Slashdot Mirror
XFree86 Release Update: 4.0 in Q12000
Belzecue writes " XFree86.org has been updated mentioning that xfree-4.0 has been pushed back 2 months to mid Q1-2000, but that the next snapshot release of the 4.0 preview series will be released before the end of the year.
"
I really would like to have my Voodoo3 with _reliable_ DRI working, pronto. The new 3dfx packages let you run Q3 just fine, but UT and all the other Glide stuff doesn't work *sigh* On an unrelated note, does anyone know if Loki plans on releasing the Q3A binaries so that those of us who went ahead and bought the W95 version can run it in Linux? Or will it be just like Myth, etc....
-------------
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
It's a simple question, but a good one - has XF86 figured out an API set for direct video access? We're still lumbering about with unix domain sockets and tcp/ip - it's been brought up *alot* lately that performance could be dramatically improved if we were to create a standard X API set to do direct hw access.
Although many readers probably don't realize it, this is actually really bad news for the Linux gaming community. For those who are unfamiliar with the design specifications of Xfree86 4.0, one of the major planned innovations is tightly integrated 3D accelleration. Not only will this significantly improve performance and stability, it will also make it easier to make a given video card compatible, this increasing Unix's (yes, XFree86 IS at least somewhat cross-platform!) viability as a gaming platform. The sooner good, integrated, compatible 3D support comes to Unix, the better off Unix gaming will be.
Hopefully card manufacturers will be more open to supporting XFree now that M$ future is uncertain. Id like to see some of these companies shipping Xfree drivers in packages. Once I have that and a sound blaster live driver, Ill be set.
XFree86 4.0 is being delayed two whole months.
I'll bet it is also losing market share in the
corporate segment as well. That's it. This
must be the end of X. Game over.
Actually, I can't even remember what got released
two months ago. XFree86 4.0 will come out.
It will be good. Mozilla will come out.
It will be good.
You may see more delays in the Open Source world,
than in the commercial world, but I think is's a
good sign. We keep our clear goals and do not compromise to keep a deadline. This means fewer problems in the future with necessary compabillity code to these 90% finished programs.
Still if you need the bleading edge - go for the snapshots.
Real Programmers know when their programs are in beta and when they are not.
Finally, the next release of X is visible on the horizon... :-) Hopefully with the new device driver API, people can come up with drivers for new video HW faster. My SiS6326 chip is still only minimally supported under X (no bitblt, no accel), and so far I'm stuck with 3.3.3. I tried the 3.3.4 driver and it barfs on my system, locking up the keyboard totally. :-( I've yet to try 3.3.5... but hopefully with XF 4.0 this nightmare won't happen again. A generic API is what we really want -- so that supporting a new HW doesn't entail hacking an entire X server, which is no trivial task. By localizing device-dependent parts of the X server, I think people will be able to come up with more drivers faster, so X won't be lagging behind new HW as bad as now.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
I hate to carp about something like this (I'm generally one of those "shut up and code" type people), but I really do think the XFree people could release more snapshots, and more development code. It's been what, three, four months since they released 3.9.16, and only now are they releasing 3.9.17. How many revisions has even the stable kernel gone through in that time, let alone the development kernel . . .
Which isn't to say that things would necessarily be going faster if they did, but they'd be much more likely to get people using the snapshots if they were obviously working on them. I'm not going to use development code unless I can be fairly sure that any bugs that are found are going to be fixed _and_released_ in good time. That's why so many people are happy using development kernels - they can see the improvements between versions, and if they find a bug they can see the fixes going on in real time. This just isn't happening with X at the moment, unfortunately.
Oh well. At least they're still working on it, even if it's not as open as we might like.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Actually, I'd be happier if more HW manufacturers adopted an open philosophy in publishing their APIs. Yes, it would be really nice if HW manufacturers starting putting out X servers for their cards, but I think it's better if they release their API. Why? Two reasons:
But in the meantime, I suppose all we can do is hope that XFree gets enough support so that those of us with unsupported (or poorly supported) hardware can have a better X server soon.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
I don't see any viable way that XFree86 will be a future gaming standard. Even if the OS provides better utilization of 3D accelerators, there's still another matter entirely to think about - consumers. The majority of game playing is done by those who stick the CD in the CD-ROM, click install, and get out their joystick or game pad or keyboard or whatever, and go at it. They don't want to have to mess with anything just to get a game to work. Unless XFree86 is as easy to install as Windows 98, or if it starts shipping with massive gaming systems, game publishers aren't going to actively port their games to the OS. Sure, there will be a few (I see a version of Quake 3 in the future) that will be ported, but then it will take people who have the time, know-how, and patience of setting up the OS to work with their system to be able to install and play those games.
