xfree 4.2.99.4 Is it worth it?

Message

Chickpea · Post by **Chickpea** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:42 pm

I am soliciting the opinions of those who have sucessfully upgraded xfree. Is it worth it? Are there any noticiable improvements? I looked at the Change Log but I am still wondering if there is going to be any improvements in perfomance?

Cat

floam · Post by **floam** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:43 pm

well, what are you running now? I uprgared from 4.2.99-3, nothing very notable, though from 4.2.1 to 4.2.99 was nice.

Chickpea · Post by **Chickpea** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 11:08 pm

though from 4.2.1 to 4.2.99 was nice.

Nice huh? Right now I am suing 4.2.1 Thanks for posting

Cat

richjoyce · Post by **richjoyce** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 11:12 pm

apparently 2.5.x kernels and 4.2.99.x X are very fast together

haven't tried either myself

phelan · Post by **phelan** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 11:12 pm

I do recommend it, if you know what you are doing. Some progs may have a problem with it. (e. g. TuxRacer fails to compile, some winex compilation troubles)

Post by **suka** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 11:43 pm

Emerged it yesterday, so far no problems but now my Gnome 2.2rc2 works with the newest NVidia-Drivers without getting totally sluggish

ebrostig · Post by **ebrostig** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 11:47 pm

I'm running 4.2.99-4, looks good.

I can not really say if there are any difference between earlier 4.2.99 versions and this one.

My primary reason is better support for my graphics hardware, Intel i810 in the new version. Works like a charm with direct rendering and company

Erik

praxim · Post by **praxim** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 12:34 am

I upgraded, and I really don't like it. The radeon driver seems entirely messed up- when going into X, my console text gets entirely messed up, spitting corrupted characters all over before finally switching into X proper. My "select the entire desktop in Nautilus" benchmark is getting awful results, though this could be my fault. It worked flawlessly with ATI's binary drivers, however. Also, I'm experiencing the strange break in the default cursor that others have.
If anyone has a solution for any of these, I'd be greatly appreciative.

El_Presidente_Pufferfish · Tue Feb 04, 2003 1:02 am

The only change i noticed was the new cursor, and i like it

vers_iq · Post by **vers_iq** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 1:04 am

migrated from 4.2.1 to 4.2.99.3 ages ago and yesterday, updated to 4.2.99.4, the only think that interest me is randr, might want to compile kdebase/kdeutils or something for kcmrandr, another thing is i find the bright red handhelds pointer is very nice.

plate · Post by **plate** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:04 am

I'm experiencing the same problems Praxim described, plus a very annoying inability to switch back to a console with <ctrl-alt-Fn>. It now addresses virtual desktops in the window manager, not plain old consoles on F1-F6 and X on F7 anymore... Anybody know how to fix that? And how can I get rid of those ridiculous shadows under my extremely ugly semitransparent pointer?

EDIT: Played around some more, and it gets worse. <Ctrl-TAB> still switches from one desktop to the next, but <Alt-Fn>, e.g. F2 to run an application, has also ceased to work. Driver is ATI, my video card is a plain Radeon 7500. Any ideas what may be going on?

floam · Post by **floam** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:55 am

the new cursors are horrible, way too big and colorful for my minimalistic tastes. to get rid of them do a:

Code: Select all

mv /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/icons/default /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/icons/THESE_CURSORS_SUCK

phelan · Post by **phelan** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 9:24 am

praxim wrote:I upgraded, and I really don't like it. The radeon driver seems entirely messed up- when going into X, my console text gets entirely messed up, spitting corrupted characters all over before finally switching into X proper.

Have you also emerged 'xfree-drm'? I've expereineced similar problems with old DRM modules.

