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"

Comments

xorg changes

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why everyone is switching to x.org when it's known that there will be significant changes coming in the next couple of releases. It seems to me like that's begging for problems.

Re:xorg changes

[AKAImBatman]

it's becoming increasingly apparent that MandrakeSoft doesn't care much about stability anyway :(

No kidding. When I did a review of Mandrake 10.0, I found that nearly all the software was beta stuff, and that the system was about as stable as a dog in flight. That's not to say that it won't work for most people, but they do go out of their way to be "so sharp I bleed before you cut me" edge.

Re:xorg changes

[BenjyD]

I had very similar experience to yours with Mandrake 10.0. I deleted a perfectly stable system (Arch Linux) to try it out, too.

I've tried two of the current major commercial distros now (Mandrake 10.0 and SuSE 9.1). Both had some nice features but had the minor drawback that they didn't work reliably. If the distro companies can't create a stable system with no show-stopper bugs, why bother adding features? I'm back on Arch now, which is faster and more stable than either.

Re:xorg changes

[13Echo]

X.org *is* pulled right from an XF86 4.4 release candidate. It even has the same bugs that XF86 4.4 has (like the broken XV overlay code).

Re:xorg changes

[auzy]

The reason isn't only because of the licensing, its also because Xfree86 was a badly managed project.. It was very common for programmers to write code which wasn't accepted (I heard for instance the cygwin coders spent a very long time coding patches which they refused to accept).

They also moved slowly.. At the rate Xfree86 was going.. in 10 years maybe we'd be getting up to OS X level, but with xorg, I know a few people are working on the compositing already (the stuff needed for the translucent window effects and stuff), and libraries like cairo I'd imagine will be better utilised.

So, many of the flames here I think are wrong, and are made by people who have no idea what the current situation is.. In fact, I'm betting that it will be a year tops until everyone here is thankful of the changes..

I'm not a coder for Xorg, but I do hang around the channel alot, and have seen how fast Xorg is evolving (I do code though)

Anyway, you want simple applications, and maybe a bit more stable server, go Xfree86.. If you want something, that is more cutting edge, can easily produce nice next generation effects that can surpass longhorn, Xorg is your best choice for the future.

Haven't you noticed that nothing has visibly changed in X since the first accellerated ones came out, other then more drivers (lets face it, you could still run Xfree86 3.3 and get pretty much the same experience then now, if your drivers worked on it). Xorg however will add extensions that will finally make it worth while enough to be hoping for an upgrade.

Re:xorg changes

[stevey]

It will certainly be interesting to see how many of these patches now get in.

The Debian X Strike Force produce a packaged version of X which runs on more platforms than the native version, seeing those patches folded in would be wonderful news.

Re:xorg changes

[WindBourne]

In defense of XFree86, they came about due to 2 reasons:

1. The X org was not truely open source.
2. Xorg was moving way too slowly.

It is humourous that this has come full circle. It also shows that the way to usurp an open source project is be more OSS and work harder. :)

Differences?

[TEMM]

What are the differences between XFree86 and X.org, besides the liscences and names? I havnt really had any experiences with X.org

Re:Differences?

[Karamchand]

X.org is actively developed while XFree86 is only maintained at best because most high-profile X developers from XFree86 have changed to X.org.

Re:Differences?

[starseeker]

As far as the end user is concerned, there are relatively few differences between X.org and XFree86 at this point. X.org is a fork of XFree86, and even if they were gung ho to change everything no project the size of XFree86 is going to get radically altered overnight. (Which I don't think they are, bty.)

I made the switch on Gentoo, where it was very painless. For distros without such a smooth upgrade path and/or non-geek inclined folk it might be better to wait for the next release of the distro (since a foobared X install is a little hard to fix without experience on the command line.) But if you're worried about programs not working or anything like that, there shouldn't be any issues at this point.