I'm all for a good, stable OS, even one that makes 3D-accelerated games rock. There's no point, though, in making it up to be anything more major than an operating system that tinkerers (like you and I) will spend many hours either enjoying ourselves with or pulling our hair out in frustration.
How are people supposed to "shut up and code" on XFree86 when the application process to become a developer intimidates the casual bug-fixing C coder, and when the releases are so infrequent that released code is probably too far behind the current code for an outside developer to work on?
I say this here every time mention of XFree86 4 comes up, but I'll say it again: now that they've got a modular architecture that they can split NDA'ed drivers away from, they need to open up the bulk of XFree86 development to the public. How much of the work that goes into other open source software projects comes from people who download the latest bleeding-edge CVS and fix one little instability? How many now-full-time coders on other large open source projects started as people who simply liked poring through bleeding-edge releases and hacking on them?
There are two ways to recruit development for free software projects: you can plead for more full time developers on your web page like XFree86 does, or you can give people something bleeding edge to develop, like most other projects do. It's a shame that the most important free software project out there is hurting for lack of interested developers, but I think they're partially bringing the problem upon themselves.
So I think we shouldn't bitch about the release date push-back. This NEEDS to be of the highest quality it can so it can be everything we want it to be.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
For certain cards, you can get PDGood accelerated 3D under Linux now. See the Linux GLX site.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
before posting. Plesae. read everthing.
Also, when you post, make sure you put a proper title in your subject.
Good luck.
--
the only problem with that, is that i have mine set to "oldest first", for chronological coherance
(although i'm assuming "high score first" sorts an entire thread, rather than subcomments within a thread that might have higher scores than the original comment)
It's going to be released in Q12000!? Quarter 12000 is like the year 3000! And I thought Mozilla development took a long time.
Luckily, though, with the beta releases, we have a 1000 years of testing, so it should be stable and feature rich.
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired
"They" at the beginning there is id btw (id's releasing the binaries) . Loki is publishing/distributing/supporting the linux version for id, instead of Activision, who is pub/dist/supping the win32 version.
I think this has to be #1 on my list of most eagerly awaited software releases!
xfree86 development is closed and there is no good reason for it being that way. they always are giving you many warnings on how this could
crash your computer and yadda yadda. Most people know this already and are willing to put up with a crash everyonce in a while just to be able
to access some of the features of XFree 4.0. The last snapshot was very stable I never had it crash on me. Which I can't say about 3.3.5. I think
they should open up their cvs server. cvs.xfree86.org to anonymous access. That way they could get more bug reports and there just doesnt
seam like there is a good reason not to. There is a new experimental kernel release every week or so why not XFree. A bad kernel could do alot
more damage than XFree misbehaving. (e.g. file system coruption, etc). I know the risks let me run XFree
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
We all know how antiquated X-Windows is. You have to have a really expensive video card to make it seem halfway fast.
It is time to Mozilla-ize and start supporting the next generation. X-Windows should not be developed any further than Xfree86 4.0.
What is the next generation? Well, the only one that comes to mind for me is Berlin (berlin-consortium.org). This project seems to have a good start on the next generation GUI for *nix.
Anymore, there is no excuse for a modern OS to not be as easy to install and use as Windows 98 or BeOS. It is almost the 00's, not the 80's, and X-Windows is simply not going to provide a good GUI foundation for a modern OS.
E
EverCode
You'll note virtually all my comments over the past week have had various AC replies to my posts along those lines. He's just trying to get attention by attaching himself to someone who's well-known on /. Just ignore him. Eventually he'll either go away, or I'll code a perl script to make the mandatory "karma whore!!!!" post to everyone who gets a +3 or better and make him obsolete. :)
Just to clarify, yes, I do mean the delay is bad (the last sentence of my post should spell this out). XF86 4 will no doubt be a great thing, and I personally intend to upgrade as soon as it comes out (whenever that may be).
By the time this comes out the new kernel 2.4 should be out right?
:)
Lets say that is out, Xfree 4 is out, KDE 2 is on the horizon, Englightenment has been updated, Xfce and others...
So around then, possibly earlier for distros like mandrake that use pre-release software, we will see new distrobutions of your favorites.
Man, it can be hard to keep up with such a fast paced OS.
_joshua_
In an Open-Source paradigm, even if the "official" release is delayed, you can still get something to work with. Proof that they're not dragging their feet, yes, but you can also start to work with the program. You see them fulfilling the promises they made.
In proprietary paradigms, you get nothing at all. That's the difference. More often than not, Microsoft and other companies make lots of promises and don't deliver. At least in Open-Source situations they deliver something, even when they say it's not yet completely ready.
You're not a karma whore, my man, you have no karma.
Looked at anyone's karma lately? Try looking at mine.
These aren't the karma whores you're looking for...
