XFree86 News

PseudoMan was the first with the news: XFree86 3.3.4 has finally been released (yes, you can actually see the contents of the directory now). Rumour has it that the new release contains support for various Matrox cards, and may be the last release before we see 3.9 show up. Update: 07/20 06:05 by J : It seems that the first public beta of 4.0, 3.9.15, is now available. xinerama, here I come!

Comments

So how long till..

[Anonymous Coward]

3D window managers! I want one =) And with all the accelerated arch. that XF86 4.0 offers, maybe we'll see something of this type?

Then again, what i'm saying is insane.. Rendering the graphics of what's in a window at funny 3D angles.. Lots of grabbing what's in the window and playing with it =)

Re:So how long till..

[Anonymous Coward]

then again...
in most popular widget sets (hahaha .. xaw not included... well without the help of xaw3d :P) try to EMULATE a 3d look..... welllllllllll... how about a little less emulation (grin) :)

Re:So how long till..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are on to something, unfortunatly I don't think we'll see something like this until MS or Apple do it first. Then we'll be playing catch-up again, like we always seem to be.

Re:So how long till..

[Junta]

It exits already, umm.. 3dwm was one thing I heard of, don't know its status. Another was Objective Reality, a commercial 3D UI for linnux. And ggi has some nifty stuff of things like putting different X sessions on sides of a cube. Really cool stuff. You can try these out if you wish.. Xfree support will be cool tho...

Re:here's a mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

dO NOT USE THIS MIRROR -- pOrn site!!!

Re:X Windows 3.3.5

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeat after me :

X Window System (without s) : X11R6.4

XFree86 : XFree86-3.3.4, XFree86-3.3.5, XFree86-4.0

You'll copy a hundred times:
'The X Window System is not property of Bill' ;-P

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not the way it typically happens. You don't decide one day to be a XFree developer and join. It usually happens more like this:

I got some problem with my gfx card. I go read the mailing list archives, find out a bit about my problems and notices that a lot of cool(tm) stuff are being done there. After a while of reading the archives i join the mailing list and takes a few peeks at the code.

After some time (maybe quite long time) i consider myself an "XFree developer".

This is how most other projects work, and i think XFree would get a lot more participiants if they were more open.

/ Alex (haven't got my password)

Does XFree 4.0 support font anti-aliasing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't found information about this from anywhere...

And yes, I know it supports True Type -fonts but I have them working already (without anti-aliasing)

Documentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know where I can get good docs describing how X works, explaining in a high and low level way, such things as DGA, GFX, etc....

i hear about these things, and I am excitied, with out really knowing what it all really means... :)

Re:Documentation (correction)

[Anonymous Coward]

i meant GLX...not GFX (see what happens when you post first thing in the morning?)

NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a fundemantal fact of X. Even if they added anti-aliasing support, every X app would need to be modified to use it.

Anyways, you dont want it. It makes fonts look better by making them unsharp. What you want is good fonts at a high res. So you should run at the minimum resolutions:

15" = 1152x900
17" = 1280x1024
19" = 1600x1200
21" = 1880x1440

Then use large high quality fonts and big images and your system will look GREAT!

Antialiasing is a joke.

Re:NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with better resolutions, but I still want anti-aliasing.

I quess you agree that at lower resolutions anti-aliased font looks better - so why it wouldn't look better also with better resolutions.

If I only could I would buy a monitor which can do 3072x2304 on 15" (300 ppi - first p for pixel), but I still would use anti-aliased fonts because they STILL would look better! Of course I would need a "little" better graphics adapter instead of TNT.

Re:NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does one pick up fonts for X? I went over to sunsite and grabbed everything in their font directory, but all I got were some sad excuses for garamond, et al. There were "freefonts" and "sharefonts" and pretty much nothing else...

Anyone know of any other font packages...

Re:NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mag DJ530 (15 inch) does 1152x900 @75Hz right now and even 1280x1024 @60Hz.

Re:NO!

[Erich]

I think this is largely Netscape's issue... I think Netscape is taking smaller fonts and making them larger by scaling... 9pt at 18pt or whatnot (but doesn't do a good job of scaling like TeX)

Re:NO!

[Mike Hicks]

Well, I run at 1280x1024, and the fonts in Netscape often look absolutely crappy. They have extra chunks all over the place -- looks like they thought the fonts should be getting antialiased, even though they really aren't..

At any rate, I wouldn't mind if there were different systems for the simple 1-bit fonts, and another for antialiased font. Just use whichever works better for the situation. If you need speed, use the traditional stuff. If you want it to look pretty, use antialiasing (or whatever other fun technique they come up with).

*shrug*

Re:NO!

[Brandon S. Allbery]

Your font problem is due to scaling: bitmap fonts don't scale at all well, and Type 1 fonts don't really have enough scaling hints to work well at screen resolutions. TrueType fonts are better for this --- ideally, one would use TrueType on screen and Type 1 for printing, but then you have to find fonts with matching metrics....

Antialiasing has a bigger problem: X fonts are depth-1 bitmaps. Changing this would involve major, incompatible changes to the X protocol and Xlib, breaking every application. Or a whole new API added on top of the existing one, making the new server even more complex (= bloated and buggy, trying to make the two font systems work together properly) and making life hell for the X toolkit and application folks. This might be an idea for X Version 12, but I expect it won't happen in any X11 release.

Re:NO!

[John Allsup]

The ~4-5 year 17" monitor I am using has done 1600x1280@60Hz before. Also, it is pin sharp at 1280x1024. And monitor technology has improved greatly since then.
John

Re:NO!

[Millennium]

15" = 1152x900
17" = 1280x1024
19" = 1600x1200
21" = 1880x1440

Great idea. However, I have yet to see any monitor which is even capable of those resolutions at the sizes you have indicated. I don't know of any 15" monitors which can do more than 1024x768, and I can't even get my 17" higher than that (never mind that it says quite plainly on the box that it should be possible). All of the 19" monitors I've found can't do more than 1280, and the 21-inchers can't do more than 1600.

Re:NO!

[clawson]

Sony 200SX/ES (17") will do 1280x1024 (60Hz).

ViewSonic 815 will do 1880x1440. Good luck getting an off-the-shelf video card that will drive that... (most seem to max out at 1600x1200).

to be honest, on my system here (ATI RageII Pro driving a GW2K "VX900" 19" monitor at 1600x1200), I see ZERO difference between turning on "sharpen screen fonts" and having it off, in Windows NT.

Anti-aliasing does less and less at higher resolutions.

Re:NO!

[elflord]

Did you make sure that each of the 1024x1280 pixels were really resolved ? it's one thing for the gun to be able to sync up to the resolution , and another thing for your shadow mask to have a fine enough pitch to actually display it.

Re:NO!

[Doviende]

you must have an incredibly old monitor...I have a low end 19" (an optiquest v95), and it will happily do 1800x1440 (great for having a whole bunch of files displayed when you're coding).

Like some other people have mentioned, you probably want to shell out some cash for your monitor. It's one of the parts of your computer that will actually last more than a few years, so go ahead and splurge on it.

"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."

Re:NO!

[dirty]

anti-aliasing is a really disgusting hack. Since it slightly blurs the fonts your eyes perceive them as being out of focus, so they try to refocus, this doesn't work, so they refocus yet again, and again, and again, and again. This causes a great deal of strain for your eyes. Running at a higher resolution with larger font sizes looks better and is much nicer to your eyes.

Re:NO!

[GnuGrendel]

Quit buying cheap, crappy monitors. My Dell 17" at work is (right now) running at 1280x1024... for a good 19" try the Hitachi Superscan 750, it can easily do 1600x1200

Re:NO!

[Delicon]

My 19" Dell 1200HS can run 1600x1200 @ 75Hz I use this as my standard resolution, I drop to 1152x900 @ >100Hz when my eyes get tired reading too much off of the screen.

I have yet to see a 19" monitor do less than 1600x1200 although most seem to just state optimal resolution of 1280x1024 because that is what they can get at 85Hz.

Re:NO!

[Vrongar]

My cheapo Belinea 15" will do 12x10...I use 10x7 because I want at least 85hz

Most new 17" (esp. Iiyama) will do 16x12

VMPro 450 19" will do 1800x1440

And so on...maybe t's time you looked at new monitors

Re:NO!

[AME]

My 19-inch does 1600x1200 (somewhat) acceptably. The problem is that it makes some things just too small. Web pages that specify their own fonts end up with tiny tiny text in Netscape.

I do use 1600x1200, but at that res, I'd rather have a 21-inch.

Re:NO!

[styopa]

My 15" monitor does 1152x864 no problem every day. I have even bumped it up to 1280x1024 without significant degredation in picture quality. Heck, it doesn't become hard to read fonts until I bump it up to 1600x1200. I recommend that you go out and spend quite a bit more money on your monitor next time, a good monitor is well worth the price.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not very closed. All you have to do is send in a request to join. Has anyone ever actually been
turned down? Would you also claim that Linux development is closed because you have to
actually get off your proverbial backside to subscribe to the linux-kernel mailing list?

Except that's not at all how either work, and you know it. To get the latest Linux source code, just ftp to ftp.kernel.org. That's it--no signing up, no committment, no anything. If you look at it and have a good idea, send it in.

Now, where could I have downloaded the pre-4.0 XFree86 code from last week? Oh, that's right. I couldn't, 'cause I'm not a "developer."

