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XFree 4.1.0 Out 171

A reader writes "After some release candidates, final XFree86 4.1.0 is out. Check it from XFree86 FTP server. Their website isn't updated yet." Check the README for more information.
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XFree 4.1.0 Out

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    I can't get in. Even the mirrors seem slashdotted. You'd have thunk that even geeks get out on Sat. night... ok, maybe not.
    :)

  • The BSD license is more free than the GPL. At least BSD code can be used by anyone, anywhere, without all the restrictions and commercial confusion that the GPL imposes.

    Go do something useful instead of post such crap.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    I'm using a voodoo3 card and basically the whole of X is now a 3dfx-accelerated app with full MTRR support. Using aviplay I used 2 get about 10fps and now I can got fullscreen or maximize it and it's still deadsmooth at 30fps on my PIII/550. So if your card's supported with acceleration on X4, just get it :)
  • Somehow I doubt you can write anything worth selling. Since RMS brainstormed and wrote the license, he is the one most knowledgeable in how and where it should be applied. He is probably the most realistic GPL advocate out there now... Not saying that everything should be free, but saying what should be as well. Careful where you tred, slashdot moderators like to mod down anyone that doesn't proclaim that RMS is god.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    It is totally out by XFree86's standards. The X Consoritorium doesn't make the RPMs, DEBs, or TGZs. They only release the source code and leave the rest up to distributors (whom normally put their binaries on ftp.xfree86.org), at least this is my understanding. You should try compiling from source.. it's really not hard. Download the 2 or 3 tarballs, decompress, enter the directory and type 'make World && make install' and that's it. Probably one of the easiest programs to build (takes a while tho)
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Ass opposed to the other X11 implementations. X11R6.6 is the API, Xfree is a nice implementation, and it just kicks ass. Get a clue. There's plenty of competition, there's several commercial implementations, and I just love the fact that the free one is so great in it's features and performance. Windows can't even be compared since it lacks many of the even basic features like network transparency, documentation and portability...
  • by Anonymous Coward
    The X consortium doesn't even make the code, you dweeb :) It just develops the X11 standard. It's the Xfree86 team that makes the free implementation most of us use and they do release binaries in tgz's, others make the debs and rpms...
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Sheeyeah, right! They said the same thing about CP/M!
  • by Anonymous Coward
    XFree86 lets you change screen resulotions on the fly. However, it doesn't let you change the desktop size without restarting, so changing screen sizes is kind of a pain.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    You know, it would be nice if you waited until they announced it to report about it. They need time to let things propagate to the mirrors so their server doesn't get flooded. By pre-announcing it for them, you're basically screwing them over. Slashdot always does this and it makes releasing big projects a mess. Way to screw over Linux, guys.
  • what does freedom mean?

    ok, i think i'm getting trolled here, but the whole world accepts the misunderstanding of freedom meaning being able to do whatever you want.
  • most people who create things like to see it impact the world.

    free software licensing is done to allow the copyright holder control of how the software is used, to maximise use and adoption many people use the BSD or MIT licenses or simply release the code into the public domain.

    re incorporation in proprietary crap: would you rather them sell a worse product or have higher development costs? neither is productive but are wasteful of human resource.
  • no, you don't have those freedoms, it's that simple.
  • The readme was mostly about XFree 4 in general, and it stated that DRI was new in it.

    It didn't really say how 4.1.0 was better, besides "bugfixes" and new hardware support.

    Well, hopefully it will fix the occasional system lockup I've experienced with my G400 under 4.0.3 ...

    ---
  • I've never compiled X myself ... but ... on RPM-based systems, it seems like building from source would screw up RPM dependencies, and you'd have to use --force or --nodeps to install all X apps. Is that the case?

    If so, I'll wait for Red Hat's release. :-)

    ---
  • I used the 'unofficial' 4.0.1 debs off a now-defunct site to upgrade my aging debian 2.2 box to XFree 4. Anything similar for 4.1?

    --
    Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?

  • Cool, I think i'll deploy it then! Just as soon as you supply me the five figure sum i'll need to do so....
  • I think the point here is that they licenses differ in who or what the freedom applies too. In this case the freedom appears to apply to the user for BSD while under GPL it is the code itself that has freedom.
  • XFree86 4.0.3 does not include Mach64 render code, so there is no anti-aliasing or anything.

    While XFree86 4.0.3 does not have RENDER for Mach64, CVS does. I am running right now on this laptop. Used the antialias howto on dot.kde.org [kde.org] -- everything under 8 and above 12 is antialiased, it is sweet. And since I'm on an LCD subpixel antialiasing makes small text MUCH clearer than standard greylevel antialias.

    I would love to know how to turn on antialiasing for any italics regardless of size; I tried a few variations of the configuration outlined on dot.kde.org but nothing seems to work. If anyone has any success here, please let me know.

  • EEK! Mike Harris is the premier of Ontario, Canada. And also I guy I hate. Now he's working on Free Software?!?! What is the world coming to....

    If memory serves there used to be a Mike Harris hanging around either FidoNet or DragoNet in the 519 area code. His .sig was always "No I am NOT the premier of Ontario".

    FidoNet... Christ... 1:221/[something].77 was my point.. I forget how the addressing works now. That was YEARS ago.

  • n hour? That's nothing - KDE2.2alpha2 takes about 16 hours to build! (no kidding - I started it building at 12 hours ago, and it's about 3/4 done)

    What the hell are you doing? KDE2.2 compiles for me in about 2 hours. That includes manually un-tarring, ./configuring, and make/make installing. QT is by far the longest compile of the lot for KDE.

    This is on a Cel300 with 256M of memory and running X. On my dual 450 it takes a little more than an hour.

  • I'm talking about ALL of KDE2.2, but just libs and base.

