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XFree86 4.3.0 Released 461

Posted by michael from the don't-have-to-turn-head-90-degrees-anymore dept.
Dunkalis writes "The latest version of XFree86, 4.3.0, has been released! Release notes here, mirrors here. Enhancements include drivers for newer Radeons, better PS/2 protocol detection, the XRandR extension, better font support, and more!" Source tarballs are available, or wait for your distribution to package them...
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XFree86 4.3.0 Released More

XFree86 4.3.0 Released

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  • Changes (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28, 2003 @11:53PM (#5411392)
    Release Notes for XFree86[tm] 4.3.0 [slashdot.org] : Summary of new features in 4.3.0.
    Previous: Introduction to the 4.x Release Series [slashdot.org]
    Next: Drivers [slashdot.org] 2. Summary of new features in 4.3.0. 2.1. Video Driver Enhancements

    • ATI Radeon 9x00 2D support added, and 3D support added for the Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, and M9. The 3D support for the Radeon now includes hardware TCL.
    • Support added to the i810 driver for Intel 845G, 852GM, 855GM and 865G integrated graphics chipsets, including 2D, 3D (DRI) and XVideo. Support for the 830M has been improved, and XVideo support added.
    • National Semiconductor SC1x00, GX1, and GX2 chipset support added with the "nsc" driver.
    • Support added for the NVIDIA nForce2 integrated graphics, GeForce 4, and GeForce FX.
    • Major SiS driver updates for some of the latest chipsets. Unfortunately the SiS 3D driver has had to be disabled because no one has yet taken up the challenge to port it to Mesa 4.x.
    • The s3virge driver now has support for double scan modes on the DX (with XVideo disabled).
    • Updates to the savage driver, including fixing problems with the TwisterK, and problems with incorrect memory size detection.
    • 2D acceleration added for the Trident CyberBladeXP/Ai1 chipsets.
    • Support for big endian architectures has been added to the C&T driver.
    • Various updates and bug fixes have been made to most other drivers.
    2.2. Input Driver Enhancements

    • The mouse driver now has automatic protocol detection for PS/2 mice.
    • Several new input drivers have been added, including tek4957, jamstudio (js_x), fpit, palmax, and ur98 (Linux only).
    2.3. X Server and Extension Updates

    • Support for the RandR extension has been partially integrated into the XFree86 server, providing support for resizing the root window at run-time.
    • The Mesa version used for OpenGL 1.3 and DRI driver support has been updated to 4.0.4.
    • The XFree86 server's hot keys (including those for switching modes and virtual terminals) can now be configured via XKB. Previously they were hard coded. An X server configuration option has been added to allow the VT switching hot keys to be disabled.
    2.4. Client and Library Updates

    • An Xcursor library providing support for alpha blended (ARGB) and animated cursors. Two Xcursor themes are provided (redglass and whiteglass), as well as the default "core" theme (the traditional cursors).
    • Xterm updated to patch level 173, including the following bugfixes:
      • Fix two infinite loops (special cases of mouse hilite tracking, DECUDK parsing).
      • Make repainting of the 256-color example work properly.
      • Modify parser tables to improve detection of malformed control sequences, making xterm behave more like a real DEC terminal.
      • Fix a problem with the blinking cursor which occasionally caused xterm to pause until a key was pressed.
      • Fix improper parsing of multiple items in the ttyModes resource.
      and the following improvements:
      • Modify xterm to invoke luit.
      • Add simple session management client capabilities.
      • Add a modifyCursorKeys resource to control how the shift- and similar modifiers are used to make a cursor escape sequence.
      • Check if the printerCommand resource string is empty, and use this to allow the user to disable printer function.
      • Sort the options list which is displayed in help- and syntax-messages at runtime to simplify maintenance.
    2.5. I18N and Font Updates