Re:Sound Pipe?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you would like to have is something like
the Network Audio System (it allows you to
export `audio' exactly as you can export a
display to a remote workstation). AFAIK it was
included in the R5 (and R6?) contribs of X11
and it used to work fine under linux provided your
application had support for it. I don't know if
some extra work has been done and how it dooes
ineract with the esnd/msound daemons... Guess I've
got to check :-)

Re:XFree4.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, OpenGL is accelerated under Linux for the 3 or 4 people who own supported cards. For the rest of us, it's molasses-slow software emulation.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

I submitted a few bug reports once to what I thought were the appropriate places. I never got a response. So far, that experience has been the worst one in my 5 year Linux-using career.

RISC OS 3

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW: I still think RISC OS 3 (and everything that came later) has the best font system from all:
Outline fonts, anti-aliasing, (RO >3.5 even sub-pixel anti-aliasing) and clever caching techniques - This was really neccessary, since the many RISC OS 3 machines had only 8MHz!.

And RISC OS 3 was released - when? I think 1992.

SiS 530?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll probably wait till the Debian packages come out, but does anyone know if this fixes the SiS 530 driver? On this machine I have to use the "no_linear" option to avoid display corruption, which has the incidental effect of disabling acceleration and limiting me to 8bpp. I've tried the fbdev drivers, which work in 1024x768 at 16bpp, but only at a headache-inducing 60Hz and without even an excuse for acceleration. So..is there hope? :) Have they got a proper driver for the chipset?

Daniel

Three factors.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Lots of the Xfree included fonts are garbage, esp when scaled.

2) Netscape loves picking the worst fonts from xfree.

3) Netscape loves scaling it's fonts.

Go get a copy of verdana.ttf and use that.

Re:Three factors.

[ArIck]

Hum. Well, Verdana looks nice in small sizes (compared to Helvetica..it seems the text on the side bars on Slashdot always looked like murder on it.) But in bold, large sizes such as the headlines for Slashdot, it looks like crap. Not enough space. Any ideas?

No, actually.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-alised fonts causes eyestrain. It's just a trick to make it prettier. If you wants preety fonts, get a better monitor. They are fairly cheap now, and your eyes will love you for it.

Re:No, actually.

[Croaker]

Do you have actual evidence that antialiasing causes eyestrain? Have any studies been done on this?

Use truetypes

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some good links from gimp.org, as I can recall.. Just looking over the net one afternoon (perhaps from tigert.gimp.org?) I got over 34megs of .ttf.. Many are quite good.. Also, check out MS'es site, or go pickup a two year old copy of corel (which I got one for $1 at a yard sale).

Re:Welcome to the 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

X is not an OS.

XFree86 needs the GPL!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this whole X Windows thing is that it's not under the GPL. This scares away developers who would like to help.

Re:XFree86 needs the GPL!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the GPL scares away more people than the BSD. If I want a virus I'll go get AIDS. At least then I won't die an idiot!

Re:XFree86 needs the GPL!

[demon]

Well, of course, XFree86 isn't even under the BSD license. It's still under the X Consortium license, has been for a long time, and hopefully will stay that way, contrary to some past attempts by the (not-so-)Open Group.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it this means we won't see Debian packages of pre-4.0 snapshots :) (or will you just keep them out of stable)

Daniel

Use truetype fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

I run the truetype font server at work and netscape looks just great at the oddball resolution I run it at (1152x864x16bpp, due to a crappy video card that can't manage 1280x1024 at that pixel depth.) The default set of fonts you get with X look pretty crappy, no doubt about it.

Once you get the truetype font server set up, you can snarf some nice free truetype fonts from Microsoft's home page (Doing so is probably the height of irony.)

Re:XFree4.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, times are changing fast. 3D acceleration is the present and the future. The price of decent 3D has fallen fast over the past two years. Now, you can get a decent 3D card (Nvidia TNT) for under $100 if you look hard enough. Plus, Nvidia has released Linux drivers, so it would be nice to support their efforts.

An additional benefit of accelerated 3D is that it looks a whole lot better than software 3D. Linux is never going to be able to compete against the evil empire in games until it makes the jump to accelerated 3D.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont have references handy.. Hopefully someone will come forward.. :)

Re:Yes

[scrytch]

The fact that no one is coming forward to defend this wild theory is instructive, wouldn't you say?

Re:Yes

[scrytch]

If you antialias 10 point fonts or lower, the of course they'll be blurry then, the only way to get around jaggy fonts at small sizes is to not use them. Besides, you haven't heard the same thing, you brought up the subject in the first place.

The, shall we say "novel", theory about how antialiasing works, by playing with your eye focus, simply isn't born out by any facts. I eagerly await revelation to the contrary.

Re:Yes

[dirty]

I have heard the same thing, and from personal experience, I would say it's true. My monitor at work (windows, dell 17inch, 1024x768x75hz) causes my eyes to hurt more than my monitor at home (linux, acer 17inch, 1280x1024x60hz). My home monitor runs at a lower refresh rate and a higher resolution which should cause more eyestrain, not less. The only thing I can think of is anti-aliased fonts.

Too small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then adjust the preferences so that netscape wont dork with your fonts! :) (me@1280x1024 on a 15"er)

Join GGI Then... http://www.ggi-project.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Subject sais it all...

DGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Awhile back, I searched high and low for information on DGA. I finally found some, and discovered that all it gives you basically is a pointer to a framebuffer that you can draw-on, bypassing X.

There's not much of an API for it, if you want that, I suggest using GGI, which can use DGA as a target.

Solaris == good fonts? Not!

[Anonymous Coward]

The default setup for Solaris 2.6 and 7 seems to use alot of horrible looking fonts. Many web pages look better under Linux IMHO.

Re:Sound Pipe?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was something called Network Audio Server (NAS) that did what you described. It seemed that nobody ever used it.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

I was interested in looking over the code at one point, just to tinker around and maybe try some things out relating to alpha channels and anti-aliased fonts. However, I certainly wouldn't have fallen into the category of a serious developer, and didn't want to join some club just to look at the code. I never even bothered with a slashdot login, why would I want to fill out forms to get code?

Re:woop!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for getting things set up and ready for me, doogie. I was fast asleep when this announcement went up, and now I'm at work.

Okay, Debian users, here's my plan. I'm going to try and get xfree86-1 3.3.4-0.0 out this evening. This will not go into Incoming. I will make it available at the X Strike Force. The reason this will be unofficial is because it's going to take time to go through our megabyte or so of patches and see which ones:

• have been merged upstream
• have been rendered obsolete by upstream changes
• need to be re-merged against changed upstream source files

and so forth.

I get home at about 1830 EDT, and will do my best to have this out by midnight EDT (if I don't, I'm just going to go to bed, have to get up for work again tomorrow). Unlike some lucky guys my day job is not maintaining packages for Debian, or other fun Linux work.

Anyway, that's the plan. I can't promise to have official .debs of 3.3.4 before any other distro, since Red Hat and SuSE have guys who are XFree86 developers, and I'm not one. But we'll see. The important thing is, 3.3.4 is actually out now and there is only packaging latency now. Potato will not be frozen with 3.3.3.1 in it. Overfiend has spoken. :)

Branden Robinson, Debian GNU/Linux developer

Completely wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

NO no NOnoNONOnOnONO!

You use high res to make your fonts fine, using dual head gives you more real estate but does not make your image more fine..

There is ***NO*** ergnomic reason (under Linux) not to run a 15" at 1280x1024 *IF* that monitor supports that resolution (meaning enough bandwidth not to be blury and a high enough refresh rate (72Hz min)).

Under linux you have (almost) complete control of everything on your display.

So.. You get a highend 15" and you run it at 1280x1024, while increasing the size of everything by 25%.. So it's not tiny and you get no eyestrain, but it's very crisp and high res..

What you are saying is akin to saying paper is not ergonmic because of it's high DPI. When you print with a 1200dpi laser, things get crysper, not smaller. The same can apply for your computer (but not under windows, it's not configureable enough)

Re:Completely wrong.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Nice... You partially answered the reason why I suggest not running a 15" unit above 1024x768... The bandwidth required for good refresh above that typically requires that you go out and pay more money, so you might just as well get a 17" unit for that amount of money. I'm all for smooth fonts, but I believe eye strain to be more dependent on refresh than dot blockiness. And I'm suggesting that you do get more pixels with dual head.

In my dual-head system,
I am currently running
2048x768 : 1.5 Mpixels
2304x864 : 1.99 Mpix
2560x1024: 2.6 Mpix

Normal single screen modes:
1024x768 : 0.8 Mpix
1280x1024: 1.3 Mpix
1600x1200: 1.92 Mpix

So I get as many or more pixels, more screen surface area, save money, better refresh if I go down a tube size.

My suggestion wasn't about DPI. On paper, dots are almost everything. On screen, flicker happens. I'm not sure how close your eyes are to your screen, but I'm not anywhere near bothered by minute text blockiness as I am with flicker and high tube prices for marginal size and performance gain.

Slow ass linux hardware accel 3d

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah thats nice and all, but last time I checked the linux 3d drivers were rather slow. Even the driver released by nVidia wasn't exactly "tweaked". I have g200 which I've been using under linux for a few months now and even the 2d isn't anything to right home about (its much slower than most any windoze box I've used).

And this DEFINITLY isn't an anti-linux rant. I use linux exclusivly at home for quite a while now. Just wanted to get some stuff off my chest =)

Re:Slow ass linux hardware accel 3d

[r_hakz]

Yes, you are correct, for now. The nVidia drivers are admittedly shitty, they're waiting for XFree86 4.0.