Now can we all just *try* to grow up? Please?
---
pb Reply or e-mail rather than vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
If there's a new release every month in the development tree then people wouldn't get so worked up about it, and they wouldn't have distributions doing dumb things like that. The way things are, when they release something people assume that it's production code, because that's all we ever see from them. If they weren't so shy about releasing code people would be more careful about using their development releases.
What it gets down to is that the XFree developers have a different approach to development. Coming from the Linux world that approach seems a little bit silly . . . But hey, it's their code . . .
All that aside, though, they've done a great job. X might not be perfect, but it works, and the free Unices would be nowhere near as popular as they are without it. So more power to them . . . and as much good code as possible to everyone!
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I for one find that the latest XFree stuff is really solid. I use it on my laptop with the FBdev @ 1024 x 768 and it works fine. mtvp, realplay G2, Mesa3D etc all works fine, although my laptop doesnt have hardware acceleration.
And I will say that the slackware 7 installation for X/XFbdev was flawless and worked the first time w/o any problem... I am very impressed with slackware, especcially after trying to get on the bandwagon and install Red Hat 6.1... 6.1 was extremely sloppy in comparison and failed due to python errors, even after using the update images... but thats kind of off the subject...
DGA has been around for years. It's analogous to DirectX minus Direct3D. It's used in vmware, and emulators such as vice and UAE, as well as games that use SDL on linux.
As a person that has used DGA and DirectDraw for many years, this is simply not true. DGA lacks a feature which is key to fast graphics: Hardware accelerated blting. DirectDraw does this nicely and even allows surfaces to be in VRAM for even faster blting. I am happy to say that this is being fixed in Xfree86 4. Both of these still lack blending support, but you can now just relly on the 3d hardware on most card to do that.
DRI is in XFree 4.0. It's analogous to Direct3D
DRI is a way for software to talk to hardware without going through the X server. Direct3D is a HAL, and an API, and a library. These are totally different.
This is very cool, and comes from the SGI high-end graphical workstation world, and is not something that's easy on windows (to do it on windows, you have to use X on windows - I think Hummingbird Exceed X server supports GLX. I might be wrong.)
Remote display with OpenGL is something that was built into OpenGL. It could easily be implemented on windows, as the line between client and server is well defined in the specification. --Tom
Why was this moderated down as flamebait. Seems reasonable to me.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
...now that they've got a modular architecture that they can split NDA'ed drivers away from, they need to open up the bulk of XFree86 development to the public. How much of the work that goes into other open source software projects comes from people who download the latest bleeding-edge CVS and fix one little instability? How many now-full-time coders on other large open source projects started as people who simply liked poring through bleeding-edge releases and hacking on them?
Yes - and there's another big advantage - opening up the non-NDA hardware drivers will put a lot more pressure on the proprietary holdouts to open their specs, because the open-spec drivers will improve a lot faster.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Well said AC.. And beyond that, the Linux G400 driver has 2 things going for it..
#1, John Carmack. He's cool =)
#2, the driver still hasn't implemented multitexture. expect it to get a LOT faster.
This is even before DRI.. Wow! X is where to be.
Let me begin by saying this:
IT IS NOT X WINDOWS! It is X, or the X Window System. Not "X Windows".
You don't have to have a really expensive video card to make it seem fast - the main problem in the past that it uses a lot of RAM. XFree 4 should (by having all the major components as loadable modules) decrease its memory usage significantly. Also, XFree 4 will be a whole lot faster (3.9.16 feels much faster than 3.3.5), with the newly rearchitected XAA 2.0 layer. GL support is being integrated in the right way, as is multihead support. X makes a fine base for a GUI.
Yes, I know it doesn't support antialiased fonts... antialiasing, though pretty, is considered hackish, and I can understand why trying to implement it would be less than fun.
XFree 4 will have much better detection of devices, for basic configs (i.e., single display configurations) - especially PCI and AGP devices, which are so proliferant now. Anyone still using an ISA or VLB video card is living in the dark ages. Decent PCI video cards can be had for a song. (It's not easy to detect ISA devices, including video cards, in a sane manner...)
X can be good as a gaming platform - once DGA keyboard handling in XF 4.0-pre is cleaned up, it should be much easier, esp. considering that DGA 2.0 will allow X drawing ops to be used in a DGA context, so it would be helpful for menu UIs for games. Also, DRI for GL will allow for fast OpenGL graphics for games that use 3D rendering (this is already usable - Q3test works quite well).
A final note - X != XFree86. X is developed and maintained via The Open Group, and XFree86 is based on The Open Group's X reference codebase.
I haven't heard much noise from the Berlin Consortium in awhile now - do they actually have anything that does anything useful yet? Or are they still in the formative stages?