    • FreeType2 updated to version 2.1.1.
    • The "freetype" X server font backend has undergone a partial rewrite. The new version is based on FreeType 2, and handles TrueType (including OpenType/TTF), OpenType/CFF and Type 1 fonts. The old "type1" backend is now deprecated, and is only used for CIDFonts by default.
    • A new utility called "mkfontscale", which builds fonts.scale files, has been added.
    • The Xft library has undergone a major restructuring, and is now split into fontconfig (which deals with font discovery and configuration and is independent from X), and Xft itself (which uses fontconfig and deals with font rasterisation and rendering. The format of the Xft font configuration files has changed in an incompatible manner.
    • Support has been added to the Xft library to do rendering with the core X11 protocol. This allows clients using this library to render to X servers that don't have support for the RENDER extension.
    • There has been a significant reworking of the XKB support to allow multi-layout configurations. Multi-layout configurations provide a flexible way of supporting multiple language layouts and switching between them.
    2.6. OS Support Updates

    • Updates for Darwin/Mac OS X, including:
      • Indirect GLX acceleration added.
      • Smaller memory footprint and faster 2-D drawing in rootless mode.
      • Full screen mode now uses shadowfb for much faster 2-D drawing.
      • Native fonts can be used on MacOS X.
    • Various Cygwin support updates, including an experimental rootless X server for Cygwin/XFree86.
    • AMD x86-64 support (primarily for Linux so far) has been added.
    • Support added for OpenBSD/sparc64.
    • Major OS/2 support updates.
    • Major SCO OpenServer updates.
    • Multi-head support has been added for 460GX-based Itanium systems, and for ZX1-based Itanium2 systems.
    • Experimental support for SunOS/Solaris on UltraSPARC systems.

    A more complete list of changes can be found in the CHANGELOG that is part of the XFree86 source tree. It can also be viewed online at our CVSweb server [xfree86.org].

    • Support has been added to the Xft library to do rendering with the core X11 protocol. This allows clients using this library to render to X servers that don't have support for the RENDER extension.
      Does it mean that I'll be able to use antialiased fonts in emacs?

      • Re:Changes (Score:3, Informative)

        by foonf ( 447461 )
        Does it mean that I'll be able to use antialiased fonts in emacs?

        No, it just means you can get antialiased fonts in KDE or Mozilla or other programs using Xft, on a video card that doesn't have RENDER support or a X11 Server other than XFree86.

        To get antialiased fonts in emacs or anything else you still need application level support, probably meaning drawing the GUI using a toolkit that supports Xft (Qt 2.x, Qt 3.x, or GTK 2.x right now).
        • Keep in mind that without the RENDER extension, antialiasing will really cause a lot more load and slower draw-in. But it isn't really much of a problem. 99% of cards out there have RENDER supported now. ATI/S3/nVidia/PowerVR/Intel/Matrox. It isn't too much of a problem for most.
      • No, it means that you can have antialiased KDE on a sun display, or any display that lacks RENDER. At least that is what I understand.
      • Forget emacs, what about NetHack? I'll be able to tell people that the graphics are anti-aliased now. I might trick someone into picking up a new addiction.

        Incidently, has anyone rolled Nethack into Emacs yet? I'm a vi user myself, but I hear emacs is quite, uhm, complete =)

  • Still buggy... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Friday February 28, 2003 @11:53PM (#5411395) Homepage
    Grabbed it, compiled it, installed it...

    Mozilla's links are suddenly not underlined, and some of the truetype fonts don't render quite right.

    Anyone else run into this? I haven't been able to find any information either in Mozilla Bugzilla or in mailing lists.

    Curious.

    • Re:Still buggy... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by samhalliday ( 653858 )
      I haven't had the problems you have, but i must confess to seeing this version hog a few more megabytes than 4.2.1 and giving worse rendering on the quake games, and even crashing some of my xmms 3d plugins (everything all recompiled against the new X libs of course)

      Nothing good to report from me on this new release... aaah, the price of staying up to date :-/

      • Yeah, my general policy with X is "if it ain't broke then don't fix it!"

