Slashdot Mirror
New X servers (ATI Rage & SiS)
SuSE has released new X servers for the Rage based cards, as well as for SiS. It looks like it was too late to be included on the XFree86 V3.3.5, but its good to see SuSE doing lots of efforts to write those drivers for those chipsets.
Maybe you should write SuSE. Don't you get supoort with the CD?
The one and only Terror PUP
same thing here. i was all happy when i saw the posting, then i click and .... only ATI128's. oh well, one of these days. thank god for AcceleratedX in the meantime.
go get your money back
Anyone find the source? rhat 5.2 (and possibly slack 4) doesn't like the binaries.
Index from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/SuSE-Linux/suse_update/X/:
XBF X Binary Free Servers (Sources not available)
XFCom XFree86 Compliant X Servers (Sources available)
thanks,
tactic
In contrast to the Matrox G200/G400 driver, where there is quite a lot of development activity from the free software community, the RIVA driver came from nvidia and (to my best knowledge) has not been polished by anyone else yet.
In fact I am not sure if anyone from the free scene has understood the disclosed RIVA specs up to point yet, that it can be decided if those specs are complete enough to come up with driver improvements.
Well, not to worry, GLX to the rescue :)
Seriously, someone from the GLX Dev. team has came up with an idea - why not support ATI in 3D? everyone knows that ATI are not the best in 3D, but there are LOTS of users who have ATI graphics cards, and more users with systems with built in ATI chips who cannot afford to switch.
To make long story short - ATI has agreed to give the technical documents to the GLX team, and now there are few guys who hack their way with the info. Ofcourse - if you can help - PLEASE do so..
Offtopic (I cannot resist but to say it), looks like GLX drivers for Matrox WILL kick windows driver's ass hard! (once the AGP module will be ok and the XFree86 4.0 will be out)
Hetz (Heunique)
I'd be happy to take Accell-X off your hands, as it has run faster, more stable, and supports TTF now out the box. Accelerated-X has the driver that pushes my card and monitor the best. Regards
Okay, this is a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. I'm quite unhappy with my 4meg Mach64 agp card. I'm tired of being stuck at 1024x768.
What would you recommend as a good 2d graphics card under Linux with Xfree? I'm not too terribly interested in 3d support, but it would be okay. A little while back I helped a guy install rh6.0 on a box that had a Diamond Viper 550, I couldn't get the 3d stuff to work (q2 or q3), but the 2d was sweet, and I figure 3d will get worked out in the next few months.
Suggestions for cards (agp)?
This sig is false.
I have not checked, but am pretty sure that it is 2d accelerated only, like their former servers. However it might have all the proper hooks for a GLX module and associated hardware renderer, but I doubt that they provide one.
Believe me, I tried. What I ordered was a 440LX board with just an open AGP slot. They were short on these and sent me a BX board with the onboard crap chip. I was pissed, called right away and got no satisfaction. They pointed me to their terms that said they could substitute for equal or greater _value_ as long as they notified me (they did send me an e-mail the same day it shipped).
Bastards. I learned my lesson. Machines I've built since then I've ordered from more reputable suppliers and usually get individual components separate rather than a kit.
As it turns out, I kind of ended up on the better side of this anyway, since they shipped a 100mzh board, the memory was upgraded pc100 as well and I ended up using the board in a different machine anyway. The board actually had AT and ATX connectors and fit nicely into my old 386 tower. I got a new powersupply and ended up getting a 450Mhz OEM PII at a swap meet and a nice 14gig HD and ended up turning this into a server anyway.
What's wrong with you ? Why would you want to switch to XFree and put up with slower X ?
I mean, you already paid for AcceleratedX.
Run some X11perf and both servers and decide for yourself.
There is a utility that comes with XFree (can't remember the name offhand) that IMNSHO works better than XConfigurator. It'll start up the vga16 server with a configuration GUI and allow you to configure the hell out of X and test your config before saving.
... most of the time ! (crashed on me once or twice)
That's XF86Setup. Work well
:wq
That is a big list, but his card isn't actually there. He has a Rage Pro, and that is a little different. It doesn't use the Rage128 Chipset, and, as far as I know, the Rage Pro was already supported, but I don't know what he means by ATI Rage Pro Turbo. Maybe I just thought it was supported because it's listed as a Mach64.
G200 G200 G200 G200 G200 G200 G200 Totally ignored card.