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Man, you should've purchased the linux version man, at least this way you could support support cross platform gaming, since gaming is seriously what drive's stuff like 3d acceleration, and projects like Xfree 4.0 which works to provide faster 3d for *nix users. Plus if you like quake by any chance, you at least get the tin box. I'm not trying to bash on you, but I would wait another 2 weeks to at least support the OS I use the most. My 2 cents only.
-john
Modern hardware should not need to catch up. If the OS can't run comfortable on a Pentium 90 then it is useless,because even on a Pentium 700 it is still using nearly 1/7 of the proccessing time for itself.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Modern hardware should not need to catch up. The OS ought to be a thin layer to build on, not a massive app framework that developers add pieces to to build an application. If the OS can't run comfortable on a Pentium 90 then it is useless,because even on a Pentium 700 it is still using nearly 1/7 of the proccessing time for itself.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Continueing my previous rant. Abstraction is BAD. X should not build network protocols into itself. That should be in a higher level app. So say X was a simple direct to the hardware windowing system. Then I built something on top of that with a client that talks to a server that talks to X. Now if I'm not using the network transparent stuff, then I don't have to have it loaded. IE. If I am running 3D Studio, I don't have to have the think connect to itself over a socket. It is as dumb as putting printing functions in a widget set, oh wait, I just described QT didn't I?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The Berlin development team are making progress. I've lurked on the mailing list for a while and the amount of traffic (related to actual development - not just talk) has increased dramatically recently forcing me to unsubscribe because the topics of discussion were way above me and there was just too much of it! The top guys in the project are extremely clever and I personally believe they will develop an interesting project. Will it replace X? Dunno, possibly, but either way, it will be a fascinating piece of software. Don't let your preconceived ideas about Berlin get in the way of what they are trying to do: The old Berlin from a few years ago is buried. The "doing it all in assembler" mentality went years ago when the head developers changed, and it's now a case of a cool CORBA, OpenGL and Unicode based project.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a developer, only a lurker!)
Not speaking for XFree86, but as a contributor, the few comments I've seen suggesting that the snapshot and released code is to old to work on or submit bug fixes against are not realistic. In the past months the released code is close enough to the development code that most bug fixes from non-XFree86 members would be welcomed. As are bug reports and problem reports. One of the major challenges of a project like XFree86 is getting the code base tested on multiple platforms with combinations of video cards. Let alone making both released versions such as 3.3.5 and snapshots of a new development effort (3.9.x) available.
Having said that, I'd encourage those who might like to contribute to consider joining the XFree86 effort. I won't claim the learning curve is easy. It's a large code base and video driver development isn't the simplest thing in the world. Or submit bug reports or patches against the released versions. Don't think that because the latest development source is not available that it has moved so far ahead as to make your patches obsolete. That is rarely true.
The closed development model is due to licensing concerns. From what I've heard there may at times exist code in the development tree for XFree86 which doesn't meet the release license requirements. The closed model allows XFree86 to release code to the developers without breaking that type of license restriction.
I don't give a flying fuck about the filesystem when I'm an end user. Unix people often fail to see the big picture when it comes to end users, probably because this type of user never gets near their OS.
When I was a CS student I had the pleasure of working with several UNIX flavors. I also installed linux on my PC when this still was a non trivial act. At the university I worked we had those nice little networked workstations which commonly shared one computer (3 terminals, one computer, HP UX machines, Indys and later also Sparcs). They were slow. Not just a little bit but really slow. Even when we got newer hardware it still was slow. Probably those things are really nice if you can use them stand alone but networking to terminals clearly was a bad idea performance wise.
X windows is only nice if you have monolithical applications (i.e. apps you can't break up). If its monolithical that means it is probably too big to run on a small computer. If it's not, you can separate the GUI from the rest of the application. Well designed applications don't need to waste bandwidth on transmitting mouse clicks.
Now opengl over X sounds like a really bad idea. Even a modest 3d environment can contain hundreds of megabytes in textures and polygons. I have a hard time believing that you can squeeze that down a network in real time. If on the other hand you have it locally, why the heck would you want your software to run remotely? Any performance gains would be canceled by the network overhead.
Jilles
I don't know what your situation is, but X windows solves many problems for me. I have a machine on my desk, but do to (stupid) licensing restrictions, the main program I run is on a computer way over there. I also work with headless machines in a lab, and pulling windows from them makes some debugging tasks easier.
Back home I have a powerful modern machine, and several older sun3s. Now I could buy more powerful machines, but those cheap sun3s make excellent terminals, and the powerful machine is fast enough for them all, but the suns are not fast enough.
I'll agree that X windows is a bit slow. I'll agree it isn't perfect. However it does solve many of my problems.
How is it possible that the first post to a topic is moderated redundant? My $2*10**-2