The X.Org Foundation today announced the fourth release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of 2004.
X.Org 6.8.2 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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So the news is a little less useless…
see what was changed
http://xorg.freedesktop.org/X11R6.8.2/doc/RELNOTES.html
get it here
http://xorg.freedesktop.org/X11R6.8.2/src-single/
What’s the status on the next Major X.org release (6.9 or 7)?
Hum… i’ve read their release notes and the next major version will be modular. Does that mean that each module could have different release schedules and versions? Can someone explain better where X.org is going in the future, or give a link to an explanation.
Thanks!
The summary of new features talks about an updated nVidia driver, but it doesn’t list what is updated(!).
Anyone know if it’s possible to do a dual head display with the OpenSourced nv driver? I’m running PPC Linux, which is why I’m using the nv driver as opposed to the official nVidia drivers.
The summary of new features talks about an updated nVidia driver, but it doesn’t list what is updated(!).
So check for yourself. CVSWeb is great for that.
http://cvs.freedesktop.org/xorg/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/driv…
The only recently changed files are nv_hw.c and nv_driver.c. The CVS log on both states this:
2005-01-25 Alan Coopersmith <[email protected]>
* programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers/nv/nv_driver.c:
* programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers/nv/nv_hw.c:
Jan. 2005 nv chipset update from Mark Vojkovich
Bug #2380 <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2380>
Patch #1752 <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=1752>
Looking through it shows the only thing that changed is that some newer chipset IDs were added, so the nv driver autodetects some newer NVidia cards without the need to be told manually. That’s it.
I tend to feel a little sorry for the Debian project. Their decision to not include X.Org is a very sound one but it will make the 3.1-stable release appear dated the day it’s released. I will stick with Debian for my needs in spite of XFree86 going into stable, assuming that X.Org will make it into unstable soon after stable is released. 3.1 will be a kickass server distro, where X doesn’t matter much.. I guess it’ll be ‘stable’ on my servers and ‘unstable’ with X.Org on my personal desktop.
What exactly is the added value of X.Org at the moment by the way? I admit I haven’t looked into it very well yet, but it looks like mostly eyecandy at the moment.. please prove me wrong if I am though! (Oh, modularized X packages would be awesome for Debian and all other package based distro’s!)
Does that include Radeon Mobility chipsets based on the R100/R200? I have a R250 M9.
By the way, is there any good Debian repository with XOrg? Not that I hate XFree86 but the ATI driver is rather poor.
You can run the ubuntu X.org packages on stock debian. If that’s all you want to run though, you should add a section to /etc/apt/preferences to put ubuntu packages at a lower priority than mainline debian. I will wait though. I have run X.org on dragonfly and debian, and all it got me was <100 extra fps in glxgears and a dog slow transparent panel in xfce, although render acceleration for r200 cards should help that.
Well, I am not that interested in OpenGL performance. I seek solid 2D performance (like Render accel can provide) and accurate renderings. In my present installation, textures in Celestia are completely fk’d up.
I am running Debian sid and I don’t have a /etc/apt/preference file. Have any tutorial on the basic syntax to create one?
I believe the M9 is the 9200 Mobility, and my iBook has full acceleration under Linux using the opensource X.Org drivers. Its a 9200, so I presume its the same or better on x86
@Wrawrat: you might find this link helpful.
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man5/apt_preferences.5.html
that’s my only gripe at the moment as a Debian user is no offical packages for X.org, the site for the unoffical packages went down due to too much network traffic. Sure keep X.org out of stable, fine dandy, lovely. but why not throw some build in unstable? X,org formed over a year ago, severeal releases have come out in over a year’s timme, but there are still no offical Debian builds. It ALMOST tempts me to go to ubuntu, perhaps anohter year of waiting with nothing would make me switch
Is OSNEWS always going to do this. Oops, I never read what I posted the first time so I will just post another to show that I get it now. This was always the case!
Yes I know that X.org is benefical, but mostly on the long term isn’t?
Run X.org on debian now (today) provides little benefits, not many WM’s are aware of the new extensions, and those that do are buggy or still underdeveloped.
X.org will get to its real value once it reach a critical mass of apps that take benefit out of it.
Not at all. There are visible improvements already when running X.org that are not dependent upon using the extra extensions it implements. These vary from faster integration of upstream patches (e.g. video drivers such as the ATI drivers) to increased modularity (e.g. much more up-to-date version of freetype). I find the 6.8.2 to be more responsive than XFree86 although I admit I can’t prove that with statistics (it could arguably be placebo).