        This applies to major versions, like upgrading from 3.3.6 might be a good idea, but 4.1.x might not, especially if 4.1.x works good for you.

        Sometimes you have to stick with an older version because your ancient card has been dropped. My laptop, a Compaq Contura 4/25c falls into this category. It has this weird _QVGA_ video which AFAIK is 3.3.6 only.

        Somehow though, Debian has managed to port the 3.3.6 XF86_SVGA xserver to 4.1.x, so I could potentially install the latest version. I did this for my friend, he has Cirrus Laptop Mystery Video which worked with 3.3.6 but not 4.1.x, the Debian backport fixed him right up.

        X is really a fantastically stable platform. It is great that the X team is working away, but don't feel like you _have_ to upgrade just because a new version is out. The new versions are mainly made to support new hardware. If your hardware works ok then you do not necessarily need to upgrade unless you just want to.

    • Re:Still buggy... (Score:3, Informative)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 )
      Did you have it build it's own freetype or did you build it against your own? Hint: read up on host.def in the config/cf directory.

    • Re:Still buggy... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by djcapelis ( 587616 )
      Heh, it's a point-oh. Give it time, they'll work out all the rougher spots. I'm gonna wait for the distro to pick it up, they'll make sure it's stable enough. Though I'm dying for the new i810 support... tuxracer is unbearably slow without it.

      • Re:Still buggy... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by lspd ( 566786 )
        I'm gonna wait for the distro to pick it up, they'll make sure it's stable enough.

        Depends which distros your talking about.. Some [mandrakesoft.com] seem to care more about buzzwords than stability. But there are a few exceptions. [debian.org]

        Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.. I don't pretend that I can help debug it in a meaningfull way...and this new version doesn't make my current version work one bit less.

        Stability issues aside though, I'm overjoyed to hear that Radeon support is still improving. I'll pass a brick when DRI + Xinerama works with the OS Radeon drivers. Improving support for built in 3D chipsets is also great news. Even minimal performance is a godsend. These guys are doing great work.
    • What system? What version? What version of X did it replace? What version of mozilla? What monitor and video card? What CPU? What compiler?

    • Re:Still buggy... (Score:3, Informative)

      by cbiffle ( 211614 )
      This may not be your issue, but the Xft configuration file syntax has changed in a non-backwards-compatible way as of 4.3.0. This will lead to broken font behavior if you're not careful. Is it seeing all of your fonts? Are you still getting antialiasing? If not on either of those, you probably need to tweak your Xft config.

  • Great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by loucura! ( 247834 ) on Friday February 28, 2003 @11:54PM (#5411399)
    I'm going to have to endure ANOTHER 15 hour build of XFree when I go to emerge something innocuous...

    I REALLY need to remember emerge -p
  • I know that usually companies are on top of these updates to keep the best updates on the shelves, but how long does it really take a company to go from reproduction with the new updates to shelf life, if at all?

    Or, if they are too lazy to even re-release it, how long until they decide it's compatable and post it on their website?

    • Re:distro release (Score:4, Insightful)

      by silvaran ( 214334 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:15AM (#5411490)
      Red Hat 8.1 beta (Phoebe) has xfree86 4.2.99.3 packaged... since then, XFree86.org has released several more snapshots (.4, .901 and .902)... I've been running the snapshots (.3 and most recently .902) for awhile now... .3 had a problem with the nvidia driver... once X came up, I couldn't Ctrl+Alt+F# to a terminal, but that was fixed fairly quickly.

      Anyways, RH is likely waiting to test all these newfangled toys. GNOME 2.2 came out, and now that X4.3 is out, RH8.1 shouldn't be too far behind :). Be patient! ;)
    • At least SuSE had from earlier today 4.3.0 for download from their FTP servers for the 8.1 version.
    • NetBSD [netbsd.org] just imported XF 4.3.0. See the cvs repository [netbsd.org] and the posting to current-users [netbsd.org].