    I understand that. How about this list?

    kde-i18n-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdepim-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdesdk-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdeadmin-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdesupport-2.1.tar.bz2 kdebase-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdetoys-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdebindings-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdeutils-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdegames-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdevelop-1.4.1.tar.bz2 kdegraphics-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdoc-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdelibs-2.1.1-2.1.2.diff.bz2 koffice-1.1-beta2.tar.bz2 kdelibs-2.1.1.tar.bz2 koffice-2.0.1.tar.bz2 kdemultimedia-2.1.1.tar.bz2 kdenetwork-2.1.1.tar.bz2 qt-x11-2.3.0.tar.gz

    (yes this is the 2.1 tree, and koffice wasn't included, that is a pig of a package)

  • Hmm... it could be because I'm using reiserfs - I'll try a build on my ext2 partition (I've got 5 GB free on there, so it's not prob).

    The Dual466 system runs reiserfs on its data drive (actually 5 6.4G IDE drives in software RAID0 under LVM) -- I know that tail packing slows down reiserfs like winter does molasses; I have that (and atime updates) turned off.

  • don't think there's anything wrong with including a video driver in the kernel. Tying the kernel to a desktop is another story. The Linux framebuffer console is how video should have been all along. No need to be root in order to access the display. This is probably good for security as well as stability.

    I'm mixed on the issue. Drivers are drivers, this much is true. Just because they are video drivers doesn't mean they don't belong in the kernel. (Hell my nVidia card has to have kernel drivers.)

    At the same time, however, I think it hampers the rate of development for newer, faster and better drivers (video or otherwise). Video drivers especially change quickly as newer cards come out. It's not like SCSI or IDE or sound or network interfaces... they all seem fairly "standard" -- Video still seems to be a fast moving target.

  • I suppose you are vastly superior.
  • The BSD license Locks up any code so that people can't view it. It's just an easy way to commercialize and privatize code that was once free.



    Um, not quite right...the BSD license allows people to make non-public changes to source code, and release software binary-only.



    If you, the software author, don't really care if someone ships your project binary-only, and further, makes whatever changes they desire without sharing with you, then yes, the BSD license is more free. Releasing under the BSD license certainly makes more sense than releasing under the GPL, then turning your project into abandonware. Or releasing under the GPL, then giving blanket permission to do with the source as you wish.

  • "Kernel Drivers do not have to be under the GPL"

    They do if you want them distributed with the kernel source tree.


    OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.org [openverse.org]
  • X11 lacks such basic features as totally integrated anti-aliasing (extensions, in general, suck)

    Please. Extensions rule! They allow you to incorporate new features while keeping backward compatibilty. Who would have though that X would be getting a Plan9 based 2D rendering system with hardware accelleration, alpha blending, AA text, and whatnot!! Extensions made this possible.

    X11 lacks a standard toolkit

    Blimy, that's a feature!!!

    X11 lacks high performance

    Mwuhahaha, that's bullshit! My NVIDIA card is as fast as in Windows (2D and 3D), muuuuuuuch faster than in BeOS (since BeOS lacks MTRR support for AMD CPU's/chipsets and is generally AMD optimization challenged). I don't know if I should take anything you say serious these days. I have the feeling it's simply a side effect of your bitterness and/or frustration with the Be situation, seeing you call yourself "be-fan". I feel for you. /me looks at his dust-covered BeBox.

    low memory use, and low latency.

    Dude, my X server eats a whopping 5MB at startup. Pixmap caching and other stuff lets the process grow, but hey that's what bloody RAM is for no? As to "low latency"? Huh? This isn't audio we're talking about. If you mean "responsiveness". If X is not responsive enough for you recompile your Linux kernel with HZ = 1000 (which gives you 1ms timeslices instead of 10). I can only speak from my own experience and that is that X is smooth as Silk these days. (BTW, Make sure your X server has "SilkenMouse" enabled)

    I just recorded a full 2 hour of the NBA playoffs from my BT848 card, all while happily browsing and compiling away. Not a *single* audio/video frame was dropped. Converting the Nuppelvideo file to DIVX as I type this. Gotta love it! I smell a MediaOS in the making *grin*

    -adnans
  • /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/param.h

    Simply put an extra 0 on the HZ #define line. Make sure you recompile everything (including your modules). BTW, HZ is already at 1024 for Alpha architectures. Looking forward to that becoming standard on x86 as well with 1GHZ+ boxes becoming standard and all :)

    As for the "SilkenMouse" option, it is on by default on XFree 4.x but you can enabled it with Option "SilkenMouse" "1" in your device section.

    -adnans
  • Oops, you're not. I've tried, but lameness filter is apparently too strict to allow posting this. :(

    --
  • Wouldn't it be easier for the XFree folks if they didn't have to worry about making video drivers, and instead it was all taken care of by the kernel? IMO, the only driver they should develop is the fbdev version.

    Sure, if the fbdev code was accelerated "enough" and supported all the primitives for 3D and whatever else they want, then it would be easier. If or course fbdev was on all the OSes they wanted XFree86 to work on. None of that appears to be true.

    Now they could divert that effort in making and extending graphics drivers from X to fbdev itself, but that would limit the OS choice and be a whole lot harder. Writing kernel code is very painful compared to writing user land code. Actually it isn't the writing that is so hard, but the debugging. My relatively few kernel modifications have taken about 4 to 5 times longer then I had guessed to debug, and I had already bumped the number up because I thought I knew how hard it would be...

    Plus XFree86 is used by a lot more then just Linux, and I believe many of the XFree86 commiters are not Linux-only users (in fact the only XF86 commiter I personally know is a rabid anti-Linux zealot). So I doubt they would want to abandon support for OSes that didn't have a usable fbdev.

    One small point in this arguments favor is that they have a fbdev driver, and have continued work on non-fbdev drivers.

    So it seems to be the lesser of N evils to essentially have a user land device driver of inordinate complexity.