Also, the quicker it’s adopted, the better stress testing it gets and the more developer attention it receives. That way a better and more quickly developed product will be available sooner for your usage pleasure. Isn’t that alone worth adopting it for, or would you rather stick with the stifled XFree86 that will in 5 years time be pretty much the same as it is now.
Sure keep X.org out of stable, fine dandy, lovely. but why not throw some build in unstable?
Because unstable packages make their way in to testing, and testing becomes stable.
If you upload X.org packages to unstable, they’ll end up in testing where they’re not wanted.
Ofcourse, that’s just one of the many reasons.
Another one being; why would you want to disturb a very large part of such a large distribution before an important release? All I hear is “When is sarge going to be released?” (or something similar), but at the same time “Get X.Org into Debian!!!”. Make up your mind. Leave the Debian developers alone to continue work on getting Sarge released, or rock the boat for 11 architectures and delay said release.
Alot of people seem to love to complain about Debian’s lack of X.org (and other) packages even though they lack a basic understanding of how Debian works.
On the subject of Sarge including XFree86 4.3. If there’s hardware out there that XFree86 doesn’t support, start backporting some X.org drivers to XFree86 and send patches to the appropriate developers. But, ofcourse, people are already doing that.
I dont know about latest Xorg release but the one that I have installed in my Slackware 10.0 ( Xorg 4.7)proved to be better x-system than any other XFree86 no matter what distro is in question.
Impression is that my monitor/display is more responsive and especcially my poor Intel810 based integrated 4 Mb memory video card ( on low-end Compaq DESKPRO – Celeron 466 MHz with 256 Mb SDRAM) is performing better that with any other distro/X-system combo.
X.org will get to its real value once it reach a critical mass of apps that take benefit out of it.
Yes, and application developers won’t use its new features until a critical mass of users are using X.org.
Chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken.
I see quite a bit of work is done between releases, well done to the X.org team! …but any chance of standardizing copy & paste procedure in the near future (ie. a functional clipboard)?
-probably not.
I’ve opened up a can of worms on this before.. that promted some pretty emotive feedback..
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.os.linux.slackware/browse_t…
Cut, copy and paste ARE standardised.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~njl98r/clipboard/
If you run applications which don’t obey the standard, they won’t work together. X.org can no more do anything about this than it can make Quake 3 run at 1600×1200 on your 1024×768 flat panel.
If your favourite application doesn’t have working clipboard support, don’t write a Slashdot or OSNews post whining about how X is stupid and broken, talk to the application developers, file a bug, or offer someone beer or hard currency to fix it.
It’s amazing that Mac owners can run a piece of broken software and declare “this software is broken” without blaming Steve Jobs, but there always seems to be someone on OSNews or Slashdot who wants to blame Linus Torvalds or the creators of X11 when their apps don’t work.
Yes, and application developers won’t use its new features until a critical mass of users are using X.org.
Chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken.
Composite (transparency, shadows) support seems to be in KDE 3.4beta2 now.
http://www.kde-apps.org/news/index.php?id=150&PHPSESSID=85164e5beaf…
The Chickens have spoken. The eggs are eagerly awaiting for (properly) compiled binaries.
Cut, copy and paste ARE standardised.”
No it’s not. Just cos it’s written in a document doesn’t mean it works flawlessly in practise.
And Quake 3? hell it’s not 1999
I fail to see the link between any of this and some guy on you mind named Steve Jobs? hell I actually don’t want to know.
Cut, copy and paste ARE standardised.
If you run applications which don’t obey the standard, they won’t work together.
Let’s go round that one more time…
There is an agreed standard for X cut, copy and paste.
If you run applications which don’t obey the standard, they won’t work together.
They won’t work together because they don’t obey the standard.
So tell the application developers if you have this problem, don’t blame X.org
So tell the application developers if you have this problem, don’t blame X.org
That’s the whole gotcha. You will find the exact opposite sentiments on the developers side.. ie.
So tell the {them} developers if you have this problem, don’t blame {us}
So who to blame? well you can go round the freekin merry-go-round, until you blue in the face, but at the end of it all, it SHOULD work flawlessly and it DOESN’T. Hell maybe this is a mis-post, how would I know any better I been going around the merry-go-round myself.
Perhaps a new standard in freedesktop.org then that KDE & Gnome developers could adhere to? If that’s any use..
Just to keep everything in proportion though, I realise this is probably not such a big deal to most people, but in the bigger picture, using linux on the desktop, this is a major annoyance (to myself anyways), nothing more, but it would just add kudos to the whole linux desktop movement in general to iron out this nasty which would at least make it one nasty less..