  • Also in X 4.3 (Score:5, Informative)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Friday February 28, 2003 @11:57PM (#5411409) Journal
    • Alpha blended cursors.
      Not true transparency yet (waiting on Keith Packard's tranparency server for 5,0), but cursors can be colored, shadowed, animated, and themed.
    • mkfontscale
      A new utility, mkfontscale, is included with this version. This creates fonts.scale files. In the past, in order to install third party TTF fonts (such as MS corefonts), a utility called ttmkfontdir was often needed (except in distros like RedHat that took care in making everything "just work") to build the fonts.scale file. This program depended on Freetype 1.x libraries (which can't always coexist peacefully with freetype2), and was generally a PITA.
    • Alpha blended cursors.
      Not true transparency yet (waiting on Keith Packard's tranparency server for 5,0), but cursors can be colored, shadowed, animated, and themed.

      Hmmm ... I'm only using 4.2.99, but the default cursor set (redglass) definitly has transparency ... and alphablending (i.e. transparency just with a different name) works fine too ... *shrug*

    • True transparency? (Score:5, Informative)

      by jtdubs ( 61885 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @02:20AM (#5411882)
      Alpha blended cursors, but not true transparency?

      That's what transparency is. Transparency is normally implemented using alpha blending. An alpha value of 1.0 is a fully opaque surface. An alpha value of 0.0 is a fully transparent surface. This can easily be done on a per-pixel level either by using a separate alpha map or by using a alpha channel on the main image.

      Normally a 32-bit, RGBA image is used. This gives you normal 24-bit color, with 8-bits per channel for Red, Green and Blue. The extra space is an 8-bit alpha channel giving you 256 different levels of translucency.

      I guess I'm just confused as to how you can have alpha blending, but not "transparency," as they are the same.

      Justin Dubs

      • Re:True transparency? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Fluffy the Cat ( 29157 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:54PM (#5413519) Homepage
        Alpha blended cursors, but not true transparency?

        Yes. XRender only supports one layer of trasparency - if you have a transparent XRendered object (such as a cursor), it'll show the object underneath. However, if the object underneath is also transparent, you won't be able to see through both layers to the third layer underneath. As a result of this, transparent windows don't work too well yet (though probably still better than the traditional hack of grabbing the X backdrop, shading it and pasting it in) - but since nobody is really using transparent windows, a transparent cursor is unlikely to highlight this issue.

  • well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by itallushrt ( 148885 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:01AM (#5411428) Homepage
    Its about damn time. I mean what are these people just doing this in thier spare time or what? =)

  • Updated PS/2 mouse support... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by questionlp ( 58365 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:01AM (#5411431) Homepage
    I'm probably not alone with this problem, but I've always had problems with trying to get XFree86 3.x or 4.x to work with PS/2 mice with a KVM in between. Either the mouse isn't detected, the mouse cursor reacts erratically or can't get anything behind two buttons to work. As a workaround, I've always had to get another PS/2 (or USB) mouse and plug it directly into the machine rather than go through a KVM.

    Has this been resolved in 4.3.0?
    • I've got a LinkSys KVM (2 port) and have nary a problem with my mouse (Logitech TrackMan Marble FX). Could the problem be that you've got a dumber than usual KVM? The cheap ones don't do the ps/2 thing quite right from my experiance (and forget the old manual switches).

      BWP
    • I've got Slackware and Win2000 sharing a KVM, never had any problem at all, using 1 mouse. Make sure you're not running gpm, it seems to always cause mouse trouble.

    • Re:Updated PS/2 mouse support... (Score:5, Informative)

      by StarHeart ( 27290 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:18AM (#5411507)
      There is a workaround using XFree86 4.3 and a script I created. When combined the mouse fixes itself when switching machines for a second time. First you have to change the mouse type to auto from imps/2. Another workaround is to use ps/2 as the type, but then you lose your wheel. Then make this file, and make it excutable and setuid.