  • Yes the driver probably will need to be open-source. However it appears that after you have basic "turn this pixel this color" support, everything else in the interface is like "send this value to this control register". This will allow the "secret" stuff (ie what numbers to put into what control registers) to be put into a user-level "accelerated graphics library" and remain closed-source.
  • I don't think "extensions rule". I would much rather see them add things in such a way that old programs can take advantage of them. Sure, *new* controls are an "extension", but there is no reason to make parallel interfaces to do the same thing. I ranted about this before, but maybe I need to be specific about how I would have added AntiAliased and Unicode support to X:

    1. Add a new call to set the current font, with an intelligent interface. But both this and the "old" (xlfd) call update the same internal data structures, ie you don't need to know what call was used when drawing anything.

    Antialiasing just works after that, as long as copy or replace pixel transfer mode is on. Setting xor mode, etc, turn off antialiasing. This is what the much-derided MicroSoft did with their calls (they did not always support antialiasing), I see no reason X cannot do at least that well!

    To support Unicode, I would make the interface take UTF-8 encoding ALL THE TIME. However there are no "errors", instead illegal sequences of UTF-8 are printed as individual bytes. This would support ISO-8859-1 encoding just fine, there needs to be 3 accented characters in a row to make it accidentally think it is a UTF-8 character.

    X11 lacking a standard toolkit is a feature, just like you said. One problem with a lot of this crap being added to Xlib is that everybody says "but Qt will be adding support really soon". This does not cut it, I don't want to be forced to use Qt anymore than I want to be forced to use MFC.

  • All of you, cut it out! This has been argued over and over, even if you're only counting the last few weeks of Slashdot. Some people like the GPL license and consider it more "free", some people like the BSD license and consider it more "free". Arguing about it some more isn't going to help, and it's off-topic here.
  • Also known as mharris@redhat.com.
  • by Faré ( 6486 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @06:08AM (#180733) Homepage
    Why stand the slowness and incompatibility of framebuffer drivers, when you can have a full-screen, accelerated, compatible, X display?

    You can have multiple X servers running, one in each virtual terminal. I have a set of scripts that automatically launch a new X server with some minimal twm setting, so as to run applications full screen: view DVI/PS/PDF documents, JPG/GIF pictures, HTML documents with embedded pictures, play games, etc. Very handy when you're in a console switching period and your preferred window manager is the linux kernel's virtual terminal facility.

    In case you don't want to roll your own from scratch, I can make my scripts available on request: they work very well for me, although it would require quite a lot of work to package them into a RPM, and you'll have to dig the CVS for versions that used to work with older X setups.

    Unix sucks so much.

    -- Faré @ TUNES [tunes.org].org

  • whoop whoop, pitty there isnt any decent nvidia 3d support on freebsd yet
  • See, that's what's the problem with you *BSD types. You say "How about *BSD support, it'd be trivial to port to all the BSDs". When the Linux people say: "Give me the specs so I can write a driver".

    BSD is content with giving up their liberty so as long as they get that feature supported. The Linux people would rather do without than to live with a half hearted buggy release.

    This is the perfect example of the free software ethos.
  • The S3 Virge drivers have had pixel corruption on some cards for as long as I can remember (since the inception of the Virge, basically). I don't know of a fix.
  • Yeah, yeah, why doesn't Sun come out with JavaDrivers? The could call it SippieCup(TM)(R) or something stupid like that, and then it could be really slow like all of the other universal, optimized for the lowest common denominator garbage of that ilk.
  • Why bother with the framebuffer? Do what I do - run two X servers. I have a 1600x1200x24bit server for my desktop, and an 800x600x16bit server for games. And you can flip between them with Ctrl-Alt-F7/F8, so you don't lose that functionality either.

  • I haven't been able to tell, unfortunately - the CVS versions of DRI SEEM to have had the xv problem fixed...except that I can't use it to tell for sure. It appears there's a severe bug in Banshee chipset support (but reportedly Voodoo3/5 is working okay). If they only sync'ed up the DRI with the rest of Xfree86 two weeks ago, I'm guessing the problem I'm running into is still in there... Still hoping the DRI guys manage to get the Banshee support fixed soon...
    ---
  • And how do you enable it?
  • by tsa ( 15680 )
    I have a question, maybe you can help me. I still run Xfree86 3.3.6 (or so), and I'm quite happy with it. However, playing movies full screen doesn't work too well. Is X 4.x much faster, so I can really enjoy movies (avi/DivX mostly), or isn't there much difference with 3.3?
  • I use aviplay and the Realplayer.
  • You'd think that, having been around for so long, he'd know better.

    Easy explanation: He's a Slahdot editor.

    --
  • One notable new feature of XF 4.1 (for me at least) is that it is the first release to include Alan Hourihane's work on the glint driver that supports the SGI Flat Panel + 3dLabs Oxygen VX1 combo. I've been using my flat panel with CVS XFree86 for a while now and it rocks.

  • If your card is supported by XFree86 4.x it is REALLY worth an upgrade.
    XFree86 4.x is actually a pretty much totally new architecture, and is faster in both 2d and 3d. It also have some really nice new features. Like the render-extension for smooth fonts, DRI for smooth 3d, seperating drivers from the server (4.x uses one server for all cards, just with different drop-in drivers).
  • the other video players that use avifile play divx/asf much faster for me than aviplay. You should give Mplayer a try.
  • Probably what would make more sense would be to ditch the kernel fb drivers and instead have XF86 export a low level API to it's drivers that could be used for games and a frame buffer device.
  • I dunnot about 4.1.0, but DRI 0.7 has supported my Voodoo3 2000 AGP much better with XVideo, i.e. my
    xawtv (bttv driver) works as well as all sortsof media players that had problems before.
  • Depends on your Video Card really. If your chipset it one of the following, I hear there is XVideo support:
    • Intel i810/i815
    • Matrox Gx00
    • Voodoo Banshee/3/4/5
    • ATI Mach64/Rage128/Radeon
    • S3 Savage
    • Anything by nVidia
    More information about getting XVideo to work in the context of video playback can be found here [sourceforge.net], in Xtheater's [sourceforge.net] user guide for CVS. The CVS version works quite well with nice fullscreening of AVI/ASF/MPG/VCD stuff, using XVideo to scale to your display size if you set the options... Of course, I may be just a little biased :) MPlayer [sourceforge.net] is pretty good too, if you don't care about a GUI.
  • Not quite, mtrr by itself doesn't compare to the boost provided by the DRI for 3D and the XVideo extension for 2D. The XVideo extension will blow you away for multimedia if your card supports it, which quite a few do now.
  • by skhazra ( 37185 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @05:56AM (#180753)
    If you have a Matrox G400/450 card then look out for mplayer http://mplayer.sourceforge.net/homepage/ It playes all the formats divx, avi, mpeg .... that have the codec in windows. Even if you don't have G400/450 you would get a decent performance. -- Sukanta
  • I can't get in. Even the mirrors seem slashdotted.

