First Experiences with X.org's X11 Server? 113
Slashdot Reader CanadianCrackPot decided to be adventurous and went and installed the latest offering from X.org's X-Server project. Below, you'll find "the basics" of his "first attempt to install [their] X Window Server on a system with a 450 MHz PIII, and Diamond Viper V770 (TNT2 chipset) graphics card, running Mandrake 10.0 Official (FTP download of everything but the RPMS.cooker dir)." To make a long story short, while he did have some luck with installing it, running it was...problematic. He asks: "I'm just wondering how other Slashdot readers are doing with the new X11R6 server, and more importantly, how did you install it?"
"I decided to try installing X.org's X Server today while I had nothing to do here's the results:
- get a test bed system: check
- get sources: check
- ./configure: N/A...I'm worried
- make World: check
- make install; make install.man: check
- startx: crash
- xf86config: check
- startx, again: check -- now I need a manager
- startgnome: galeon not found (crash)
- startkde: crash"
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
apt-get install xorg
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package xorg
Shit. Maybe by 2005?
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Hell, i'm using stable, still waiting for them to port that new fangled program I keep hearing about, what's it called... gopher?
Re:obligatory (Score:2)
Re:obligatory (Score:2)
Re:obligatory (Score:1)
Re:obligatory (Score:2)
Re:obligatory (Score:1)
X.org seems to be closer to XFree86 4.4 than it is to 4.3. Switching to a new x-server is a big deal. Especially on Debian where you have to make sure it is stable on all 11 architectures. I just don't forsee X.org in unstable until after Sarge is released.
Re:obligatory (Score:1)
Gentoo (Score:5, Informative)
emerge unmerge xfree
No crashes, no errors, no odd behaviour at all.
(Dell Dimension, P4 2.66, Matrox G400MAX, Matrox drivers, xinerama)
Re:Gentoo (Score:5, Informative)
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge x11-base/xorg-x11
You see, this is still in "unstable"...
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo (Score:2)
Of course, having just said that my computer will burst into flames...so forget I said anything.
Re:Gentoo (Score:5, Informative)
echo "x11-base/xorg-x11" >>/etc/portage/package.keywords
(you'll have to do the same thing for things like utempter and xterm as well, since those are ~x86)
emerge -C xfree (xfree blocks xorg, so you have to uninstall first)
emerge xorg-x11
And as should be implied, if you already have an installation of xfree, the config file works with it out of the box. In fact, the config file generated from xorgconfig (which, incidentally, looks exactly like the XF86Config util) is pretty much the same as the one generated from the XF86Config util, save for a different header most likely ("This config file was generated" by blah).
But there's really no difference between the current X.org release and Xfree4.3.0 save for some patches that they have may have backported from 4.4. But I've been running X.org's implementation for quite a few months now and while I haven't noticed any significant difference between xfree and X.org at the moment.. that's not to say that will be the same as time goes on.
I think this "release" was mostly just to get the thing out of the door and get its name out there. The REAL cool stuff will be coming during the next releases. They're already trying to get the damage [freedesktop.org] and composite [freedesktop.org] extensions ported to the X.org tree. Those who've played around with KeithP's kdrive/Xserver [freedesktop.org] have seen both of those extensions in action. Just imagining the composite extention in cooperation with something like cairo [freedesktop.org] and glitz [freedesktop.org] just makes me drool.
Re:Gentoo (Score:1, Funny)
NVIDIA (Score:1)
Re:NVIDIA (Score:1)
Re:NVIDIA (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo (Score:2)
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
set PORTAGE_OVERLAY to
# cd
# cp -pr --parents x11-base/xorg-x11
vi the appropriate ebuilds and whack the ~'s
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
XFree is officially deprecated on gentoo; so, for us amd64 users at least, all we do is
opengl-update xfree
emerge --unmerge xfree
emerge xorg-x11
emerge nvidia-glx
opengl-update nvidia
and boom, it is all tickety boo. No problems, no hassles, it "just worked"; xorg-x11 needs no ~arch keywords AFAIK
err!
jak
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
Re:Gentoo (Score:1)
i'm not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i'm not sure (Score:3, Informative)
Re:i'm not sure (Score:3, Informative)
As I don't have an xorg.conf it will use the Xfree name.
mahdell root # grep
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/XF86Config"
Re:i'm not sure (Score:2)
Re:i'm not sure (Score:5, Informative)
# grep
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
No problems here here either. I was really expecting at least some, but nothing so far. Now hopefully Gatos will shift full on into Xorg, (patches exist already for Xorg & XFree 4.4.0) and merge in the TV-Out branch while we're at it.