So just wait for 4.0, these things will all be greatly improved. You may be able to help by writing to linux distributors and showing your concerns, and hopefully persuading them to help with the XFree86 effort!

Now that you got that stuff off your chest and you feel better and all, you now have something to look forward too! =)

Thats right!

[Anonymous Coward]

As your resolution goes up, the 'trick' of antialiasing becomes unimportant.. Your monitor/eye does the blending.. Antialiasing just makes the edges undefined and out of focus.

I dont think X should ever add antialiasing. What X needs more of is resolution intependance.. You get that somewhat w/ Linux now because of extream customisability. But, what should happen is that apps should specify sizes of objects in MM or In. Then they would be the same no matter where you were (with the option of setting a virtual size for your screen to get more on the desktop).. Extra resolution would only serve to make the picture look better.

Re:Thats right!

[delmoi]

you mean like windows?
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:GGI on DGA advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot change resolution/mode at all with DGA. It's not within the DGA API. You can use the vidmode extension, which is XFree86 specific, to change resolution but not depth (as of 3.3.3).

Programs like xmame and snes9x exploit this, with DGA used for speed and vidmode to change res.

But you're a Berlin developer, no wonder you know nothing about X or XFree86 extensions.

Re:GGI on DGA advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot change resolution/mode at all with DGA. It's not within the DGA API. You can use the vidmode extension, which is XFree86 specific, to change resolution but not depth (as of 3.3.3).



Programs like xmame and snes9x exploit this, with DGA used for speed and vidmode to change res.



But you're a Berlin developer, no wonder you know nothing about X or XFree86 extensions.

Helvetica font in Netscape rules!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was playing around a bit with the fonts in Netscape, I tried Helvetica, and it looks awesome. Its just that I hate the sizes it offers. Too big.

broke my font server

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried your commands 'cause I also think X's fonts suck.

After
cd /usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts/ttf
cp /mnt/c/windows/fonts/*.ttf .
ttmkfdir > fonts.dir
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart

I ran X and it gave me the following error message:

_FontTransSocketUnixConnnect: Can't connect: errno = 111
failed to set default font path 'unix/:-1'
Fatal server error:
could not open default font 'fixed'

I tried deleting all of the windoze fonts and re-running ttmkfdir and xfs restart. no luck, same error message.

What am I doing wrong?

Jim

Re:broke my font server

[Anonymous Coward]

I already tried both... and neither worked. :(
Exactly what is it that X is looking for that it can't find? This behavior really baffles me.
Would reinstalling xfonts.tgz help?

Re:broke my font server

[dirty]

sounds like the font server got borked. first try /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs stop ; /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs start. If that fails, try rebooting (I know it's a very windows-ish solution, but it works sometimes).

Re:broke my font server

[smeat]

I am havin the same problem.

You can always comment out the ttf line in your XF86Config file. But that is just a temp solution.

That will get the Xserver up and goin.

If you have any luck gettin it to work email me at bbaptist@rocketmail.com, if you don't mind.

Re:broke my font server

[smeat]

That command doesn't work with true type fonts.

You have to use ttmkfdir. But that messed up my system just like the other guys.

Re:broke my font server

[stor]

try :

cd /usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts/ttf

mkfontdir

you may need to output it to fonts.scale :

mkfontdir > fonts.scale


possibly... sorry it's just off the top of my head.

Cheers

Stor

Re:i740 is a terrible card... Umm, don't think so!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Apollo Joytech AGP i740 video card and it rocks!! Quake 3 windowed and fullscreened under Win98 is as smooth as my Voodoo2. I haven't been able to use it for OpenGL under Linux yet. Also, most OS's support it. BeOS, Windows, OS2, and XFree86(under Linux) all support it. If it doesn't support my card as far as OpenGL, I just use my Voodoo2 cause it usually is.

Guys get your fontpath right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is complaining that fonts in Netscape suck, well that will always be true of any application that tries to scale bitmap fonts. Now how come bitmaps fonts are getting scaled in the first place when you got all those Type1 and TrueType fonts installed? Simple, the bitmap fonts are first by default. Why is that? Because scaling fonts is expensive esp. on hardware without a floating point unit (386 anyone?), so for "decent" speed in legacy hardware bitmaps are first. They suck in looks, but bitmaps are very fast to render!

OK, so how to fix? First take a look at your current fontpath,

$ xset q
Font Path:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/tr uetype/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X1 1/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/ 100dpi/

You'll get a lot more output but this is the important part. You'll want your path to be something like above: TrueType first, then Type1, finally bitmaps (75dpi and 100dpi). The misc are at the very first since it contains the xterm's and other simple (and common) fonts. Your paths may vary depending on your distribution, but that's the general idea.

To play with the fontpath take a look at

$ man xset
In particular the fp options.

You can keep restarting netscape until you get it looking right. Also make sure you take a look in Netscape's Edit->Preferences->Fonts. When you got your setup make it permanent by editing your XF86Config, whetever your distribution hide it (usually /etc/X11. and restart X.

To lazy to create an account,

-Rafael
http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~rreilova/

Re:Guys get your fontpath right!

[Trojan]

I have it very much like you, but for example www.icq.com is just unreadable (while it is tiny but readable on windows).

Re:X11

[Anonymous Coward]

> About xFree86, i don't think it ports to solaris (unless it is solaris x86, which may work), but sparc computers use different hardware to the x86
> computer, so this is a non-issue.
Well, well, well.

Over the years XFree86 got a little multi-platform, from the xc/config/NetBSD.cf file: (still 3.3.3.1, haven't suppend 3.3.4 yet.)

XCOMM NetBSD/i386 client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/sparc client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/sun3 client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/hp300 client
XCOMM NetBSD/mac68k client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/pmax client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/amiga client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/alpha client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/arm32 client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/atari client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/vax client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/pc532 client
XCOMM NetBSD/x68k client/server
XCOMM NetBSD/macppc client/server

Xservers are now on nearly all platforms available.


And there's even sun.cf file for solaris 2.x and sunos 4.x.

XFree86 not Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about software written for XFree86 or Linux software? A lot of Linux software
is really bad written ("#extern" etc.), but XFree86 is not a linux product. AFAIK Linux isn't even XFree86 primary developement platform.

I guess all XFree86 client software will compile on any other X11R6 implementation. It only needs xmkmf/imake and well installed config files.

Banshee

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need XFree86 support for your banshee, check out
http://glide.xxedgexx.com/3DfxRPMS_vb_glibc.html

It's hard to find, but somewhere on this site is a link to a patch for XFree86 3.3.3.1. It works for me on NetBSD. I think it's called "changes" or something like that...

Re:Sound Pipe?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right about the acronym and, methinks, about
the installed base as well: the problem is that
you can cope with delays in a graphical application
(unless it is quake3 :-) ) but with audio they
would be just compromising the result you
want to get (this is one of the major problems in
voice-over-IP implementation... you need a sistem for
assuring quality of service and IP was never designed with
this in mind!) Still the idea seems pretty cool
over LANs with lots of bandwith and not so many workstations :-))) Byez (too lazy to log in)

Re:X Windows 3.3.5

[Anonymous Coward]

and repeat after me

"you are a loser"

Re:XFree86 needs the GPL! - NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I don`t care for "X Windows" (What's that anyway?), but XFree86 should stay free forever!
There's already too much GPL restricted software around.

Supersampling

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually.. There is a benifit. The in-the-middle pixels that dont resolve directly will be elecrically interpolated. Great for images. Okay for text. Small text will become blury.

Re:GGI on DGA advantage

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not attacking Berlin, or diversity, or new ideas, or clean slates, or X replacement.

I'm attacking Berlin developers. They are, without exception, incredibly naive and clueless.

Sorry, stereotypes don't normally work, but in the case of Berlin developers, they are perfect.

G400/ TNT2 Ultra 's OpenGL performance

[Anonymous Coward]

I am planning to buy a new card that has
reasonably good OpenGL performance under XFree86/Linux2.2.

Both G400 (Max) and TNT2 Ultra sound good
to me. Any suggestion, please?

Thanks

Re:damn thing won't compile

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried make World on my redhat 6.0 box and it went through and said the build was finished. Everything except the acutally Xserver component compile. It bugged out with a prototype error, I don't remember the exact error.

Eric Wort
ericw@psba.com

It looks like a glibc header problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It's barfing on some weird union manipulations in /usr/include/bits/mathinline.h

Look at this URL, which seems to be related.

Re:It looks like a glibc header problem

[ahpook]

This patch worked for me.. i should say "is working" because it's still compiling.

Definitely doing better than it was.

the prototype/function thing is an offshoot of -pedantic I think; it doesn't seem to be hurting anything.

If the compile fails then don't make install!

[Anonymous Coward]

If the compile fails then don't make install!
You're supposed to look at the output of make World to see if there were any failures.

That's okay, I didn't check either (the first time), so I had to

for i in `rpm -qa | grep XFree86` ; do rpm -Uvh --force /mnt/cdrom/$i.i386.rpm ; done

to get my old, non-unicode, X fonts back.

Re:If the compile fails then don't make install!

[lubricated]

The output said that it comiled correctly.

Re:Why is font handling so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the font configuration in X is utterly archaic.