    SourceForge [sourceforge.net] is responding to requests, at least.

    What I'd really like to know is if 4.1.0 works any better with a Radeon on an AMD 761 northbridge. Ever since I upgraded from a 450-MHz K6-III on a VA-503+ to a 1.0-GHz Athlon on an M7MIA, X hasn't worked. I had a 32MB DDR Radeon working on the VA-503+, so it's not a problem with the card. Apparently there's some interaction with the Radeon and the 761 (751 too, FWIW) that keeps it from working. They say you can get it to work if you kill acceleration, but that would suck colon as far as performance goes. None of the READMEs say what's different between 4.1.0 and 4.0.x, and I'd rather not download the source tarballs unless I know I can get the new version to work with my hardware. (I run an LFS [sourceforge.net] system, so building from source is no big deal.)

  • Just curious...where did you grab this from?
  • "kick ass" as opposed to what ? What other alternatives do exists ? that's about the only complete & standard graphic API on Unix. There's 0 competition, except maybe for Windows which push the XFree group to add some features sometimes (like DRI).
  • by dubl-u ( 51156 ) <2523987012&pota,to> on Sunday June 03, 2001 @02:06PM (#180759)
    Faster computers mean that we can increase the abbstraction layers between the hardware and the application to make it EASIER and FASTER to develop complex applications.
    >>>>>>>>>
    Yuck. Ugly UNIX thinking at its worst. Faster computers should allow you to do more, not devote more resources to administrative overhead.


    Unix thinking? Please. Windows has generally been much worse about hardware-hungry.

    And really, the basic theory is sound. As you point out, as computers get faster you can use that speed to make old programs run faster or to make new programs possible at the same perceived speed. Sure, Excel's a pig, but 99 times out of 100 I'd rather use Excel than Visicalc.

    But even if you're just going to make the old programs over again with absolutely no feature improvements, it often makes sense to burn processor time to save developer time and make the software cheaper. That's why you see the rise of languages like Perl, Python, C++, and Java and the near disappearance of significant assembly work.

    CPU effciency is only one of many criteria you can optimize for. And since more than 90% of computers spend more than 90% of their time idle, other things (like usability and development cost) are often more important.
  • Umm, does that mean X can't switch resolutions even when running a full-screen game or something? Meaning if I want to play Quake III at 800x600, I have to restart in that mode before starting the program?
  • I don't know about you, but spending an hour and a half compiling X is not my idea of fun...
  • transparency, documentation and portability...
    >>>>>>>>>
    99% of the world doesn't consider network transparency a "basic feature." 99% of the world doesn't consider portability a feature. Windows GDI is more well-documented than X11.

    X11 lacks such basic features as totally integrated anti-aliasing (extensions, in general, suck). X11 lacks a standard toolkit. X11 lacks high performance, low memory use, and low latency. Most people consider these to be far more important feature than the server or scientifically oriented "features" you specify.
  • For all practical purposes, they do. They have to be open source in order to avoid the driver API of the day syndrome Linux has (or the company distributing them has to maintain dozens of different versions, like NVIDIA). In addition, the kernel developers are outwardly hostile to developers of closed source drivers (as evidenced by a recent kernel traffic thread) and the legal implications of closed source drivers linking to a GPL kernel are sketchy at best.
  • Actually, a nice solution to this is VBE/AF. There is an open implementation of this called FreeBE/AF, and basically what it does is provide a standard binary module that contains clean machine code. In other words, the drivers are completely self contained, and any OS can call the procedures in the driver without worrying about OS dependencies. To bad this idea hasn't caught on.
  • Unix thinking? Please. Windows has generally been much worse about hardware-hungry.
    >>>>>>>>
    I never said what was the case in practice. Theoretically, UNIX is much more abstracted than Windows. Stuff like DirectX is a good example. Again, I don't say that DirectX is good or bad (I personally love it) its just a lot closer to hardware than anything in UNIX.

    But even if you're just going to make the old programs over again with absolutely no feature improvements, it often makes sense to burn processor time to save developer time and make the software cheaper. That's why you see the rise of languages like Perl, Python, C++, and Java and the near disappearance of significant assembly work.
    >>>>>>>>>
    First, features do not necessarily cause slower more bloated code. Take QNX Neutrino as an example. Secondly, lessening the work of the developer through abstraction is a decent idea at the application level (although too often the abstraction is overkill and the performance hit is large. Take CORBA for example.) However, this thinking doesn't make a lot of sense at the OS level. The OS is largely the limiting factor in most I/O or CPU limited applications, and abstracting at the OS level creates a least common denominator effect. I don't much mind if my ICQ program is a little hefty (as long as the gain through abstraction offsets the performance hit) but if the OS causes my well-tuned 3D renderer to perform poorly, no amount of abstraction in the OS can justify it. The very reason people still use C for OS kernels is that it is almost as fast as ASM, and provides a decent amount of abstraction. Thinking that more CPU power entitles one to create more administrative overhead in the OS simply keeps the user from taking full advantage of his (often expensive) hardware. In concrete terms, if upgrading my CPU from 300MHz to 1200MHz results in a theoretical halving of rendering times, then I don't want my OS cutting in on that gain.