Re:i'm not sure (Score:2, Interesting)
On the note about the
Slack-current xorg packages worked (Score:5, Informative)
If the packages are available for your distribution, give those a try to see if you have any incompatibilities. Compiling xorg is not easy, I remember it took me three tries in Gentoo (can't remember what was the problem, this was XFree86 4.1.0). In your case, something tells me that you wouldn't be able to compile XFree86 4.4.0 on your system either.
Re:Slack-current xorg packages worked (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slack-current xorg packages worked (Score:4, Funny)
What? And settle for UN-OPTIMIZED binaries like some plebe? Forget that!
Besides, I had to grab the CVS from the DRI branch to get S3/SavageDDR (It's a laptop, I didn't have much choice...) direct-rendering support. Why not compile it up with "-O2 -march=athlon-xp -mmmx -m3dnow -msse -mfpmath=sse,387" while I'm at it?...
Yes, I'm also running on bleeding-edge CVS compile of KDE 3.3-post-alpha as well (working fine for me, incidentally...)
Think of it as the civilized nerd equivalent of peeing on the computer to mark it as yours. Except that you don't ruin the computer and/or get painfully shocked in the process (uh, you know, or so I've HEARD....)
Re:Slack-current xorg packages worked (Score:1)
Re:Slack-current xorg packages worked (Score:1)
Fedora Core 2 (Score:5, Informative)
Now I can't bind most of the multimedia keys to X keycodes. I expect this is related to the XkbRules thing.
Apart from that, its been running fine.
Re:Fedora Core 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
I have the exact same hardware as in the article (450 MHz PIII, and Diamond Viper V770 (TNT2 chipset)) and a fresh install of Fedora Core 2 worked the first time.
Of course we have to wait on Nvidia before we get GL, but I've been able to use this exact hardware on every version of Red Hat since 5.1. (I had to do some manual config tweaking up to about 7.0, but it's been automatically configured since then.)
Re:Fedora Core 2 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fedora Core 2 (Score:3, Informative)
The only difference is that you'll need to configure an "xorg.conf" file instead of an "XF86Config" file.
Re:Fedora Core 2 (Score:2)
I was unable to get it working with the default kernel installed by FC2. Apparently a couple of nono-stnadard patches were added by RH to this kernel, and AFAIK the current clsoed-source nVidia GeForce drivers won't work with it.
I downloaded the stock 2.6.6 kernel, and was able to get nVidia's drivers up and running just fine.
Re:Fedora Core 2 (Score:4, Informative)
I just chose my proper keyboard in the keyboard prefs, and then went into the keyboard shortcut prefs, and pressed the keys and everything worked just fine (eg, bound "mute" to my mute button, and it came up as "XF86AudioMute"). The only key that didn't work was the "Log Off" button, unfortunately... but that's probably a side effect of me using the slightly wrong keyboard layout (for some reason, no program I've ever used has ever heard of the "Microsoft Natural MultiMedia Keyboard", I had to pick "Microsoft Wireless Multimedia Keyboard", which was closest in name (my keyboard isn't wireless).
I should look into writing my own keyboard layout file or something to get that log off key working. I know it works; back on FC1 I had to manually program all the extra keycodes to have the XF86* keysyms so that programs would even recognise them, then I bound commands to them all manually with gconf.
Slackware current... (Score:3, Informative)
I just put in a new 40 gb drive so I loaded up Windows XP to get a little experience with it. Not too bad but Cleartype is a little funky even with 32 bit video. I prefer the freetype rendering under X when it is working nicely.