However, using xfsft and a bit of tweaking XFree86's fonts look every bit as good as Windows (and certainly much better than Solaris's default font configuration):

cd /usr/X11/lib/X11/fonts/ttf
cp /mnt/c/windows/fonts/*.ttf .
ttmkfdir > fonts.dir
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart

;-)

Look here:

[Anonymous Coward]

Any monitor that can do 1024x768 at a decent refresh rate (75Hz) can do 1152x900 at an acceptiable one (72Hz). (monitors are analog devices, it doesn't have to be on the box to be possible.. It has to be within bandwidth and frequency constraints)

If your 17 can't do it then you are probably pushing the refresh too high.. It can do it, but only at a low refresh.. I would never push my refresh below 72Hz.

Here, save up for a bit and check this out:

From www.pricewatch.com

$209 - 17" PX-780 .26 1280x1024x70Hz (there are cheaper ones that can meet 1152x900)
$297 - 19" KDS VS-195 .26 1600x1200x75Hz
$824 - 21" CTX EX1300 1800x1440x76Hz

Sure, you can get cheaper ones.. But with hardware, you usually get what you pay for..

At home I have a Viewsonic P817, running at 1800x1440x80Hz (soon to be 2048x1536@85Hz when my G400Max comes in).. My wallet may be hurting, (@~$1,400) buy my eyes have never felt better.

Re:Look here:

[elflord]

You might be able to sync up to that resolution, but will you be able to resolve all the pixels ? What is the dot pitch on the P817 ? 0.22mm horizontal, I believe. You have about 0.75x20in viewable horizontal distance, which leaves you with approx

25.4*20*0.75=1731 dots per row

In other words, you might be able to sync up to the higher resolution, but you aren't really getting better than 1800x1440 pixels.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

XFree86 is done on a closed development model. Yes, the result is free and the source is freely available, but the development is still quite closed.

I really think that if they were to change this, it would accelerate the pace of XFree86 development, which I consider to be way behind the curve in how fast it's evolving compared to other projects of the same significance.

To some extent, though, the choice of a closed development model is to allow them to have greater ability to work with hardware vendors and software contributors that have restrictive requirements. There are clearly two sides to this coin; it lets things happen that wouldn't happen otherwise (more hardware support, more cool-neat-features), but it also lets things happen that wouldn't happen otherwise (being put in wierd positions by vendors such as with the NVidia stuff).

It may be possible for the XFree86 team to organize their in-development tree into friendly parts and unfriendly parts, where the former is stuff that could be made available by anoncvs and the latter can't. This might be a compromise situation that could make more people happy than the current scenario.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not very closed. All you have to do is send in a request to join. Has anyone ever actually been turned down?

I can't show you mail that says 'bugger off' but I definitley got that impression.
When I read about SGI releasing GLX as open source I also read this on the Precsion Insight site:

Programmers who are interested in working with the DRI are encouraged to join the XFree86 Project.

As I was interested in working on this project, I went over the the XFree86 site and studied their procedures. They say

One of the XFree86 Project's scarcest and most valued resources is its developers. We're never short on things that need to be done, just short of people to do them. If you're interested in donating some of your spare time to help advance XFree86, we'd like to hear from you.

To join The XFree86 Project as a non-voting member, send email to xfree86@xfree86.org requesting a membership application form, and briefly state the reason why you wish to become a member. It is very rare that we knock back membership requests, but we are looking for members who will be active in developing and/or testing rather than people simply looking for early access to new code.

So I wrote a short e-mail stating my reasons to join and asked if they have a task that was suited to introduce me to the project.

The reaction was not a TO DO list, but a mail from XFree86 Prez Dirk Hohndel that told me rather to join some other related project that was run by another SuSE guy, Simon Pogaric. Thus I contacted him and frankly, IMHO he was not looking for any help, he had no TO DO list either.

This was not what I expected. As I did not want to force my help on people I did not pursue matters further and looked for some other stuff (after all there is enough work).

I might be paranoid but I have the feeling to have been gotten into some competition between two rivaling groups (Red Hat, PI vs. SuSE).

The whole matter rather annoyed me because I think such large projects should have enough tasks (documenting, code cleansing, implementing) where good coding skills (in my case 18 years of programming, plus strong scientific background) would help and that would allow one to get accustomed to the code base.

Other large projects like egcs or FreeBSD work that way and offer a kind apprenticeship system. With XFree86 I have my doubts.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[dwmw2]

XFree86 is done on a closed development model. Yes, the result is free and the source is freely available, but the development is still quite closed.

It's not very closed. All you have to do is send in a request to join. Has anyone ever actually been turned down? Would you also claim that Linux development is closed because you have to actually get off your proverbial backside to subscribe to the linux-kernel mailing list?

You can quite happily write new drivers for the current X servers, based on the released source. If you want to do something more involved, then you should join the team and get on the mailing lists. What could be simpler?

DualHead

[Erich]

HMm... I'm still going to go for the DualHead support because (A) one day I might have enough room for a couple of monitors (maybe 1 monitor + 1 LCD screen?) (B) the second output can be TV-out for playing games on a large screen (Go Koules!), and (C) who can argue with a 360mhz ramdac?

Plus, the 2D performance of the matrox cards is just amazing. If I can get 10% better performance in the 2D world over a TNT2 then even if the 3D performance is half as good I'd go for the Matrox card.

But, that's just me. I use 2D much more than 3d.

Re:YES!, dammit! :-)

[ArIck]

Okay, I think I found a way to get around this.

In ~/.netscape/preferences.js, there is an option called user_pref("intl.font_spec_list". Then next to it is a LARGE list of fonts (it's all one line, by the way.) The final font name is the default font for most things. Change it's -0- to -160- or whatever you want. Then save it (make sure Netscape isn't running), and change to root and chown preferences.js for root, then use chmod to make root the only person that can write to it (but still let users read it.) I used the Midnight Commander (regular version in an xterm or console) to do the chmod'ing and chown'ing. Of course, if you run netscape as root, you'll have to make a script that copies the correct preferences file under a different name to preferences.js.

God I hope this is fixed soon.

fonts.dir

[Mike Hicks]

I know that the font system tends to suck sometimes, but you shouldn't have to edit the fonts.dir by hand -- use 'mkfontdir'

Re:fonts.dir

[jandrese]

The problem is LOTS of people (especially in the Linux camp) release broken fonts. Mkfontdir (under FreeBSD and IRIX) needs the entire fontstring embedded in the font file itself in order to work, not just the name of the font. What I've done is created a new driectory of these broken fonts where I can go through and create the fonts.dir by hand. For examples of broken fonts, check out fonts.themes.org.

Re:fonts.dir

[demon]

"Broken" fonts? You mean like PostScript and TrueType fonts? There are utilities available for making fonts.scale files for TrueType and PostScript fonts. 'ttmkfdir' for the TrueType side, and something else I can't remember for the PostScript side. (Search Freshmeat.)

Re:fonts.dir

[mazeone]

"Broken" fonts? You mean like PostScript and TrueType fonts?

No, I think he's talking about fonts like the nexus font (among others). If you've ever used xfontsel, those fonts don't show up because they don't have a true font string embedded in them, I ran into this problem trying to use the gtk fontselect box...fonts under X just suck.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[Brandon S. Allbery]

> XFree could start by opening up its codebase a little.

Once upon a time, it was open. Then certain Linux distribution maintainers (no longer around) decided it'd be neat to include outdated, buggy pre-alpha X releases in their distributions --- and redirected all the bug reports to the XFree folks. They Were Not Happy, and I don't blame them.

The upshot here is that *we* screwed up, and the XFree folks got burned badly as a result. If we want to see more open XFree86 development, we're going to have to prove to them that we're not going to pull stunts like that any more.

(Unfortunately, with Red Hat's fondness for including prerelease stuff in their distributions --- "prepatch" kernels and Perl "m" releases, to name some from the 5.x era --- I'm not sure I'd trust them to keep their mitts off prerelease XFree86 code.)

XFree86 could be a little more open

[dmiller]

XFree could start by opening up its codebase a little. Last time I checked you had to be a developer to get early access to code. Nor could I find any public archives of the developers mailing lists.

"Being a developer" implies a commitment that may discourage occasional developers and patch submitters (such as myself).

Don't get me wrong; I respect and value the work that the XFree developers do.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[mvw]

Most likely your request came before the DRI stuff was released to XFree86 (at which point I usually deflected people since the stuff > they were looking for simply wasn't there, yet).

This is correct. I posted it in February, while the DRI code was released in June.

Normally everyone who sends email to XFree86@XFree86.Org and states "I would like to work on ABC" with "ABC" somewhat more informative than "XFree86" or "drivers" will get an application form within a few days.

That's what I anticipated (and reading this now explicitly from your side doesn't exactly make me feel better :-)

As to the generic issue here, yes, I think that XFree86 should open up its development a bit. And guess what, we will.

Glad to read this. I want to stress here that I don't want you folks to lower your quality criteria, just be more transparent, please. The usual way to do this is having some public forum of discussion. At that time I applied I did not find one.
I don't want to transmit the message that the XFree86 folks are snobs, but rather (as the title of this message suggests) that the Xfree86 could make it easier for people to find out what is going and eventually participate.

The release of the 3.9.x snapshots is a first step in that direction, more will follow.

I would rather be able to follow the developers discussion (and join it on occasion). Without knowing where the project is heading I find it rather useless (for me) to have snapshots, with the exception of analyzing it to find out what is going on. :)

To illustrate that I am not just ranting let me end this post with a link that might be interesting for the BSD crowd:
http://www.netcologne.de/~nc-vanwoma/ riva-glx

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[named]

I don't know if there would really be much of an increase in release speeds. In fact, it would probably end up rather like Mozilla. (imho)

At the last count that I saw, xfree had ~1.5 million lines of code. That's a whole lot of code to understand before you can start to do any serious development.

it would a rather hefty time commitment, and xfree strikes me as the kind of project where you'd want to know how the whole thing works before you started mucking around too much.

who knows about 4.0, though. a lot of things have been rewritten from scratch, if i read correctly. could be a whole different ballpark. but i doubt it.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[John Karcz]

> Has anyone ever actually been turned down?