    CPU effciency is only one of many criteria you can optimize for. And since more than 90% of computers spend more than 90% of their time idle, other things (like usability and development cost) are often more important.
    >>>>>>>>
    If you're CPU is 90% idle, you're wasting the power of the computer. You're also not doing video or audio editing and 3D animation.
  • by NoWhere Man ( 68627 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @12:05AM (#180773) Homepage
    They are denying Anonymous access now. I guess they wanted to avoid the Slashdot affect as much as possible.
  • it seems like building from source would screw up RPM dependencies, and you'd have to use --force or --nodeps to install all X apps. Is that the case?

    No, it isn't. You should first turn your source ionto an SRPM, then compile that. If you've got the knowledge to do the compile, you've got the knowledge to know how to create packages. Check out www.freshrpms.net for some good examples of spec file tutorials.

    Otherwise, wait for someone else's packages.

  • by dimator ( 71399 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @03:02AM (#180775) Homepage Journal
    I don't like reading Freshmeat. Too much crap

    WHAT?! You mean you didn't like this week's 4 dozen incarnations of MySQL enabled MP3 playlist maintaining programs? You must be crazy...


    ---
  • We totally need a Web site with this format: http://www.fileflash.com/index.aspx?action=headlin es ... FileFlash shows all the popular Windows applications.

    I just want the title of the program with version numbers, date, time, and links. :)

  • A newbie question here... Is it pointless for me to upgrade? I am using RH Linux v7.1. Thanks.

  • No, my old Diamond Stealth64 3000 card (4 MB VRAM; PCI) is using v3. I am wondering it is pointless to get the newer v4.x version. I will if I get a new video card.

  • um.. way WAY offtopic...

  • Hmm, very good point. I think far too many people who read slashdot are under the illusion that it is a community-controled environment. It is not, has never been, and was never claimed to be.

    True, Malda accepts people's opinions and input, but when it comes right down to it, (and Malda has said this many times before) Slashdot is about what Mr. Rob Malda finds interesting. He has publicly stated too many times that those who don't like Slashdot's content should just go and find another website to first-post. Like Kiro5hin.

    (Oh, and the new Freshmeat design has a way that you can "subscribe" to various projects and get sent an email each time there's a new release. It's extremely handy if you just want to watch a few projects.)
  • If you download X11R6.6 from X.org you'll find it's the source of vast amounts of the XFree86 implementation as well as most other UNIX implementations. XFree86 was originally just filling in the x86 specific frame buffer drivers, but has expanded in the later releases to include many other changes as well.

    (And at the API level, there were no major changes in X11R6.6 - it was mostly fixing bugs and adding donations of code from Sun & DEC to implement improved non-English language support and accessiblity support for handicapped users.)

  • The X Consortium doesn't exist any more - X.org [x.org] is the current industry body responsible for the X standards.

    XFree86 is produced by the XFree86 Project [xfree86.org], a separate organization with different goals. The XFree86 people do release both source code and binary releases.

    (This is not to say X.org & XFree86 don't work closely together - the XFree86 Project is an honorary member of X.org, which means they get all the voting rights, without having to pay the membership fees charged to the other members.)

  • The BSD license Locks up any code so that people can't view it.

    Really?

    I can look at FreeBSD source code all day long.

    Apple computer, under Steve Jobs has allowed the closed NeXT code AND the FreeBSD (Plus open and netbsd) to be viewed.

    2 examples disproving your claim.

    The GPL ensures that you cannot change the original intent of sharing the code,

    Lets see:

    In the linux kernel 2.0 series, you can find part of the TCP/IP stack where the BSD copyright was removed and a GPL license was instead put on. The ORIGINAL intent of the BSD code was that the license be preserved, and in this case, the GPL takes that away.

    How about the Virgin webplayer? The license that shipped with the box violated the GPL and they would not release the source code.

    2 examples of how the GPL does not offer the 'protection' you claim.

    If you argue that the BSD license is more free, you are mistaken.

    As you seem to be confused, perhaps you can understand this:

    Humans are a tool using species.
    Software is a tool.

    The BSD license puts the rights of the human to use the tool ahead of any rights the tool has. In fact, the rights attached to the tool are associated to having the human who made the tool be remembered.

    The GPL license puts the rights of the tool and how it shall be used ahead of the humans desire on how they want to use it.

    I have more faith in humanity than you must have.

    I perfer the freedom to choose ones path over forced servitude.
  • my X4 debs have annex's unofficial ppc drivers in them, and can do mach64. 4.1. will also have these fixes in them afaik (it has all of his other work, so I'd assume).

    http://www.penguinppc.org/~puetzk, you want the xserver-xfree86 4.0.1-7puetzk package.

    The rest you can getfun testing (it should work, even though testing is now on 4.0.3 - ymmv, I moved on and am running pre-4.1 cvs).

    or, as I said, 4.1 oughta work out-of-box, I can't see any reason his mach64/ppc fixes wouldn't be in when all the other cards I have made it.
  • Modelines and LCDs are a long running problem for X. Very few laptop makers provide the documentation needed to get these configured entirely right. There is little X can do beyond begging, pleading, and asking customers to beg and plead. Threats don't work.

    If the driver for your chip supports gamma (not all do), you could try various gamma settings. This is not really brightness controls but might accomplish what you need.
  • Anyone know if this release will finally have the render extension for mach64 based ATI cards? I heard it was in cvs but never had the time or energy to grab and compile it. Also support for hardware cursors would make me a very happy too (SimCity3k is quite brutal without it, and the game's software cursors are too sluggish)
  • What you speak of is called a restriction, which means that the freedom in restricted in one form or another.

    If you lived in an area such as Afghanistan, with nothing restricting guerrillas from the other side from killing you, would you consider yourself free? In order to have freedom from, say, being murdered, people need restrictions on them such that they do not murder each other. Those in charge must balance freedom and security to create an optimal symbiosis.