I have that card in my system.. 8 mb, agp 2x, it's a nice decent card for 2D, and a good first step for, say, a Voodoo2. Thanks to the XSuSE people for doing this, else my X would be really sucky. From reading docs, it seems that the VGA16 server won't work with it at all so without this I was screwed. Oh and for all you people wanting hardware vendors to cooperate (which includes myself), SiS mentions Linux and I think even helped developed or gave specs to SuSE and XFree86. So buy more SiS stuff :)
Can you please sen a copy of your XF86Setup file ? I am too new to know whats going in there ;) Thanx
After having thrown up my hands in disgust at having to use VGA16 and finally going out and buying a RIVA TNT card, my Rage Fury is back where it belongs - in my box's AGP port. :)
;)
/etc.... silly me :)
One or two bogons though - not in the Rage128 driver itself, but in the XF86Setup code that SuSE suggest that you download to set it up.
The XF86Setup tool on SuSE's FTP site did NOT like me when I tried to tell it I had a Natural Keyboard with a British keyboard layout. "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" was its view on the matter. (Good old CTRL-ALT-BS.) So in the end I had to edit XF86Config by hand, which was a little irritating, but then again I guess it serves me right for being lazy
Secondly, the same XF86Setup tool has a _real_ problem with Intellimice(sic) - on saving configuration and re-entering using old config as the default, the mouse settings had reverted to PS/2.
Thirdly, I'm rather confused as to why SuSE insist on their web page that you should effectively replace the SVGA server with the Rage128 one. Symlinking X always worked for me, though I guess this one's for XF86Setup/xf86config users as there's currently no 'Rage128' option in the menus of either of them (not even the SuSE downloadable version of XF86Setup, oddly, which makes me wonder exactly why they suggest you should download it).
The fourth problem I had was trying to locate where my XF86Config file had gone, since I'd only recently migrated from *BSD to RH6.0 and expected to find it in
But to cut a long story short, it works (though you may have to jump one or two hoops to get it working, YMMV, maybe I was just having a bad day) and it's great. Go SuSE. I might have to add their distro to the collection.
I noticed one post earlier about dual-heading ATI cards in Win98 - I tried this with my PCI RIVA TNT card, and it wouldn't have it. (Blackscreen, just for variety.) I've heard since that ATI cards, and I quote, "don't play well with others". Does anyone have a take on this?
--
This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along.
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
Now I have a Diamond VooDoo Banshee. I've been trying to compile xfree 3.3.5 to get banshee support, but i keep getting errors about not having a doc dir. I though X could compile without the docs? My other question is how should I configure X once I get it installed? I usually use rh's setup utility to launhc XConfigurator, but I wonder if that program will be properly updated to support my new card?
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
actually, there are instructions on SuSE's site on configuring their XFCom servers. The link also includes links to tarballs and .rpm's of said servers..
have fun :)
Yes, one day I may actually learn to spell...
grabbed the Rage128 server last night, dropped it in (RedHat 5.2 system at one point in time), did a couple of lib hacks, and away it went.
nice, fast, happy.
Nice suprise from the crew at SuSE. I've been waiting for a server for my Rage Fury for months.
Thanks :)
Yes, one day I may actually learn to spell...
There have been several X drivers in the past few years that we would have never gotten (or at least had to wait a long time for) if it weren't for the money-makers.
That said, it's nice to see SuSE continue to release their stuff back to the community. They should be applauded for their efforts.
Werd.
These servers are based on source code from XFree86-servers, but enhance and extend these
Uh oh...
No, I'm being unfair. But it was an unfortunate choice of words.
I happen to be the not-so-proud owner of a Alton motherboard with an on-board Sis video chip. (bought a barebones kit last year and they swapped for an 'equivalent' board :( ). Now maybe I can get decent video (I've been limping along with VGA16 for months).
Don't get me wrong.. this is good and all...
But I just bought Accelerated-X so that I could get support for my ATI Expert 128 card for $99. That was just 2 weeks ago. And now my card is supported.
Oh well, hopefully XFree86 will run well on that card. I was planning on switching to XFree again once the card was supported, I just didn't think it would be that soon.
It'll be nice being able to use the fullscreen function of MpegTV (It's designed to work with XFree only)
If it does, then q3test should work wonderfully with it.
Werd.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could go about installing this on my Slackware 4 system? Honestly, I haven't gotten Xfree to work at all since I got my Rage128. I've been waiting for this day... Links are fine also. Thanks in advance.
Who knows, though- it might get there.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I've got a Mach64 based Rage Pro Turbo also. Oh well, guess I'll live.
I really wish I could have 3D support, though.
There is only support for Rage128 based cards. It's not nice to get ones hopes up by announcing "support for Rage cards" when there isn't one. I myself have Ati rage pro turbo -type of card, and I still have to use Accelerated X to get a decent support for it. (Yes, I know it works with Xfrees mach64 servers, but they are sloooow...)