Yep. Well, maybe not turned down, but certainly not replied to. A year or two ago, I sent a message to their main address volunteering to help with the Matrox driver, and never heard a peep back.

John

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[franklamonica]

Dirk,
As you said, PI is not in competition with any open source development group. We are committed to supporting the efforts of the XFree86 Project and we get funding from Red Hat, SGI, and many other sources to continue writing software that we donate to the open source community. We developed our DRI independently of S.u.S.E.'s 3D work. Prior to the release of the DRI, there was no 3D available in XFree86, so it was natural and appropriate to direct inquires regarding 3D to S.u.S.E. since you were most familiar with their work at the time.

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[DirkHohndel]

The support load is one of the key problems behind the current
somewhat closed approach. There are other issues (the devel
sources often contain drivers that were written under NDA
and for which we haven't received permission to release,
yet. Those obviously can't be publicly available).

The 3.9.15 release is somewhat a test case. If we receive
tons of support email from people trying to use it and
asking for help, then we might revert back to the closed
cycle that we did before. I certainly hope that none
of the distributions will attempt to include 3.9.15.
It is definitely not ready for that. SuSE will NOT include
it on their next distribution, btw...

Don't get me wrong. Bug reports (and of course, patches)
are extremely welcome. I saw another comment that we didn't
respond to bug reports. My answer to that is simple.
We get so many reports, and there are only so few people
to respond. Usually none of them go unseen and as long
as they contain a fix or the fix is obvious, things
usually get fixed as well.

Of course, the 800 or so bug reports "my Trio3D card
doesn't work" didn't really help to fix the problem...

Dirk

Re:XFree86 could be a little more open

[DirkHohndel]

Sorry if things went wrong that time. I get tons
of emails a day, so I must admit that I don't
remember the incident that you are commenting on.

There is no competition whatsoever between the
work that PI does and the work that SuSE does
for 3D. I am sure that Frank LaMonica from PI
will be happy to comment on his take on the issue.

Most likely your request came before the
DRI stuff was released to XFree86 (at which point
I usually deflected people since the stuff they
were looking for simply wasn't there, yet).

Normally everyone who sends email to XFree86@XFree86.Org
and states "I would like to work on ABC" with "ABC"
somewhat more informative than "XFree86" or "drivers"
will get an application form within a few days.
And those people are always added to the devel
team.

As to the generic issue here, yes, I think that
XFree86 should open up its development a bit.
And guess what, we will. The release of the
3.9.x snapshots is a first step in that direction,
more will follow.

Dirk Hohndel

Re:woop!

[HoserHead]

Branden deserves a lot of credit. He's committed to getting X 3.3.4 into Potato before it freezes, and so he's psychologically psyched himself up for this release. I imagine that pre-release (ie: "staging") .debs will be available very soon, with 3.3.4 being rolled into Potato not too long from then.

Now that I've said all that, Adam, just s/Branden/Adam/ and it's still true. =)

G400 Max?

[Enry]

I have one of these puppies on order at necx.com. Goes anyone have one and can comment on how well it works under X, and more importantly, what version of XF86 is needed?

XF86-3.9 is the best news in months!

[Codifex Maximus]

This is just what we needed! Soon, XF86-4.0 will be ours! The world is a better place and the birds are singing! Plug it in... plug it in.

Do I sound excited? YOU BET!

i740 is a terrible card...

[gavinhall]

Posted by OGL:

...and proprietary too. I believe the only opengl drivers which will be availible will be the TNT and g200 drivers...maybe 3dfx too if they change the interface to glx.

But anyway, the point is it's time for a new video card, the i740 is complete garbage.

-W.W.

Re:i740 is a terrible card...

[Godwin]

And will unsupported in August according to the Register.

Why can't intel stick with something that it is good at.. like well ummm like.. so okay.. x86 processors..

What's New with XFree 3.3.4 and 3.9.15??

[John Allsup]

Can people please post some detils -- my poor little modem can't cope with the download :-(
John

Re:What's New with XFree 3.3.4 and 3.9.15??

[drig]

Check out
http://www.xfree86.org/releaseplans.html

It'll tell you a quick update on the difference.

Re:What's New with XFree 3.3.4 and 3.9.15??

[d^2b]

Actually, the aforementioned URL doesn't say
too much useful. Yet. From
xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/RELNOTES

4. What's new in 3.3.4?

o Several security fixes.

o Intel i740 support (donated by Precision Insight).

o SiS 530 and SiS 620 support.

o 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo3 support.

o Trident Blade3D, CyberBlade and Cyber9525 support.

o S3 Trio3D support.

o Matrox G400 support.

o NVIDIA Riva TNT2 support and better acceleration for all Riva chipsets
(donated by NVIDIA).

o Rewritten Cyrix MediaGX support (donated by Cyrix). Warning: this is
reported to hang some machines! If that happens, please use the SVGA
server in XFree86-3.3.3.1 instead.

o Acceleration for XF68_FBDev on PPC.

o VMWare's DGA-1.1 extension. Note that the next major release of XFree86
will NOT include DGA-1.1 but the newly developed DGA-2.0 that contains
significantly more features than DGA-1.1 and will most likely not be
compatible with DGA-1.1

o Change xterm to use the tty default value for the backspace key.

o Japanese documentation and manpage updates.

o Updates and new hardware support (Acecad flair, Calcomp DrawingBoard)
for xinput extension.

o Bug fixed for cards with S3 Aurora64V+ (M65) chip, VGA output should now
work.

Re:Driver support

[demon]

Well, they DID say the hardware support for the XF4 prerelease would be highly limited...

Re:damn thing won't compile

[demon]

Ummm. I built it easily on a Debian potato box today. Just 'make World'. Or didn't you read the READMEs?

Re:X11

[demon]

Well, yes, XFree86 keeps all the .cf's for all the commercial UNIXen provided in the X Consortium's source distribution.

Dumb-ass question

[_damnit_]

How did you get dual-head to work on Linux? I've got cards and monitors for x86 that I can't use at home and my sparc5 has two fb's but only one works with RH6. Even KDE only works on one screen under Solaris7. This is bugging me, but not enough to go mucking around for a solution. A pointer to HOW-TOs would be appreciated.


_damnit_

Re:Welcome to the 90's

[jedidiah]

Some highlights... direct access to vidram, multimonitor support, anti-aliased fonts, remote display, 3D acceleration and remote 3D display...

Where else have the others moved on exactly?

At the moment Windows is still playing catchup on the remote display issue.

BitBLT timeout

[heroine]

Still gives the BitBLT timeout error on GD5446 cards. The GD5446 chipset was awfully popular for it to be dropped from X in 1997.

Why is font handling so bad?

[Matts]

I really don't get it. Font handling is a well understood technology, and yet XFree still falls short. Fonts (even true-type fonts) look terrible under XFree - they look _far_ superior under (for example) Solaris' X server. And I'm afraid to say it, fonts just look a lot better under MacOS or Windows. It's a real shame, because I think XFree would be a lot more usable with a decent font engine underneath - and yes, I've tried both TrueType font engines for XFree.

Anyone know of any progress being made in this area?

Also font setup is appalling. I can't believe you have to edit font.dir files for each directory - why on earth wouldn't the server do this for you? I was astonished at the amount of work it took to get a few TrueType fonts working before the perl TrueType tools came out to do some of the work for you.

I guess you could consider this a bug report. :)

Matt.

perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-: ,hacker Perl another Just)'

Re:Why is font handling so bad?

[John Fulmer]

There are actually two issues here...

1) The Type1 font engine was donated by IBM many many moons ago. It works, and sometimes well, if you have a good font, but has never been optimized.

2) Many of the standard XFree fonts were donated and they weren't really high quality.

Personally, I find that TrueType fonts look very nice in X (with RedHat 6.0's xfs (freetype) or xfstt). I've compared them with the local NT box with a 'real' TT font renderer, and they are at least as good.

One thing to remmeber is that Netscape is broken as regards scaleable fonts. That's why some pages look really odd with tiny fonts. However, if you do a trick (deals with typing in the font size in preferences), my Netscape fonts look as good as NT's on all pages.

jf

Re:Why is font handling so bad?

[smeat]

Thanks!!

Using your "advice" my Xserver won't start with true type fonts in the font path anymore.

You are the best.

Re:Sinclair ZX80 is better than Windows

[jd]

The ZX80 didn't have a rampack, AFAIK. That was the ZX81. :)

Porting the entire of XFree86 4.0 into 256 bytes of memory... Am I allowed to skimp on the fonts?

Re:X11

[Bill Sebok]

About xFree86, i don't think it ports to solaris (unless it is solaris x86, which may work), but sparc computers use different hardware to the x86 computer, so this is a non-issue.

I am running right now on Sparc Solaris using XFree86 3.3.3. It doesn't have some of the features I would like like loadable server modules but otherwise seems to work. All of the original Sun drivers from X11R6.3 are still there. Indeed they would have had to still be there for XFree86 to support Sparc Linux, as it does.

Re:NO! Go dual head and save money.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

15" = 1152x900

You think THIS is a good idea? A 15" unit shouldn't be run above 1024x760 for ergonomic reasons.