    (Insanely long copyright duration is not balance [pineight.com].)

    "Windows XP: eXtremely Pathetic." -- Anonymous Coward
  • Ignore people who advocate an OS on grounds of religion. I just look at it this way - I saved enough money by using Linux instead of W2K that I could take my girlfriend and myself on holiday for a week.

    And it's not like I sacrificed anything by doing so. Linux (Mandrake to be precise) works perfectly in the firewall/router/NAT role its in. Probably much better than W2K server would in fact considering the hardware I'm running it on.

  • by dorward ( 129628 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @01:32AM (#180806) Homepage Journal
    Well, I for one THANK Slashdot for letting me know. I like to be informed when 2.4.next is out, and the same goes for XFree86 4.next. Some people may be bugged by it, but I think Slashdot strikes a nice (if tricky) balance between overcovering software releases and keeping a large portion of their readers (Linux users) up on the latest.
    You can now subscribe to projects on Freshmeat and get an email when something new is released.
  • by enneff ( 135842 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @01:06AM (#180812) Homepage
    Probably because Hemos in his infinite wisdom linked to the README file on their ftp server, causing thousands of people to try and connect to it using their web browsers, some of which hold onto idle connections until the browser is closed down.

    You'd think that, having been around for so long, he'd know better.

  • You can get the README here [sourceforge.net]
  • by blk_jack ( 141977 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @01:09AM (#180814) Homepage
    I've been following the latest DRI updates (binary) from http://dri.sourceforge.net and currently the only version available is for 4.0.3 (obviously).

    So my question is: How new are the DRI drivers included in 4.1.0? Should I assume they're the current CVS from the DRI project? Could someone please verify this before I destroy my current drivers? :)

    Thanks!
  • I've been testing DRI also (now at 0.7 release with xf4.0.3).

    If you back up...

    1. /etc/X11

      /usr/X11R6

    You should be fine if the upgrade nukes X; just delete the directories and restore your backups. So far, official releases have worked well though awhile ago the DRI daily releases haven't.

  • by piking ( 157151 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @12:16AM (#180818)
    ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86
    ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/XFree86
    ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/XFree86
    ftp://download.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/XFree86
    ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/XFree86
    ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/XFree86
    ftp://mirror.sftw.com/pub/XFree86
    ftp://phyppro1.phy.bnl.gov/pub/XFree86
    ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/X/XFree86
    ftp://ftp.valinux.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86

  • After some release candidates, final XFree86 4.1.0 is out. Check it from XFree86 FTP server. Their website isn't updated yet.
    And when then do update it, they will hopefully note that this is just a bug fix release!

    __

  • X 4.0.99.9 running fine so far.. except just one glitch. My laptop requires a customized modeline for optimal appearance. However, with that modeline the brightness goes down compared to default settings (no modelines). Of course the screen brightness can be adjusted, but then the virtual console becomes excessively bright. Does anyone know how to adjust the brightness of X?

    I have gone through a number of docs and searched google, but nothing seems to be there. So if/when your answer is the usual RTFM, please let me know which FM.

    --
    I hit the karma cap, now do I gain enlightenment?

  • Don't worry about the government [whitehouse.gov] making GPLd software [gnu.org] illegal. It would only affect you if you lived in a stupid country that made encryption [nsa.gov] illegal. People who live in free countries would still be able to write and use free software.
  • I'll assume it must have, I've been running render on a MACH64 for months now as it was added to CVS right after 4.02 was released, I would have thought though that 4.03 had it it anyway.
  • Yeah, yeah, let me say it all for you:

    "What is this, Freshmeat or Slashdot?"

    "How is this news? This is just a point release."

    "This isn't news, this is software."

    "This is only for Linux users."

    "Even Linux users don't care much about this."

    Well, I for one THANK Slashdot for letting me know. I like to be informed when 2.4.next is out, and the same goes for XFree86 4.next. Some people may be bugged by it, but I think Slashdot strikes a nice (if tricky) balance between overcovering software releases and keeping a large portion of their readers (Linux users) up on the latest.

    I don't like reading Freshmeat. Too much crap when all I care about is really Kernel and XFree86 most of the time. I check into Slashdot once a day or so, so I'm glad slashdot lets me know when new stuff is out. Saves me from having to wade through Freshmeat, monitor the kernel mailing list, continually check the XFree86 Web site, etc...

    I also like the distribution release announcements that are here sometimes.

    So nyaaaaaaaah!
  • yeah, your DivX;) pr0n will be much better with XF4. but you'll get even better performance if your drivers support Xv. search google for xvideo + yourvideocardhere.
  • I don't think there's anything wrong with including a video driver in the kernel. Tying the kernel to a desktop is another story. The Linux framebuffer console is how video should have been all along. No need to be root in order to access the display. This is probably good for security as well as stability.

    While I don't have much experience with other unices, I do believe that there is a concept of a framebuffer in most other variants. I heard somewhere that Linux was the one of the later OS's to get such a thing.

    As for GPL issues, aren't there ways to load closed source kernel modules? They could be distributed "precompiled" for various kernel versions, or some sort of wrapper module could be compiled and linked against a closed source driver.

    -Justin
  • Hey, does anyone know if there have been any improvements into getting XFree86 to play nice with the Linux framebuffer console?

    Currently, I feel the best way to play a full screen game is in a virtual terminal under fbdev rather than through X, so that I can keep my desktop and the game separated. Ctrl-Alt-F3 takes me to my game, and Alt-F7 takes me back to X. Plus, the high-resolution framebuffer console is very cool just for shell usage too.

    Unfortunately for me though, the XFree86 driver for my card clashes with the framebuffer driver from the kernel. So in order to have my super-cool framebuffer console *and* X, I have to use the fbdev version of X. This works and all, but it is unnaccelerated which means I can't do much. Fortunately, most of the games I have are SDL based, so I can just flip to a console to play. But something like OpenGL? Not a chance.