Re:Slackware current... (Score:2)
Sounds like its working to me. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like its working to me. (Score:2, Insightful)
Works fine for me (Score:1)
Re:Works fine for me (Score:3, Insightful)
XV overlay support is broken in X.org at the moment (as well as XF86 4.4, to my knowledge). There will be occasional problems with DRI based cards, and nVidia cards will exhibit a blue display when you play your first movie after a reboot.
slackware (Score:2, Informative)
No problems installing or running.
doing it on debian (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm using debian sid on a dell inspiron 1100 -- first off, getting linux alive on this machine isn't the easiest, and Dell seem to be on a mission to break things with every BIOS release. Oddly enough the bios is on revision 29, and the last revision broke my ability to halt the system. But I digress.
After seeing that distros like mandrake were getting in on the x.org action, i also had a look.
I only had 2 issues:
My experiences have, so far, been ok with x.org's version. Quake3 framerates seem at least as good, perhaps a little better than xfree86, and glxgears reports higher framerates than I remember under xfree. Startup is a little quicker, and X in general seems a little snappier. I don't know how much to attribute to the fact that the running version of X was compiled from source and the original version was binary installed from a .deb. But, purely on an ethical level, I am happy with x.org's version, and I will try it on my desktop when I get back home -- I know the q3 response on that machine a lot better, and that will give me a more accurate feel for x.org's version.
Re:doing it on debian (Score:3, Insightful)
Fedora (Score:4, Informative)
1) Bitchslapping the system into allowing me to install the RPMs - I had to do a few "rpm --erase --justdb --nodeps" on a few things to "resolve" some conflicts.
2) Removing the
Other than that, I had very little problem.
I would suggest checking your X executable with ldd (ldd `which X`) and seeing if you are picking up a bad library somewhere.
xorg fork (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:xorg fork (Score:1)
Re:xorg fork (Score:2)
Sure there is: xfree comes installed by default on any distro not released very recently, while many of the above posters are talking about steps they took to build it. Surprise: official packages shipped with a distro are easier to install and configure than hand-rolled packages, since the former have usually been patched to use the same directory layout and other build options as the old xfree packages and the latter have not.
The c
Try another distro please (Score:3, Insightful)
Some other distros, a Slackware for example, use much pure way to build it's own packages which makes them better tool for this kind of experiments.
Fedora Core 2 (Score:1, Insightful)
emerge, no mayor problems (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked fine from the beginnig except for 2 things: - fonts that look kind of ugly
- my monitor blanks about 30 min. from boot, I move the mouse and everything back to normal.
Everything else seems to work OK
Re:emerge, no mayor problems (Score:2)
why is X.org's better? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone care to post a few reasons why we should switch?
Please note: Slackware has switched, and since slackware is my Distro of Choice (DioCh - [pronounced: deeotch]), I'm going to end up using it in the end anyway. I'm just curious to know whats so great about it...
Re:why is X.org's better? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:why is X.org's better? (Score:1)
Re:why is X.org's better? (Score:1)
There is no reason (Score:2)
But, since the developers have reorganized you can expect X.org to add many features that XFree will not add in the future.
Since they're nearly identical I'd wait off on it.
At this point, the license (Score:5, Informative)
The other reason requires looking into the mysterious future... basically, politics at XFree86 were getting in the way of development, which was part of the reason for the fork; in 1 year's time, you can expect X.org to have a vibrant community of developers, with all funky new features in the X server, while XFree86 just sits and stagnates.
Read up about the X.org server [freedesktop.org]
My first experience (Score:1)
lin XOrg (Score:3, Informative)
using lunar linux [lunar-linux.org]. It automatically replaced xfree86, no need to specifically install startx as it comes with the XOrg package already. Didn't need to adjust any config files... the old one just works fine on all boxes I upgraded (nvidia setup, ati fglrx 9500, and an old trident based laptop).
Gentoo (Score:3, Informative)
It didn't cause me any more than one problem (Score:4, Informative)
I did have some difficulty with the ATi binary graphics card drivers for my Radeon 9800 Pro... the installed ones wouldn't work with X.Org, and the ebuild insisted on having XFree86 available. I haven't checked to see if the ebuild's been updated to handle X.Org, but I would expect it has. I'm not that bothered anyway, as I don't game under Linux very much, so the open source drivers work very nicely, as I get decent 2D performance, and Xv so I can watch DVDs.