But really, I'm ahead of the game. People blow good cash on a 21" monitor when they should go dual head with 17's and 19's. I'm willing to gamble that the two 19's cost less than a single 21" can give you better than 70% more total pixels at a better refresh rate with more than 70% additional screen surface area. That is from my own analysis. I'd post the numbers, but I lost them. I considered getting a 19" when the costed about 400$, but I found a pair of cheap 17" for about 350$, an extra video card for the remainder savings (Matrox Millennium 8MB - solid units) and come out way ahead. MetroX also supports multiple screens on all Matrox products.

Re:Maybe so, but not everybody uses X

[dangermouse]

That's 1.

So far, I see no great contradiction to his (admittedly made-up) statistic.

Re:Glint driver

[jjoyce]

It does. Mine's been working fine for some time now.

Verdana!

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Definitely ... I'm using Verdana as my browser font (running the xfstt font server) and it definitely looks very nice on a 15" 1024x768 screen, even with Netscape's questionable rendering technbiques. (Can't wait to see how it'll look in Nav 5 though!)

Plus, there's just something deliciously ironic about taking something free from Microsoft (their web fonts collection) and them not getting any platform lock-in in return.

Missed it!

[displague]

Damn - i was there last night checking for this... But it was not there *I suspect squid* ....

Today, BOOM, It's there! But flooded...

--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com

Re:XFree4.0

[displague]

is that $300 us? I just bought a VooDoo3/16mb pci 2000 for $99 at compusa, imagine if i bought it online - $89ish ... Besides that - All the Voodoo cards (AFAIK) are under $100 these days (minus the new Voodoos 3000,4000) ....

Furthermore - Riva 128/TNT cards with GL support are also $99 at compusa...

In X i can get 32bit color at all modes my monitor supports, and the framerates are still awesome.

What home user really needs much beyond that?? (attn smartasses: don't even bother answering that question)

--
Marques Johansson
displague@linuxfan.com

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[Quinn]

And the easy choice is...3Dfx?

I have a Creative TNT card, and q3test runs in the seconds-per-frame range. Maybe I've just installed the libraries wrong, but as of now the TNT drivers perform very poorly.

Stripping away religious issues, what 3D card PERFORMS best in the games available _right_now_ for Linux?

--

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[pp]

Well, you do have choices even now for accelerated
3D under linux

1) 3dfx

Binary-only drivers using glide. It's worked under linux for ages.

2) Matrox G200/G400

Vendor supplied near, but not complete documentation.

3) TNT/TNT2

Vendor supplied/supported 3D acceleration with full source.

Not a hard choice for me =) (well, ok, G400 is still a possibility, it seems to be slightly cheaper and some of the features are really nice. Not that I have space for two monitors, so the dual head support is useless)

Re:woop!

[dieman]

Heh. how many hours 'till its in Incoming? :)

-Scott

Re:X11

[drig]

The wire protocol is the same, so X apps run on another system will still display on XFree 4.0. 4.0 adds GLX, so OpenGL apps will run nicer even then 3.x. This'll definitely help SGI->Linux, I'm not sure about Solaris. Anyway, yes, your Solaris apps will still display on Linux nicely.

Re:Glint driver

[drig]

I don't have a Permedia2, but I ran a grep on the sources and there appears to be a lot of support. YMMV.

branden compiles?

[cthonious]

I've never gotten him to compile on my box. It just doesn't work.

GGI on DGA advantage

[MenTaLguY]

Just as a matter of interest, I seem to recall that if you use LibGGI with the DGA target and have fbcon, you can change the screen resolution/mode on-the-fly, which you cannot easily do with plain DGA.

And, of course, you get the usual LibGGI advantage of extreme display independence. No more releasing separate console and X versions.
---

Re:GGI on DGA advantage

[MenTaLguY]

You cannot change resolution/mode at all with DGA. It's not within the DGA API. You can use the vidmode extension, which is XFree86 specific, to change resolution but not depth (as of 3.3.3).

This is true, and it is in fact exactly my point ("cannot be done with plain DGA") -- DGA by itself cannot change the resolution or depth. Even with vidmode, however, you still can't change the depth on-the-fly. At least not yet.

Programs like xmame and snes9x exploit this, with DGA used for speed and vidmode to change res.

I was aware of this.

LibGGI's DGA target can use fbcon, if present, to change both the resolution and depth, while getting access to the framebuffer via DGA. That's just kind of neat, and if vidmode or some other extension evolves to do the same, that's fine.

But you're a Berlin developer, no wonder you know nothing about X or XFree86 extensions.

Why the hostility? There's no need to resort to these sort of attacks just to correct a simple omission on my part. Honestly, what reason do you have here to feel either angry OR threatened? If GGI was intended to replace X in most situations, LibGGI wouldn't display on X, and they wouldn't have XGGI (an XFree86-derived server that uses LibGGI), would they?

Chill out, man. Us Berlin folks are just playing around with a heavily CORBA-ized Fresco-esque GUI. It's no threat to your hegemony unless Berlin turns out to be better for users and developers than X is. If it turns out to be a bad idea, you're safe. Let the ideas speak for themselves -- on their own merits and demerits -- and leave the ad hominem attacks out of this.

On the other hand, how much longer are you going to keep grafting extensions onto X to work around deficiencies in the initial design? It never hurts to experiment with a clean design once and a while under such conditions, and I really don't think the Berlin folks deserve to be vilified for doing so.

---

Fear not, it's being worked on...

[MenTaLguY]

see the Berlin project. Not that that kind of 3d flashiness is in and of itself a design goal, but the current design allows for it.
---

Re:YES!, dammit! :-)

[John Fulmer]

Netscape is broken. Try this:

1) Install TrueType fonts. Use the xfs server from Redhat 6.0 or xfstt.

2) Install the Arial font from Windows according to instructions with the TT font renderer.

3) In Netscape's preferences Appearance/Fonts, use Arial as the default font, click on the Allow Scaling button.

4) In the same place, type the number 16 (16 point font) in the textbox next to the "Allow Scaling" button.

5) Save preferences


At this point your fonts should be MUCH better on all pages, and comparable to the Windows handling of fonts. This works for my home 15' monitor at 1024x768 and my 21' at work at 1024x1280. This is an OLD problem with Netscape, one that Mozilla doesn't have (thank god).

Oh, one problem with this setup. Netscape doesn't save the point size of scalable fonts, but rather defaults to 12. You have to enter the '16' into the text box every time you start Netscape...

jf

NM2260 (MagicGraph 256ZX) support?

[jaffray]

Does anyone know if work is being done to support the NeoMagic MagicGraph 256ZX (NM2260) chipset? A friend of mine recently bought a Dell Inspiron 3500 that has this chipset, and if no X servers support it, it's completely useless to her.

X Windows 3.3.5

[Zappy]

Hi,

X 3.3.5 should be released in a week or two.

Not everything made it in this release...

Multi-head & Xinerama: How are they?

[eebly]

So, my multi-headed system has languished, ever since I went to the 2.2 kernel, which broke Metro-X for reasons unbeknownst. Has anybody yet tried using the new XFree's multihead support? (Xfree 3 got horribly confused by it...couldn't even display on just one card.) My system has two Matrox Millenium II's, which, given what XFree's website says, should work. I hope. And anybody played with Xinerama yet? Any WM's able to handle it?
---------

Re:Multi-head & Xinerama: How are they?

[eebly]

Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near a good enough C progammer (or any other kind of programmer, for that matter) to be able to make code contributions to XFree86. Who's working on the development of that part of the code? I'd be happy to act as a guinea pig, if somebody can kick me in the right direction.
---------

Re:Multi-head & Xinerama: How are they?

[jerodd]

I got multihead working on my experimental XF86 3.9 setup a number of months ago. The first thing you should know is that few devices other than the Matrox work (the S3 and Trident do not work, at least not now).

The second thing to know is that 3.9 is highly unstable, especially with multihead. Feel free to fix bugs and submit patches if you do hack around with the 3.9.15 release, though. =)

(I actually played with multihead on a Microchannel/XGA-2 system, but that's another story).

Cheers,
Joshua.

woop!

[Adam Heath]

The debian maintainer of x, Branden Robinson compiles on my box. I already have both downloaded, and have started applying the debian patches to 3.3.4. 3.9.15 is all his, tho.


This is NOT an official word from Branden. There is no timeline as to when this will be available from debian.

Re:woop!

[Adam Heath]

I said no timeline. :|


Fortunately, the build system(and debian/patches/*) makes this new version easier to work with.

Re:woop!

[Adam Heath]

well, while you work, I will work. :)

Re:woop!

[miquels]

Hmm I'd like to compile Branden Robinson on my box too. Where do I get the source ?

Re: Cool. Now I know why Debian is buggy!

[Rob_D_Clark]

Umm, that is why they are putting it into unstable (potato) and not stable (slink).

Now, if they had a buggy/unstable version of X in potato when potato became stable, that would be a different story.

Re:XFree4.0

[Anderson]

And not only that, you forgot the large number of people with Matrox G200's. Those are accelerated, too -- they're actually quite fast under Linux (and cheap! :). So yeah -- only a few people with accelerated 3D? Maybe a year or so ago, but not now.

Mirrors anyone?

[CrazyFraggle]

Has any of the XFree86 mirrors gotten these files yet? I checked the two most local to me (sunsite.uio.no and ftp.funet.fi) and neither had the development snapshot. The main ftp server is /.ing bad:

:ls

/bin/ls -CF: Too many open files in system.