    Now can anyone explain to me why there are two video drivers on my system to clash in the first place? It seems logical to me that everyone should use a framebuffer driver (I have a Voodoo3, and it is supported in the kernel) and that X should ride on top. The kernel has every other driver, so why is the video driver so special that X has its own?

    Wouldn't it be easier for the XFree folks if they didn't have to worry about making video drivers, and instead it was all taken care of by the kernel? IMO, the only driver they should develop is the fbdev version.

    Anyone else have any insights to this? Any reason why DRI couldn't be applied to an fbdev Xserver?

    -Justin
  • XFree4 is SOOO much faster for 2D graphics (i.e. movies) than 3.3.6 that you won't believe it. It's like getting a whole system upgrade. I went from not being able to play Civ:CTP to having it run very smoothly.
  • by V50 ( 248015 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @07:26AM (#180846) Journal

    570. Add euro locales and some other missing locales to locale.alias and locale.dir (#4662, 4665, 4667, Mike Harris). 569. Fix Romanian XKB map (#4664, Mike Harris). 568. Spell Portuguese correctly in XKB lst files (#4663, Mike Harris).

    EEK! Mike Harris is the premier of Ontario, Canada. And also I guy I hate. Now he's working on Free Software?!?! What is the world coming to....


    --Volrath50

  • However, some mirror sites have already mirrored it, such as kernel.org [kernel.org].
  • by bacchusrx ( 317059 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @01:39AM (#180858)
    For the impatient....


    Recent Changes to the XFree86 4.1 branch
    Below is a recent extract from the XFree86 change log for the 4.1 branch. The full change log can be found in the XFree86 source tree (xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/CHANGELOG).

    XFree86 development code can be accessed directly from the CVS repository. Information about this can be found on our CVS page.

    XFree86 4.1.0 (2 June 2001)
    619. Disable PCI resource conflict checking for Linux/Alpha (Jay Estabrook).

    XFree86 4.0.99.902 (1 June 2001)
    618. Fix Linux xf86GetPciSizeFromOS() parsing when the kernel is 64 bit
    and any base or size is larger than 32 bits in magnitude (#4732,
    David S. Miller).
    617. Make XDarwin ddx pass up proper right and middle mouse button numbers
    and fix mouse button 5 (Christoph Pfisterer and Torrey T. Lyons).
    616. Restore backwards compatibility from 4.0.[2,3] to 4.1.0 for
    the i810, r128 and radeon DRI drivers (Gareth Hughes).
    615. Fix a problem when using patterns of horizontal lines with the mga
    video overlay (#A.442, Ewald Snel).
    614. Xinstall.sh updates and bug fixes (David Dawes).
    613. Remove duplicate XineramaLibrary section in X11.tmpl (#4731,
    Mike Harris).
    612. Enable building DRI for Linux/ppc, and fix a drm-related bug
    for Linux/ppc (#4728, 4730, Michel Dänzer).
    611. Document Options for the r128 and fbdev drivers (#4727, 4729,
    Michel Dänzer).
    610. Add a BuildBindist switch which causes a file containing the XFree86
    version number to be installed in ProjectRoot, include this in
    the Xbin bindist tarballs, and turn on this switch in the bindist
    host.def files. The purpose is to allow the installer script to
    easily identify which version the bindist tarballs are (David Dawes).
    609. Resync bindist and Xinstall.sh with changes made for 4.0.3 (David Dawes).
    608. Fix the Shape extension's XShapeCombineMask to handle cases where
    src_mask is None according to the spec. This reportedly fixes an
    X server crash (#4715, Huver).
    607. Make sure -UXF86DRI is after -DXF86DRI when compiling vfb/miinitext.c
    (#4714, Frederic Lepied).
    606. Fix ATI Radeon driver on Alpha. Seems as though the BIOS doesn't
    like Re-POSTing and memory setup gets confused. (Jay Estabrook, Jeff
    Weidemeier)
    605. Fix build for Cygwin/XFree86 (#4711,#4713 Harold Hunt).
    604. Fix problem with Xinstall.sh on Darwin 1.3.x (#A.431, Stefan Pantos).
    603. Update Xinstall.sh and Darwin bindist directories to optionally
    install Quartz support and to add an x86 distribution (Torrey T. Lyons).

