewhat close to latest-greatest XFree86, except that it's undergone some minor changes.
It's not just the minor licensing issue: XFree86 moves at a snail's pace, and it's not from lack of people trying to change it. Hopefully we'll see some modernisation, and new features designed to take advantage of modern hardware.
I for one welcome the change.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Yeah, this is a big problem. Right now I can't think of a distro I can recommend to newcomers.
Mandrake -- too bug-ridden
Fedora -- very slow, and has the partition table problem
Gentoo, Slack, Debian -- way too hard for a newcomer
So basically, we don't have a solid, well-tested and popular desktop distro that's freely available.
Fuck. This is bad for Linux.
Yes, the Nvidia and ATI drivers work with Xorg. You need to remember that the current Xorg is just a fork of XFree 4.4rc2.
I would think that in the future both ATI and Nvidia will support the one the community uses and now it looks like community will be using Xorg
My experience at HP was eye-opening in this regard, Sun is even worse.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Two points to consider:
... hmmm Arch(Debian), Lycoris(Debian), Peanut(appears to be RedHat/Fedora-based), Lycoris(Debian), Slax(could it be Slack-based?), Source and Sorcere (I'd be willing to bet on Gentoo) ... they will eventually switch as their parent distros do.
1) I assume XF86 means distros that currently support their software and have not announced an intention to change,
2) I know Conectiva was initially RedHat-based, but then, so was Mandrake. I wonder how many of these distros are also derivatives
utter rubbish
It's just a fact of life, not an insult. Large companies tend to have a frustrating level of internal politics and bureaucracy that work against productivity. I doubt there's any company of that size that doesn't have such problems.
Of course, smaller companies can have this problem too - all you need is one politician. But, the smaller the group, the larger the chance that people can work together in a happy and efficient way.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Bruce
Bruce Perens.