CID font support

[BJH]

At last, we have support for CID fonts. Now if the Japanese font makers would only get off their collective asses (*cough*Morisawa*cough*) and release fonts under a fucking REASONABLE license, then I'd be happy...

DRI - oh yes, finally

[StimpyBoy]

Yes, the time is almost upon us. I'd like to see nVidia pick up the ball and run with it now. I have to make a decision sometime soon for a new vid card, and I would love to have a couple choices. Voodoo3, G400, or TNT2/Ultra. Hmmm, choices choices...

I'd like to see what a DRI driver can do for Q3Test, as this is what was holding back cards like the TNT2 and G400 from performing well.

With LAN tournaments coming up, I would love to be able to compete with Q3Test/Q2 native on Linux. That would certainly raise eyebrows for the Windows folk :)

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[Fizgig]

Close, but not quite, I think. The NVidia people picked up the code written by the "crowd" for the G200 and ported it to the TNT, not the other way around.

And it seems like it's more a GLX crowd than a G200 crowd now, despite the mailing list name. Stuff like GART and DMA support isn't Matrox specific.

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[Black Parrot]

My understanding of (2) and (3) is different, namely:

We have vender-donated code for the TNT, but no documentation, and we have vender documentation for the G200, but no code.

However, the G200 crowd (not the vendor!) picked up the TNT code and started developing it for the G200, and it has recently evolved into a joint project to support both the G200 and the TNT from a single source kit.

Documentation for the G200 is incomplete in the sense that they haven't given out the details needed to tweak the microcode for part of their rendering engine. Not everyone sees this as a problem: as one quip puts it, the source code is probably a hex string copied off the back of some engineer's napkin. But despite this, they seem to have provided more documentation than the others have so far.

At any rate, unless I really misunderstand the traffic on the G200 mailing list, you will eventually get you acceleration for both the G*00 and the TNT* from the same source. (Which, BTW, is available from public CVS should anyone care to help with the testing.)

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[jslag]

I have a Creative TNT card, and q3test runs in the seconds-per-frame range. Maybe I've just installed the libraries wrong, but as of now the TNT drivers perform very poorly

what sort of system did you stick your tnt into? I have a k6-2/350 w 64 meg memory and a 16 meg TNT2, and get about 14-40 fps in q3test (with networking & sound code loaded into memory). Have you read all of the stuff in the Nvidia faq? I did all that stuff (including use of the static-linked x server), and have q3test configured with minimum detail and 640x480 resolution, to get those results - i.e. running my x server at 10x8 in 15 bpp mode with a minimal WM and as little other stuff in memory as possible.

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[Milkman Ken]

Seconds per frame? If you're getting framerates THAT slow with Q3test, you're probably still running in software mode. Read the FAQ. You need to be running in 15- or 16-bit mode, or the driver will default back to software rendering.

Re:DRI - oh yes, finally

[Jburkholder]

ok, disclaimer: this is based on my experience only

BFWIW, I've found that the Voodoo 2 is the "best" solution for the games I want to play under Linux (Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3).

For the record, I bought a Diamond Viper 770 (TNT2 Ultra) and it plays Q2 ok, just Q3 is too slow (yet). The 3dfx plays all these games very well.

But, I got the TNT2 card because the Voodoo is running out of gas and XF86 4 with DRI is what I expect to use with the TNT2 to replace it.

Granted, gaming is not my primary activity in Linux, but I'm getting really sick of dual-booting back to Win98 to play games.

make that three issues (and some solutions)

[rillian]

Personally, I find that TrueType fonts look very nice in X (with RedHat 6.0's xfs (freetype) or xfstt). I've compared them with the local NT box with a 'real' TT font renderer, and they are at least as good.

Indeed they do look quite nice if you use a good font. However, you're forgotting about antialiasing. That's part of what makes Windows tt rendering so good. Freetype already supports this, so it shouldn't be too hard to hack something in, though the proper way is to use alpha-blended drawables, I expect. Perhaps with the hardware accelerated Imlib extension in XFree 5.0?

2) Many of the standard XFree fonts were donated and they weren't really high quality.

This is definitely true. Microsoft, oddly enough, has commissioned some very good truetype screen fonts. Unfortunately, there're not redistributable, but you can download them here for free; unzip works on the Windows 'self-extracting' .exe files.

One thing to remeber is that Netscape is broken as regards scaleable fonts. That's why some pages look really odd with tiny fonts. However, if you do a trick (deals with typing in the font size in preferences), my Netscape fonts look as good as NT's on all pages.

I think this is more a function of the lack of resolution-independence in the OS. Most operating systems make different (wrong) assumptions about the physical resolution of your monitor, so a webpage that looks reasonable under one OS won't on another. See this tidbits article for details.

Re:make that three issues (and some solutions)

[rread]

what version of unzip are you using?

Re:make that three issues (extracting MS fonts)

[rillian]

what version of unzip are you using?

Ah, I spoke too soon. unzip works on the Win 3.1 versions (I think it just skips the executable part and looks for the zip header). The Win32 versions don't work--you're right--and some of them aren't available in the old format.

I tried wine on them, but the (older--981018) version I had handy didn't work. Other options: borrow a Mac or Windows machine, or try decoding the mac format one. There are some tools for doing that under linux, but I didn't have any luck.

Re:DRI isn't the only thing needed for performance

[Adam Klein]

I've got a TNT, and the current GLX driver are pretty darned slow, even when compared to the performance I've heard from the G200 driver. The driver doesn't seem to be at all optimized, and since there are no specs (afaik), nobody's working on it. Everytime I 'cvs update', I see all the G200 stuff updated, and usually none of the TNT stuff. NVidia either needs to finish their driver or release specs!

Re:YES!, dammit! :-)

[dirty]

Actually I think you can hack around the no-save problem. I did this once with netscape on my computer (no idea if it was for the exact same problem though). Do the above steps, then exit netscape. Go into ~/.netscape and edit whatever the preferences file is (i think it's prefs.js or something like that). Find the font line and everywhere you see a -0- for the font size replace it with -16-. Note: these directions might not be 100%, i have only done this once on one computer and it was a little while ago. If someone has more (better) knowledge please post it. It's a really ugly hack, hopefully mozilla will be useable soon (for every day browsing atleast) and we can finally get some decent looking fonts.

Re:XFree86 needs the GPL! NOT

[jerodd]

Actually any XF86 source can be GPL'd. Even the GNU project uses X11 and XFree86--if it's good enough for RMS, it's good enough for you, too. =)

X11 doesn't have the advertising clause of the BSD licence, so basically X11 code can ``become'' any other licence. It's truly all things to all people.

Cheers,
Joshua.

sounds pretty sweet

[josepha48]

looking over there web site it looks pretty nice. the next X should be really good.. I may need to get new hardware so I can really take advantage of the new features...

OpenGL support whoo hoo!

[geekd]

"Precision Insight has been provided with funding and support from Red Hat and SGI to integrate the GLX extension for 3D rendering in an X11 window. The 3D core rendering component is the Mesa library. SGI has released the sources to the extension framework under an open license, which essentially provides the glue system. Precision Insight has integrated these components into this XFree86 X Server and added a Direct Rendering Infrastructure. Direct Rendering provides a highly optimized path for sending 3D data directly to the graphics hardware. This release demonstrates a sample implementation of direct rendering by providing a single path of 3D hardware accelerated rendering for the GMX2000 graphics card. Future releases will support much broader implementations of hardware accelerated direct rendering on a wide range of 3D capable graphics devices."

If they support OpenGL for my card (i740) half as well as it is supported under Win98, then I don't have to boot into Windows to play Quake anymore!

Wheee!

I heard the dude (too buzzed to remeber his name) from XFree86 talk about 4.0 at the LinuxWorldExpo and I have been very excited ever since. True type font support (tho I already got that set up, and they will be using the same thing (xfsft and FreeType)) plus more OpenGL and Multi-head support.

Then if KDE comes out with a great 2.0 (Especially with high color icons) w/ a better looking widget set, then the future indeed looks bright for Linux on the desktop.
(I like GNOME, it looks way better than KDE, but it just doesn't seem to work as well at this point (except for it's file manager, which is way faster than kfm))

alright.. i'll stop with my drunken ramblings.. but DAMMIT, I'M EXCITED!

-geekd

Re:Why even release it . . .

[EddyGL]

"a fix to get XFree86-3.3.x to compile under glibc-2.1.2 "

Ack.. I hope by previous releases you dont mean 2.0.x . just finished downloading all the source, and about to try compiling with 2.1.1 on RedHat 6.0

Glint driver

[Mad Hatter]

Does anyone know if the Glint (3DLabs) driver supports Permedia2 based cards, or just the higher end chips?

"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"

Re:Glint driver

[quade]CnM[]

I'm not sure about 3D support, but 3.3.3 already has good 2D support for the Permedia 2. I would think that 3D support would be provided. This is one of the few boards that both MetroX and Xi Graphics said that they will support hardware accelerated X. From my reading, the Permedia 2 has some of the best Open GL support in hardware. it dosent have super-fast triangle fill rates, and Quake 2 on it is a joke, but 3D Studio Max on it looks GREAT (yes, I have used WIn95 occationaly, but I work mostly in Linux). It would be a shame if it dident work, I might be forced to move my business to Manufactures that support there hardware (nVidia, Matrox).

Thanks, but you misunderstood...