      #!/usr/bin/perl

      use strict;
      use warnings;

      use Time::HiRes qw(sleep);

      open(OUT,">/dev/psaux");
      print OUT "\xF5";
      sleep 0.5;
      print OUT "\xF3\xC8\xF3\x64\xF3\x50\xF2";
      sleep 0.5;
      print OUT "\xF4";
      close OUT;

      The above requires the Time:HiRes perl module and perl-setuid installed. You can likely remove the Time:HiRes requirement and sleeps, but not sure . Then you bind the script to the scroll lock key. I do this via sawfish, my window manager. But there are probably a dozen different ways to bind it. If you are switching between two Linux boxes both need the script and XFree86. I currently am switching between RedHat 8.0(4.2) and RedHat 8.1 beta3(4.3, phoebe3). The beta works right and the non beta doesn't. 4.2 does hae auto detection, but when I tried it and someone else tried it it said in the logs it couldn't detect the type.
    • Odd problem. I never had this problem. I have a 2-buttons Logitech mouse (ball).

  • Logitech Internet Keyboard Support Broken (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:03AM (#5411436)
    This is a sweet release esp. for a radeon user. (glxgears pumps out nearly 50% better frame rate!)

    One gripe: Support for the media buttons on the logitech internet keyboard is broken.

  • Another blown weekend.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:12AM (#5411477)
    Man, I'll probably spend so much time compiling and configuring this weekend without graphics, I'll ony get to wank to ASCII art on the console....

  • What about Quake 3 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jchawk ( 127686 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:13AM (#5411479) Homepage Journal
    Hey anyone know if this version of X fixed the mouse problems for Quake 3? I know it's a long shot, but I have not been able to upgrade X in a long time, because everytime I do I can't play quake 3. The mouse simply binds to the upper left hand corner and doesn't move.

    Anyone who upgraded see it fixed? Or know of a fix?
  • I compiled XFree86 4.2.1 a month or two ago, and it compiled fast enough, but I want to install my nice new shiny Gentoo before I install a new X.

    No, I hadn't tried it yet. What were you expecting?

    Anyone know how the performance compares?

  • Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ignorant Aardvark ( 632408 ) <cydeweys.gmail@com> on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:30AM (#5411564) Homepage Journal
    This is excellently timed to the release of Nethack 3.4.1 - now I can play it in all of its black and white glory!

  • Don't get me wrong (Score:3, Informative)

    by frozencesium ( 591780 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:31AM (#5411570) Journal
    This is a good thing(tm), however i'm using debian.

    /*begin rant
    we all know and love apt, but even in unstable we will have to wait for these cool new features. i guess one has to choose between bleeding edge and fairly secure/stable ;-)
    */

    of course...i'm waiting for my favorite distro to realese them...duh...

    -frozen

    • Volunteer, or Donate (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Debian is all volunteer efforts. Why not help them out, after all they've helped you out plenty. Then volunteer your time/efforts and compile yourself and make a package for others to use.

      Or donate $$$ to the Debian project.

      What goes around comes around.

    • I've been rather surprised at how quickly packages have been getting into unstable recently, actually. When I first saw on Slashdot that GNOME 2.2 was released, I did an apt-get upgrade and it was already there. (And it upgraded cleanly, which has _never_ happened with other versions of GNOME. Woot!)

    • As a temporary hack (Score:3, Informative)

      by hayden ( 9724 )
      This worked with 4.2.0 with 4.1.0 being the latest debian maintained package. I have a feeling it may break fonts for 4.3.0 though.

      1) Get the latest XFree86 binaries excepting the config package (I tried with sources but had more luck with binaries).
      2) Rename /usr/X11R6 to /usr/X11R6.debian
      3) untar the binaries into /usr/X11R6
      4) Rename /usr/X11R6 to /usr/X11.4.3.0
      5) ln -s /usr/X11R6.4.3.0 /usr/X11R6
      6) Restart X.