I'm using 4.2.99 with a radeon 8500 and it runs fine!

deribin · Post by **deribin** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:05 am

when I'm trying to emerge "xfree-drm",
I got the followed error:
>>> Install xfree-drm-4.2.99.4 into /var/tmp/portage/xfree-drm-4.2.99.4/image/ category x11-base
* installing DRM...
gcc -O2 -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wstrict-prototypes -Wnested-externs -Wpointer-arith -D__KERNEL__ -DMODULE -fomit-frame-pointer -DCONFIG_AGP -DCONFIG_AGP_MODULE -DCONFIG_DRM_SIS -DMODVERSIONS -include /usr/src/linux/include/linux/modversions.h -I/usr/src/linux/include -c i810_dma.c -o i810_dma.o
i810_dma.c: In function `i810_unmap_buffer':
i810_dma.c:200: too few arguments to function `do_munmap_R951cacb4'
make: *** [i810_dma.o] Error 1

!!! ERROR: x11-base/xfree-drm-4.2.99.4 failed.
!!! Function src_install, Line 88, Exitcode 2
!!! (no error message)

Darthanubis · Post by **Darthanubis** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:05 am

Went from 4.2.99.3 > .4 and it killed my damn AA that I worked so hard on!

I'm pissed.

Also, once again, I can't roll back to the previous ebuild, because its been raped from my system!

What? Now if I want AA I have to go all the way back to 4.2.1?

phelan · Post by **phelan** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:30 am

deribin wrote:when I'm trying to emerge "xfree-drm",
I got the followed error:

Didn't get that error but here's a workaround:

edit the src_install() section in your x11-base/xfree-drm/xfree-drm-4.2.99.4.ebuild like this to only compile the radeon.o module: Add 'radeon.o' after 'make -f Makefile.linux':

Code: Select all

src_install() {

        einfo "installing DRM..."
        cd ${S}/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/os-support/linux/drm/kernel
        make -f Makefile.linux radeon.o \
                TREE="/usr/src/linux/include" \
                KV="${KV}" DESTDIR="${D}" \
                install || die
}

jufoa · Post by **jufoa** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:30 am

i am going to upgrade as soon as stable comes out

nemiak · Post by **nemiak** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:54 am

I've had nothing but trouble with 2.2.99.4.

I lost AA fonts in KDE and Mozilla & GDM broke.
Bold text in KDE doesn't show up as bold anymore.

I find the new shadowed cursor distracting.

Has anyone else had this kind of trouble?

Larde · Post by **Larde** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 10:57 am

I don't use KDE, but my AA in Gnome and mozilla/phoenix still is fine. Overall, I don't see any problems with the new xfree.

Yours,
Larde.

not_registered · Post by **not_registered** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 11:46 am

no problems so far besides the transparent cursor bug that makes cursors transparent and ugly

har har har.

otherwise everything works as good as it did with X4.2.1 (im guessing alot of the changes are under the cover (grrrrr baby very grrrrr) or related to features in window managers and desktop environments that arent implemented yet.

plate · Post by **plate** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 12:10 pm

Nobody else experiencing the problems I have? Namely <ctrl-alt-Fn> doesn't switch between X and virtual console, <alt-Fn> is not doing anything at all, and - just discovered that one - <ctrl-alt-bsp> doesn't kill X?

wzzrd · Post by **wzzrd** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 1:04 pm

Haven't been playing with it long enough to notice the real nice bits, I guess... But: I do have a very, very spiffy new cursor. It is überl337. Apart from that: I heard the 41.xx nvidia drivers now work without major hogging the system, but I haven't dared to upgrade them yet

idl · Post by **idl** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 1:44 pm

4.3 is out in a few days aint it?

floam · Post by **floam** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 2:12 pm

again to to turn off the new ugly cursors read my post up a few posts

mlybarger · Post by **mlybarger** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:07 pm

[quote="port001"]4.3 is out in a few days aint it?[/quote]

all the xfree folks say in irc is "sometime in feb". though their web site says Dec 2002 it was released to binary packagers. and i thought the kde release was off schedule.

xfree 4.2.99.4 Is it worth it?

xfree 4.2.99.4 Is it worth it?

Wouldn't recommend it