The experimental work is, IIRC, focused primarily on the freedesktop Xserver. The major difference between X.org and XFree86 is things will get fixed sooner, driver releases will be better handled, etc. The license change was just the last in a long, long line of problems - fixes made by the cygwin folk, for example, were rotting without ever being applied to the main tree. I don't know all the details of that incident, but I don't think it is the only such either. The XFree86 team wasn't so worried about being responsive to the needs of XFree86 users. (Which is their right, of course, since most of us aren't paying them. But nor should they be surprised by a fork.) X.org is the place for people who want XFree86, but managed correctly and in an open manner. Those who want adventure and bleading edge should scope out freedesktop.org. I don't know what will happen to XFree86 - likely they will keep on the way they have been, with fewer users. I get the sense this won't bother them much, either, but I could be wrong.

Are there any advantages other than licensing?

[desplesda]

It seems to me that the major distros are all jumping to X.org because of the XF86 licensing issue. Are there any other advantages to X.org, or are distros just jumping to it over what looks like a quite trivial license change?

Re:Are there any advantages other than licensing?

[nine-times]

In the immediate sense, X.org is barely different from XFree86 4.4.0. They're almost the same code.

However, this fork wasn't made merely because of the licensing issues. XFree86 development has been fairly slow, as well as not really being focused on some of the sort of improvements that would actually help end-users. To the best of my understanding, the X.org people are much more focused on helping Linux become a "desktop" OS than XF86 was.

So, the first release of X.org looks like XF86, and it was a good choice to make it close to identical, to help migration, and it means they're starting from the solid base XF86 provided. However, we should be seeing some real improvements soon (hopefully).

Good Thing(tm) & FP

[zoloto]

XFree86 project was scuicided and this is what happens. :) Personally, any change for the better including new implementations and speed enhancements will do everyone good.

Speaking of which, this is off topic, but has anyone gone x.org for their own machines and if so, what's the smallest compiled binaries sizes (total X install) you've come up with? I'm looking at working with DamnSmallLinux and the smaller the better, or straight out integration (unless that's pure evil)

Post some replys, I'd love to hear from everyone.

XFree"86" is for 386 .. But

[Gopal.V]

But for the record the first commercial X11 release was in 1986 ...

The original was named X386 (yes, after an intel 386). Also I should say XFree86 was named "Free" not because it was , but because it rhymed with three.

And that's how it ended up :)... rhymes with three, but is not free

Crossplatform?

[pigeon]

One thing which was nice about xfree86 is that is was very crossplatform, so it ran under linux, *bsd, solaris (etc) and on i386, ppc, arm etc. How will this be with x.org? Any plans?

What does this mean for upgrading?

[MobyDisk]

Suppose that I have XFree86 4.2 or 4.3 on my system, and I've been happily using apt/yum/rpm to keep myself up-to-date. How difficult is it to switch to X.org?

If X.ORG is marked as conflicting with XFree86, then apt will uninstall XFree86 for me -- along with everything that depends on it. KDE, Gnome, all my X applications... ack!

Or should I continue with XFree86 for a while? Obviously, my install tools don't care about license changes.

How does this affect 3rd party drivers ?

[farzadb82]

Will/Does the NVidia or ATI drivers work in x.org ? Will NVidia/ATI support future x.org upgrades, or will they continue to support xfree ?

Re:Proprietary Drivers

[Lispy]

Nvidia works fine for now. That said they would be very stupid to support XFree86 any further with all those nice eyecandy waiting to happen in xorg. I am confident that they will see the benefit in xorg and abandon XFree86

Interesting

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Some people on the XFree86 Forum list claim it's the vendors using Xorg for their own interests.

Re:Interesting

[scrytch]

> Some people on the XFree86 Forum list claim it's the vendors using Xorg for their own interests.

Speaking as someone who used a vendor that XF86 ignored for years and years ... fine. You can make a statement that you won't support proprietary drivers (not so), that you'll only support a certain interface (pretty much true), and so on, but you can't just sit there and refuse to take perfectly good patches WITHOUT COMMENT.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. I for one welcome my new conspiratorial corporate overlords, whoever they are.

Re:Wow, that's gotta be a record!

[Bruce Perens]

There is no team. It's just David.

Bruce

XFree86's reaction?

[jifl]

So what has the XFree86 project's reaction been to this? They'll have noticed the defectors to X.org like everyone else. Are they contrite or defiant?