[Mad Hatter]

The question was in reference to the drivers for 3.9.15, I have been running the 3.3.x glint drivers since they were released on SuSE's site. The release notes said the card support for 3.9.15 was limited and though it says glint and 3DLabs I would prefer not to DL and compile it if it inly works on the actual glint chips and not on the permedia2.

"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"

My 17" does 1600x1200

[Mad Hatter]

I have a 2 year old ViewSonic (P775) which displays up to 1600x1200. I imagine there are better 17" monitors out there now.

"Trouble is, just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's true"

Re:XFree4.0

[Ilmari]

Yeah, right... only 3 or 4 Linux users in the whole world have either a Voodoo {1,Rush,2,Banshee,3} or nVida Riva TNT(2) or Amiga Warp3D!!
I for sure know more than 4 Linux users who have supported hardware, and besides, if you check Linux 3D, you'll se that support for other cards is under way as well!!
---
Ilmari
Remove the capital letters from the e-mail-address

YES!, dammit! :-)

[mattbee]

No offence, but that's a really dim comment. I've got a 17" that can't display 1024x768 without getting a bit blurry at the edges, and I think many other people are stuck with even worse monitors. And most of us cannot afford to shell out for a posh Ilyama or something similar...

Anti-aliasing may not be the 'right' solution in the most anal sense but it makes life better for lots of people. e.g. back in 1991 Acorn introduced a fully scalable, anti-aliased font system on their machines and all I had was a 50Hz telly but it still looked pretty nice. Today Netscape does some 'orrible things to my fonts and I can't afford to buy a posher monitor, so I for one would really really like some more apps to use it.

Hey ho.

Why even release it . . .

[ashpool7]

Where is the changelog and other assorted documentation thats supposed to be in the release?

"Due to a few important changes that came after 3.3.4 was finalized , a 3.3.5 release (which will include binaries) will be made in the next couple of weeks."

Ok, so they're releasing this version, which is known to be somewhat incomplete under a full blown version name. Why? Shouldn't they just call it a pre-release or a beta? It's only a couple weeks until the Real Deal comes out. Why say "Well, We have this new version of Xfree, but its got problems and we'll issue the fixes under the next version." Doesn't this sound like some idiot software company out of Redmond who releases service packs to fix service packs?

Ok, that was a little too much of a parallel. But do you see my point. If an Xfree86 release addmittively sucks, don't give it the entitlement of a full version number. Just call it 3.3.x-pre or something and let the world know: "For bleeding edge users only." At least they were half-thinking like that . . . they left out the documentation so idiots like me can't see if I need it for my Banshee. . .

Re:Why even release it . . .

[DirkHohndel]

Err, who said that 3.3.4 sucks?
We finished it, cut the release, and then a few
important changes came in. Among them a fix
for the Rage LT in some laptops, a fix to get
XFree86-3.3.x to compile under glibc-2.1.2 (binaries
built under previous versions will run just fine)
and a couple more things. We thought that those
are important enough to update the release, but
since we already cut 3.3.4, we decided to simply
do a quick 3.3.5 after all.
Wasn't it just here on /. that people complained
about the long time between XFree86 releases... :-)

And to make the wait easier, we will have Linux
binaries on our ftp server, shortly (FreeBSD is
already there)

Dirk

XFree4.0

[listen]

Let me say a few things to you:

XFree86 4.0
Direct Rendering Infrastructure
OpenGL
Duh?

If you want to do anything fast, just do it in OpenGL. This will be fast for full screen GFX, if you have a supported card.
This is probably true for 2d too, as it doesn't have to be copied to the Xserver. I wouldn't bother with DGA, its XFree specific, and limited to 2d. With OpenGL based stuff, its easy to port to Mac, Windows, any Unix, and even BeOS.....

Re:XFree4.0

[jslag]

Oh yeah, OpenGL is accelerated under Linux for the 3 or 4 people who own supported cards

I had no idea that dropping $100 on a video card (TNT2) would put me in such a select group! :)

Those other 2-3 people sure do a lot more writing of drivers / posting to usenet / etc. than I do.

Re:XFree4.0

[PenguinII]

A LOT of people have said this to me.
OpenGL might be great one day in the future but for most people who cant afford a $300 video card we have to stick with 2d API's which actually work.

Re:XFree4.0

[PenguinII]

A LOT of people have said this to me.
OpenGL might be great one day in the future but for most people who cant afford a $300 video card we have to stick with 2d API's which actually work.

(Sorry if this submits twice, slashdot has been sooo slow recently)

Has anyone built 3.9.15 on redhat 6.0 ?????

[_-_Dante_-_]

No matter what I try it just refuses, I've followed INSTALL.TXT to the letter (after trying a simple 'make World'), it manages to build a few libs and binaries, but complains about fuctions not being prototypes... any joy anyone??

Re:Has anyone built 3.9.15 on redhat 6.0 ?????

[ahpook]

I had the same problem, I'm pretty sure it's egcs wonkiness... but I'm not sure what to do
about it. I've been poking around looking for
Usenet posts or a website or something with more
info and have come up empty-handed. Sigh...

Re:i740 is a terrible card...yeah right!

[Milkman Ken]

Complete garbage? I don't know what you consider garbage, but you obviously haven't seen one of these. My roomate bought one for his computer, and it plays Quake 3 at a very acceptable frame rate (it's no TNT2, but it's fast enough that you don't see any slowdowns).

Plus it was one of the first cards to have a stencil buffer (not many programs use it right now, but they will soon).

Don't bag on it unless you have legitimate reasons. Brian Hook (formerly of id software) originally said that this was one of the best cards you could run Quake 3 on for the price. If you don't want to spend $100 on a TNT, $30 for an i740 can't be beat.

www.pricewatch.com

[delmoi]

you got a voodoo3? for $99?
I got a TNT for a frend's box for $78 about 4 months ago.
the voodoo3 sucks amazing ass, compared to even a TNT...
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

you

[delmoi]

I don't know anything about berlin
I know next to nothing about X
I know you are an idiot
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Re:Sound Pipe?

[delmoi]

get gigabit ethernet... that'll have all the quality you'll ever need :)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

X11

[roady]

Hi, I Know most of you Linux guy are not concerned, but what is the compatibility with X11 ? I run a Solaris box, and there are already so many linux software hardly protable on other Unices.

Re:X11

[rugger]

Well written X software is just as portable as most normal well written software.

About xFree86, i don't think it ports to solaris (unless it is solaris x86, which may work), but sparc computers use different hardware to the x86 computer, so this is a non-issue.

Most other X corsortium software should be a snap to port, and if you have a working up to date X-server, should work

Sound Pipe?

[cpuffer_hammer]

Since sound is a part of many systems running X when (or is there) sound support. I would not expect sound drivers as part of X but it would be nice if there was a pipe so that an application displaying of an X server would would have its sound sent to that X server.

I think this would be nice since when my wife starts her X-terminal her sould come out of the servers speakers (on the outer side of the room). Not that I mind, but it would be nice if they came out in the correct place.

Just a thought.

Bullshit!

[Charlatan]

I'm sorry, but that just sounds like a great big fucking load of crap. If you have something useful to contribute to the project then do it, hiding behind a license (which you apparently don't know much about) is just a cop-out.

Have you even bothered to read the Xfree86 license? Or are you just stock on the GPL because it's the "in thing" these days.

Put up or shut up.

X for games

[PenguinII]

I've been trying to make a windowing system called FX :) like X but much lower level giving the programs more control on the hardware because i really hate the way X does that sorta stuff.

I can happily stop this project if I ever find some DGA docs or source code, or Xfree86 project picks up its act and makes it viable for an idiot like me to program full screen fast apps (eg games).

So, if anyone has any nice DGA links and if DGA does want I want, please tell me.

Although X seems like absolute BLOATWARE to me, im sure it takes all that space and memory is so slow for a reason :).

------------------------------------------------
"Annakin! Drop!"
"What was that mister qu-" *SPLAT*
------------------------------------------------
Penguin at jordan.openprojects.net 6667 #debian

damn thing won't compile

[lubricated]

This thing doesn't compile correctly.
yes I did read the directions correctly.
This thing was worse than mozilla in that respect.
It ruined XFree 3.3.3.1. at least mozilla
leaves netscap alone

Re:damn thing won't compile

[lubricated]

It bugs out trying to compile atom.c

some declaration error.

Maybe so, but not everybody uses X

[redelm]

I take issue with that 99.999% ! I administer six Linux boxen, and haven't used X in months. I don't use graphics, so X brings me nothing that virtual consoles and SVGATextMode won't. Mostly people seem use X to open xterms.

I object to GUI's because they are pictographic menuing systems. They abandon the invention of the alphabet. Menuing systems are limited by their design, and can be long to navigate. X is admittedly the best of a bad lot.

That said, graphics are sometimes vital, and X is the best graphics solution for Linux. So XFree86 should attract more developers.

-- Robert

Driver support

[Reason.]

Crap! Where's the nvidia support in 3.9.15? And no accelerated ATI driver? ;-(

XFree86 needs more developers.

[cbarry]

It's kinda sad how short the XFree team is on developers when more or less 99.999% of Linux users use X and 100% of distributions package it. It could really use some more commercial support from RedHat and SUSE, though they have helped a little bit in the past (RHat donated NeoMagic code once...).

For information on becoming an XFree86 developer, please visit the XFree86 developer page.

Also, you non-programmers that use X can do your part by knowing that RedHat and other commercial Linux vendors have ears for their customers and showing concern for the frequency of XFree86 release cycles is a good way to let them know that support for X development is very important to the success of Linux.