      I've been using this for six months now (due to the latest gatos drivers eternally needing a version of X that wasn't in debian). The good news with doing this is it's relatively easy to unfsck if things don't work. It sounds as though they've changed the font server configs so you may have problems with this in the latest version (I haven't done this yet).

      I'd recommend changing the link back to the .debian dir before doing a apt-get upgrade or things may get really pear shaped in a hurry.

  • Let the flames begin ... and ignore them. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:38AM (#5411591) Homepage Journal
    I am a happy X user.

    Since this is a story about X, all of the pre-programmed Slashbots are going to trot out and declare that X is broken, old, badly designed, missing features, whatever.

    Meanwhile, the XFree86 team continues, release after release, to pound out great code that addresses all of the shortcomings people tend to cite. Faster direct rendering? Check. Anti-aliased text? Check. Multi-head? Check. Video extensions? Check. 3-D? Check.

    Do you see a pattern here? X is versatile. X is extensible. X is the industry standard -- all Unix GUI programs use it.

    And as always, X's killer feature is its network transparency. No "desktop-within-a-desktop" nonsense like you have to do on other platforms. Today I had the windows of programs from no less than three different computers running on my desktop. Transparently. Lots of X users do this every day, usually without even thinking about it.

    Perhaps someday the tired old "X is obsolete and must be replaced" will finally cease. But today is probably not that day. Let the flames begin. I will ignore them and continue to praise the XFree86 developers for another job well done.

    • Oh, c'mon. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Ashurbanipal ( 578639 )
      Your own glowing testimonial is not exactly a balanced review of the real product.

      But perhaps people like yourself, who are willing to give the X developers the accolades they so richly deserve, are necessary to counterbalance the people who only see the bad points of X.

      There are good and bad things that can be said about X-windows, but I don't think anybody that is paying attention would have anything but praise for the people who have worked so hard to make it as useable as it is.

      On the other hand, I can honestly say that Xwindows is the only piece of software that ever caused my monitor to literally catch on fire. Gave me a very strong incentive to RTFM, I must say.

    • Re:Let the flames begin ... and ignore them. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by starseeker ( 141897 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @01:41AM (#5411763) Homepage
      Usually the replacement mentioned is Fresco, a.k.a Berlin. I think Fresco is a good replacement for X in the same way GNU Hurd is a good replacement for Linux. The dieas and potential are true next generation, but the implimentation is years away. Which is fine. I agree X certainly will hold us as long as it needs to.
    • All Unix GUI programs use X for the same reasons that (almost) all businesses use Microsoft Word...
    • I read a post when kde 2.0 came out that some Linux users got it to load with just QTembedded installed. Maybe it could be possible to use kde itself without X. I asked a kde hacker at linux expo 2000 about the possibilities of porting Konqueror to Windows( mozilla and netscape were both considered dead at the time) and he told me that X is integrated in most of the kde applications. It will take alot of work to get it to work without X.

      However Fresco aka Berlin is dead, has 3 programmers working on it, and its written in Forth so nobody can contribute code to it because the language is not well known. I remember reading about it in 98 and years later the ability to draw basic shapes has just surfaced. Very immature and years behind. Aqua is nice but only available from apple. News is dead and was suppose to be an alternative to X. I don't know much about it or if their are some sources of it. Otherwise the OOS community could use it to write their own graphical environment.

      Gnome or Kde using QT or GTK+ Embedded may be the only real viable option.

    • Anti-aliased text? Check.

      Uh, no.

      There's not really any more support for anti-aliased fonts now than there was before the Render extension, except that the Render extension makes drawing of anti-aliased fonts fast.

      But the application still has to do the work itself. Whether it does so through "standard" libraries like the gtk or KDE toolkits is irrelevant: the bottom line is that anti-aliased fonts requires client-side support.