Anyways, back to Quake 3..(The Hypocracy!)
The last and most important feature I do miss in X is to rotate my LCD Samsung with ATI Radeon 8500 90 deg. and work in portrait mode, as I have used to work for 2 years under WinXP. Neither binary, nor OS drivers allow me to do it on my Linux box. :/
New drivers are the main functional improvement. A whole host of incremental things are there which you won’t really notice, just like between, say, kde 3.2 and 3.3. But there’s also xdamage, which is a real improvement for X on low-bandwidth links. And composite is IMO a good functional advance and worth having. It’s slow and unstable right now, but it is really useful. But obviously that’s not a good thing from a Debian perspective.
Because unstable packages make their way in to testing, and testing becomes stable.
If you upload X.org packages to unstable, they’ll end up in testing where they’re not wanted.
Not if you flag it with a release-critical or a serious policy violation bug…
Another one being; why would you want to disturb a very large part of such a large distribution before an important release? All I hear is “When is sarge going to be released?” (or something similar), but at the same time “Get X.Org into Debian!!!”. Make up your mind. Leave the Debian developers alone to continue work on getting Sarge released, or rock the boat for 11 architectures and delay said release.
Sarge was supposed to be released about six months ago and it looks like it won’t be released in the next six months…
since every major distro (with one or two exceptions) is, or is going to be on xorg in the near future, i would say adoption isnt an issue.
“Perhaps a new standard in freedesktop.org then that KDE & Gnome developers could adhere to? If that’s any use..”
How would this new standard be any different than the existing standard, which is documented on freedesktop.org ?
I tell you what, obviously you’re not going to file any bugs or get anything fixed, so how about you give us three examples (not already listed on the page I mentioned before) with the names and versions of the applications where you had trouble.
e.g. “I marked three rows of numbers with the mouse, then selected Edit/Copy in FooBar 3000, then Edit/Paste in Wajakalit 2.3 and it didn’t work”
Hence the “Rotate” option in the Screen section of the config file… If you are using a recent KDE, you probably have the resize and rotate icon in your system tray…
Hum… i’ve read their release notes and the next major version will be modular. Does that mean that each module could have different release schedules and versions? Can someone explain better where X.org is going in the future, or give a link to an explanation.
Reading xorg@ lists seems that is not exactly clear yet (unfortunately). Two things are sure (90%): next minor release will be 6.8.3 (bugfixes) and major release 7.0 (modular).
Problem is, how will be xorg modularised; which modules/parts/libraries of xorg need to be developed at top priority and which ones need to declare obsolete etc.
Above mentioned chicken and egg problem arises from this uncertainty too – other (QT and GTK) developers can’t/won’t focus their work on specific xorg libraries, because it’s not clear, which ones [libraries] will survive; so cannot they check bugs and advance xorg code/libraries itself (on the same reason).
Another problem (somewhat related to previous) – xorg is not popular to develop. This is unclear, why – xorg is [will be] heart of linux/bsd desktop system, it should be more popular.
Well, actually things aren’t so bad:) This was description of current situation as I could understand from public xorg@ lists. At the same time is clear that xorg is developed fast, so feels that devs are finding consensus in future development direction.
Some little PR work is needed for getting more people involved in xorg development though.
There are two things that have stopped X.org from being included in Debian. The first is not quite as valid anymore, but it was to watch and see whether it was justified to follow X.org or XFree86.
The other reason is that developers don’t want to waste the time encorporating X.org packages into Debian because it would be a waste of their time. They are waiting for X.org to become modular. If they included the monolithic package now they still would have to waste time to redo everything for the modular X.org. Thus all the effort of including X.org now would be pointless.
Okay, here’s an example of my gripe with copy-and-paste… for me, copy-and-paste works fairly well in most programs. Sometimes it seems like the buffer doesn’t get updated when I copy, so sometimes I have to press Ctrl-C twice, but otherwise I don’t have much problem.
HOWEVER! And here’s my gripe, and it seems to be not a problem with applications’ implementations; rather, from what I can tell, it’s a problem with X’s specification itself! This problem is this. Why, if I copy some text from a program, close that program, and try to paste that text into another program, does it not work?!? why can’t there be a buffer that’s independent of all appications? just something simple, like a variable that holds the mimetype, and a variable that holds the clipboard contents? If you want, it could be fancy, like multiple buffers (think MS Office’s clipbook), but something simpler is fine.