X.Org 6.8.2 is Out

ertz writes "The X.Org Foundation today announced the fourth release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of 2004. The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11, Release 6.8.2 (X11R6.8.2) builds on the work of X.org X11R6.8.0 and X11R6.8.1 released in 2004. X11R6.8.2 combines the latest developments from many people and companies working with the X Window System and an open X.Org Foundation Release Team. All Official X.Org Releases are available for download from the ftp site and at mirror-sites world-wide."

Comments

Windows driven Linux

[Dancin_Santa]

I like to make little digs at my Windows-loving friends about the instability of their beloved OS, but they really got me good with their critique of X-Windows.

If you look at what X-Windows does, beyond the standard windowing stuff, it is a lot of shading and anti-aliasing and subpixel shading and so on. These functions are actually implemented in hardware, for the most part, and the X system calls the exposed driver routines to make them work. So if your card doesn't support some feature, you aren't going to get it: it's not really supported in software.

But, they asked, who drives the video card manufacturers? It's a rhetorical question, of course, because with Intel and Microsoft basically defining what it is to be a PC (with initiatives like PC98 and other PC definitions), it is they who are telling the video card makers which direction to go and what features to build into their cards.

So X-windows will always lag behind Windows because Windows is the driving force behind graphics improvements. I wish I had an answer to this, but unfortunately it seems to be the case.

Re:Ati Drivers

[smittyoneeach]

Possibly you can name a good 802.11g card with WEP support.
Trying to get my kernel to compile in the right support for Gentoo 2004.3 has been an ordeal.
I've got the firmware and everything working under the live CD.
This page has a note that's kinda funny:

7.c. Default: Manual Configuration
Introduction.
Manually configuring a kernel is often seen as the most difficult procedure a Linux user ever has to perform. Nothing is less true -- after configuring a couple of kernels you don't even remember that it was difficult ;)

I assure you, after I've proffered the correct burnt offerings to appease the kernel gods, I shall never view the procedure as trivial.

Re:Ati Drivers

[Wiz]

This is off-topic, but....

Erm, why don't you use 7.d instead where the whole process is basically automated? Run genkernel --menuconfig all if you wish to tweak which modules are available.

If all else fails, use ndiswrapper. It works fine for me.

Come on Taco

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

explain how this belongs in the Linux section.

Re:Ati Drivers

[jbolden]

Why would we want a first class binary-level driver model? So that we can have:

compatibility problems
very difficult API maintainence problems
closed source drivers introducing OS bugs
etc...

Hell no. I'd much rather have worse hardware support than what we have on Windows. Probably at around 5% market share ATI is going to start to lose major vendor contracts (Dell, HP, etc...) because it will make their desktops not supportable fully under Linux. At that point ATI will take the driver issue seriously.

Nvidia will be far ahead of them and this may be yet another advantage for Nvidia....