--
It has to work - rfc1925
I suppose it can't hurt Suse that one of the top
dogs on the Xfree86 project happens to work for
them. IMHO one of the best ways for companies to
support Linux.
Simon
I bought my Rage Fury card in January and have been running my system with 2 video cards ever since... Just to dual-boot to Win98 ;)
I was tempted to go to Accelerated X, but I knew that someone, somewhere, would come up with a fix for the Rage 128 chipset. Just gotta give the folks a bit of time.
The Rage128 server works beautifully.
I might go buy a copy of SuSE just to support their efforts!!
3D accel support's not as easy as it looks.
:-)
It took about a half dozen people (some of the best and brightest out there) something like 4-6 months of work to achieve what we've done so far with the G200/G400 driver for GLX- and we're not done yet... (Note: I've been a lurker on the list for the development team- I have done no coding for the GLX project...YET.). When it officially ships as a GLX driver, I honestly think it will make Linux look good.
(As for the ATI 3D support... Well, be looking for it soon... How soon? Depends...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I can't tell you how many problems I had with X and my onboard SiS 5597(?) video card. Even with the supplied drivers I tried 2 weeks ago, it absolutely would not work. Guess I should try it again.
Of course, with my old ATI Rage 2 meg card, it had no problems in X whatsoever. Guess I shouldn't have bought that ATI Xpert 98. heh
I just put OpenBSD on a machine so I could play around with it (translation: see how well I like it). So far so good. It's fairly different from the RedHat Linux distro's I'm used to tho...
Anyway, that machine has a banshee in it as well. I downloaded XFree 3.3.5 tarball and compiled it. There is a utility that comes with XFree (can't remember the name offhand) that IMNSHO works better than XConfigurator. It'll start up the vga16 server with a configuration GUI and allow you to configure the hell out of X and test your config before saving
Never fails... I go and try to be "helpful" and I end up being "helpful" to one of the people that's working hard to make everyone else's day. :->
Guess it's a consequence of trying to be an advocate with this stuff- there's so many of us coders and engineers working to make a difference, it's sometimes hard to keep up with everyone.
Anyhow, I've little doubt that the SGI implementation of the GLX layer will be the one we're bolting the driver to- but that means we're likely to be going even faster than we are now (since some of the indirection we're laboring with goes away...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Heh, X and dual-displays don't like me. I tried, I failed. So I put my Rage Fury in the AGP slot, and a Rage Pro in a PCI slot. Windows supported both cards, but when I'd boot Linux, I'd go in the BIOS and select the PCI card as primary display adapter. X would configure the PCI card as :0 and all would work well.
The only pain was switching my monitor cable back and forth from the PCI card to the AGP card, but those days are over thanks to SuSE!
it's sometimes hard to keep up with everyone
The present pace is amazing. I wonder how other people keep up. They must be more effective or be folks with a lot of free time. Last days I used for tests with XFree86 3.3.5 and thus have now a big pile of unread mails from the various lists that are significant for this topic.
Anyhow, I've little doubt that the SGI implementation of the GLX layer
That is what most people expect. I am glad we have an existing alternative with the free GLX. Even if it ends up thrown away, it gave us so much opportunity to learn.
Well, it nice that they can write drivers for new stuff, but why can't they make other stuff work. None of the 6.x SuSE are worth the $50. It seem all they want to do is add new stuff, but don't care about rpm they package.
Hey SuSE? Make all your other stuff work like it should, before you go and write new stuff. Like Gnome and netatalk and a lot of your server apps. Gnome suck on SuSE, ICEWM, please...You don't have to be RH, but better WM, like Windowmaker or Enlightenment. KDE is nice, but give the people what they want. netatalk STILL DOESN"T work. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! So far I have wasted $150 (6.0, 6.1, 6.2). Oh, if you bought SuSE 6.2, becareful, they know it that there are problems. There is an "AS IS" on it. They made me feel I had bought a lemon.
I will go on record, I know I will get flamed. But, I don't care. The BEST SuSE was and is 5.3. SuSE DE -- PLEASE LISENT.
Again, I am glad SuSE does write a lot of new Server, God know they save me when I bought my i740 Card. I just wish they get all their other stuff working.
Last thing, I notice that 6.2 that I bought, has an American Flag, I bought my here in the state, you still have to go unselect the 250+ megs of German Docs and Apps. I am not knocking the German stuff, I beside the problems I have list SuSE great, but we have an USA office, why can SuSE DE send it to Oakland and let them rework it for the USA market?
SuSE please please...before you relase the next 6.X or 7.X, beta test it. I would be glad to help. You product is good. BUT IT COULD BE GREAT, even THE BEST.
Signed a sad 6.x SuSE user who feel cheated.