      Clients have always been able to do anti-aliased fonts if they wanted to, but prior to the Render extension they had to do it the hard way: by actually drawing the individual characters and doing the transparency blending themselves.

      The implementation of anti-aliased fonts is all wrong, IMO. The XFree86 folks should define a new font server protocol that knows how to talk about transparency (indeed, the protocol could easily be implemented such that it uses the same socket and everything: if the X server sees that it's talking to an old font server then it will revert to the proper monochrome font protocol), implement a font server based on Freetype that actually uses it, and hack the X server backend so that it automatically does the right thing when asked to perform operations using an antialiased font. The client shouldn't even know or care if the font is antialiased: that's a server-side-only issue (it's acceptable to name antialiased fonts differently, using perhaps a different encoding name or something, in order to make it possible for the client to distinguish between antialiased and nonantialiased if necessary).

      Font handling belongs in the server. The client should never have to worry about it. Which means that the situation as it is now should never have come to pass. The Render extension is very useful for things like doing transparent windows and such, but it should never have been used for font handling: that was an evil hack, and now we're stuck with it.

    • What's this all about? I'm not biased towards or against X, I simply don't know enough.

      But I do know that Microsoft also improves Windows with each release, addressing many major complaints. We still don't support them despite all this! So I don't see how your argument is useful at all..

      And besides this, yours is the first modded up comment about X and whether it's obsolete or not.

  • OS/2 binaries here (Score:4, Funny)

    by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @12:46AM (#5411616)
    ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/xfree86/4.3.0/
  • Does this mean i could go buy a Radeon 9x00 and get out of the box 3D support under xfree4.3 ?

    What about getting up a dual-screen setup with 3D support on at least one screen?
    (i heard people saying it was possible, i really dig a card that could let me do this under X :-)

  • Syntax Highlighting and Lisp in Xedit? (Score:5, Funny)

    by eGabriel ( 5707 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @01:22AM (#5411710)
    I never thought the day would come. Watch out, Gnome and KDE, Athena is coming back! Er. Maybe not.

    I thought maybe this was a joke... crazy.

  • Wine[x] (Score:2, Informative)

    by CelestialWizard ( 13685 )
    And just remember kiddies, that 4.2.99_902 and 4.3 break wine[x].

    It is being worked on.

    So, if you depend on wine[x], don't emerge, apt-get, rpm, XFree86 just yet.

    • Re:Wine[x] (Score:3, Informative)

      by CelestialWizard ( 13685 )
      It appears to be a font issue on the surface, however removing either webdings (offending font) or the TrueType font directory and re-caching your fonts don't help just yet.

      You can run wine in Xvfb, but that doesn't really help anyone now does it :)

  • While I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff coming out in this release the thing I'm waiting for is the ability to change the resolution of the X-server without shutting it down. I heard that there was code to that respect in the works does anyone have any information on this?

  • Getting better on free nv! (Score:4, Informative)

    by mcgroarty ( 633843 ) <brian@mcgroarty.gmail@com> on Saturday March 01, 2003 @02:30AM (#5411912) Homepage
    The nvidia driver got a whole lot better.

    There's support for DVI flat panels now so long as you POST on that head, as well as real acceleration on all the modern nvidia cards. Looks like no more grabbing and rebuilding the non-free kernel-invasive nvidia stuff. :)

    Keep up the great work, guys.

  • XFree86 4.3.0 on OS X (Score:3, Informative)

    by geniusj ( 140174 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @06:39AM (#5412431) Homepage
    Just informational.. I've been running an XFree86 4.3.0 beta on my OS X desktop for a while now and it is MUCH more responsive than 4.2 .. I can run KDE in full screen mode and it is actually usable. With 4.2, it was slower than using VNC over a T1. So, for all those who wished apple would have included a full screen mode in its X11 betas, 4.3.0 is what you're looking for. I believe the changes they incorporated were actually from Apple anyway (they released the source back).

    Cheers,
    -JD-

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