    XFree86 4.0.99.901 (29 May 2001)
    602. Add missing return value for miSetPixmapDepths() (#4708,
    ISHIKAWA Mutsumi).
    601. Fill in the v4l man page template with some useful information (#4707,
    Gerd Knorr).
    600. Fix FFB OpenGL SwapBuffers (#4705, David S. Miller).
    599. Work around a problem building the rstart specs doc with a symlinked
    build tree (David Dawes).
    598. Remove SPARC-specific byte-swapping code that would not work on older
    SPARC CPUs (part of #4653, David S. Miller).
    597. NULLify mapVidMem() and remove DEV_MEM #define for Linux/SPARC
    (#4651, David S. Miller).
    596. Fix Glint 300SX+Delta support. Add faster 500TX text acceleration
    based on other code (Alan Hourihane).
    595. Fixing MTRR split code (hopefully) (Egbert Eich).
    594. Fixing coredump when doing vbeFree() twice: S3 Virge and C&T
    (Egbert Eich).
    593. Fixing HWCursor for mga driver in fbdev mode (Egbert Eich).
    592. Fix xmh's use of XtNewString() with getenv (#4694, Tim Waugh).
    591. Xdm/PAM fixes: leave it to PAM to observe whether or not an account
    is locked, and reinitialize credentials after calling initgroups(),
    because sometimes the credentials pam_setcred() gives are in the
    form of group membership (#4693, Mike Harris).
    590. Add an encodings file for standard box drawing characters for
    VT100-compatible terminals (#4691, Juliusz Chroboczek).
    589. Fix warnings when building mieq.c (#4689, Adam Sulmicki).
    588. Fix some bugs in the cz and sk entried in XKB's keymap/xfree86 file
    (#4692, Ivan Pascal).
    587. Add 'hr' entries to XKB's keymap/xfree86 and rules/xfree86.lst files
    (#4687, Nerijus Baliunas).
    586. Include in shape.h to get Region typedef (#4686,
    Adam Sulmicki).
    585. Acceleration fixes for GLINT Permedia1 (Alan Hourihane).
    584. Ensure glint driver chips don't exceed the specified virtual sizes.
    (Alan Hourihane).
    583. Remove all VGA'isms from the glint driver, it doesn't need them
    (Alan Hourihane).
    582. Support the Delta in the glint driver, needed for boards that have
    the Delta connected to the rasterizer, as it acts as an arbiter for
    the bus. Resolves acceleration troubles. (Alan Hourihane).
    581. Add an lv entry to XKB's keymap/xfree86 file (#4685, Nerijus Baliunas).
    580. Fix some typos in XKB's xfree86.lst file (#4684, Nerijus Baliunas).
    579. Add DDXOSVERRORF ifdefs to the XFree86 ddx code that make use of the
    OsVendorVErrorFProc feature (#4678, Michel Dänzer).
    578. Convert the r128 driver's "UseBIOSDisplay" option into a more general
    "Display" option (#4678, Michel Dänzer).
    577. Treat GL_POINT like GL_POINTS and GL_LINE like GL_LINES in the sunffb
    DRI driver (#4677, David S. Miller)
    576. Fix bsdLib.rules and bsdLib.tmpl problems that show up when
    X11ProjectRoot is defined (#4676, Johnny C. Lam).
    575. Fix Trident XVideo colorkey at depth 15, 24 (Alan Hourihane).
    574. Fix a typo in the lv XKB description, and fix things so that it gets
    installed (#4675, 4679, Andris Pavenis).
    573. Fix some apm driver bugs, including one that prevented acceleration
    from working (#4674, Loïc Grenié).
    572. Fix 555 (depth 15) palette handling in the i810 driver (#4673,
    Andrew C. Aitchison).
    571. [SECURITY] Fix authentication issues with mmap() on drm devices
    (Jeff Hartmann).
    570. Add euro locales and some other missing locales to locale.alias and
    locale.dir (#4662, 4665, 4667, Mike Harris).
    569. Fix Romanian XKB map (#4664, Mike Harris).
    568. Spell Portuguese correctly in XKB lst files (#4663, Mike Harris).
    567. Fix new ioperm calls in lnx_video.c for Alpha that are not needed
    (Jay Estabrook).
    566. Fix problems with assembler file dependencies when using gccmakedep
    with the build (Frederic Lepied).
    565. Finish DRI resync, including tdfx driver updates for textured video
    support (VA Linux Systems).
    564. Fix formatting of max clock reported by DDC (Marc La France).
    563. Update Japanese localization of XDarwin help file (Toshimitsu Tanaka).
    562. Update XDarwin man pages, help files, and version info. Add option to
    build XDarwin.app bundle for deployment (Torrey Lyons).

    XFree86 4.0.99.900 (18 May 2001)
    561. Add an XKB description for Latvian (lv) keyboards (#A.411, Ilya Ketris).
    560. Resync with DRI CVS trunk (VA Linux Systems).
    559. Savage driver updates, including compiler warning fixes, document
    the "ShadowStatus" option in the man page, and fix an argument
    mismatch between ShadowWait and SavageWaitQueue (#4661, Tim Roberts).
    558. Update the wacom driver to add a "ScreenNo" option to allow a tablet
    to be attached to a screen in a multi-head setup, and to add auto-
    detection of USB line and max parameters of USB tablets (#4640,
    Frederic Lepied).
    557. Add a README file that has information about enabling the extra buttons
    on the IBM Rapid Access keyboard (#4639, Dennis Bjorklund).
    556. Fix some Slovene/Slovak confusion in locale.dir/locale.alias files
    (#4638, Kamil Toman).
    555. New XKB keymaps for cz and sk (#4634, 4637, Kamil Toman).
    554. Updates for the iso8859-2 Compose file (#4634, Kamil Toman).
    553. Check V_CSYNC in the r128 driver, and fix building with R128_DEBUG
    enabled (#4631, Michel Dänzer).
    552. Mesa 3.4.2 (and later) import.
    551. More build & warning fixes (Marc La France).
    550. Fix bug that caused hardware cursors to be temporarily moved during mode
    switches (Marc La France).
    549. Optimise HARDWARE_CURSOR_AND_SOURCE_WITH_MASK case (Marc La France).
    548. Move xf86CursorScreenRec definition into xf86CursorPriv.h
    (Marc La France).
    547. Fix BIOS retrievals in MGA driver (Marc La France).
    546. Fix ATIProbe() for newer Rage128 and Radeon chips (Marc La France).
    545. Add temporary workaround in ATI driver for interrupts that occur on
    PowerPC's upon PCI master-aborts (Marc La France).
    544. Update XDarwin to use fb and support Render (Torrey Lyons).
    543. Back out sunleo conversion to fb. This driver is too heavily dependent
    on cfb32 for a simple fb conversion (Marc La France).
    542. Miscellaneous build/warning fixes (Marc La France).
    541. More prep work for SunOS (Marc La France).
    540. Fix libXft build on SunOS (Marc La France).
    539. Another makedepend bug fix (Marc La France).
    538. Fix use of xftcache utility during !UseInstalled builds (Marc La France).


    feast and enjoy.

    -bacchusrx.

  • Did anyone test if the XVideo Extension now in 4.1 works proper with tdfx (Voodoo 3 PCI) ? I couldn't get it working with the latest bttv driver and XawTV. There was a black picture or the X Server smeared down. On the other hand aviplay did work correctly in overlay mode.
  • by Cytron ( 457031 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @02:44AM (#180868)
    There is a functioning unofficial apt source for XFree 4 debs: http://people.debian.org/~cpbotha/ but 4.1 isn't there yet. Perhaps later

"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne

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