I may revise my opinion on the value of good 3D acceleration for my Linux desktop when there's an OpenGL compositing X server available, but the drivers for that are likely to be completely different anyway.
slackware .tgz's No problem (Score:2)
1. Pulled slackware_current (actually I rsync it every night)
2. cd
3. removepkg xfree* (the difference in the names between the old xfree packages and the new x packages caused the upgradepkg utility to fail to recognize this as an upgrade...wish he would fix that kind thing this is not the only time its happened.)
4. cd
5. installpkg *.tgz
Done, worked no problems
Re:slackware .tgz's No problem (Score:2)
Re:slackware .tgz's No problem (Score:2)
More info about the similarities/differences of X11R6.7 and XF86 4.4 at fdo [freedesktop.org].
Well... (Score:1, Redundant)
Portage is an executable wonder!
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Don't do that if you don't know what you're doing (Score:1, Insightful)
make world (Score:2)
Very Problematic (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Very Problematic (Score:1)
You need both of these:
CONFIG_4STACKS = n
CONFIG_REGPARMS = n
I have verified this with a vanilla 2.6.6 kernel.
Re:Very Problematic (Score:1)
RTFM? (Score:1)
X configuration is done via xc/conf/cf/host.def and xc/conf/cf/site.def.
BLFS (Score:3, Informative)
Beyond Linux From Scratch [linuxfromscratch.org] has step-by-step instructions for installing many packages from source, including the latest Xorg.
Commercial X servers ROCK! (Score:1, Troll)
Accelerated-X [xig.com]!!! There's also Metro-X [lynuxworks.com], though Metro Link's webpage appears to be down and I can't find them otherwise.
Laugh all you want about paying for commercial software, but when it comes to these quality products, it's worth it.
First time user (Score:3, Informative)
Ran startx and there it was!
I then emerged the nVidia GLX and Kernel drives, updated my xorg.conf and fired up X again, this time it reported "No screens found", due to the kernel module not being loaded, an lsmod later showed that it was there.
I copied the nVidia driver from
Two days later, and it's working perfectly, already started another game of Farcry and Call of Duty! (Yes, they do run on Linux with a little bit of fiddling)
Anyway, I can quite happly say that I am impressed with X.org's X11.
xorg has better support for my video card (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, it is a Radeon-7500.
I do have a couple of obscure problems. I reported the most pressing problems...
1. When I startup a vncviewer or an xnest, control keys are not forwarded to windows in VNC or Xnest.
2. Gnome panels are a bit quirky. It insists on having the gnome-panel be entirely on one screen. If I have a gnome-panel on my LCD, and start VNC - then the panel is moved to my LCD screen. This is even worse if I try to have a separate panel on each screen for equivalent screen locations.
3. Usually windows pop up on the same screen as the mouse pointer. If that screen is full of windows, and the other screen has space, it usually pops up there instead.
Re:xorg has better support for my video card (Score:1)
Re:xorg has better support for my video card (Score:2)
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" RightOf "Screen1"
Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "Xinerama" "on"
Option "Clone" "off"
EndSection
Section "Files"
# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the d
fedora core 2 & matrox g450 & xinerama (du (Score:3, Informative)
i am using a matrox g450 with two dell flat panel monitors. right out
of the box, they were both enabled in "clone" mode.
step 2: i just used the advanced tab under preferences: screensaver to
enable display power management. i set power management enabled. standby
after 15 min, suspend after 15 min, and off after 15 minutes. this
automatically enabled the power features. i did not have to add any
lines the x configuration file as in previous versions of redhat.
step 3: become root and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
after the section entitled
Section "Module"
blah
EndSection
I inserted these lines:
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama"
EndSection
I saved and pressed control-alt-backspace to restart the xserver. after loggin in again,
i went to system settings: display.
there appeared a tab labeled "dual head" i clicked "use dual head"
then i configured my second monitor and picked spanning desktops.
after hitting ok, i hit ctrl-alt-backspace again and presto!!!!!!
xineraman was enabled with power management. i did not install any of the matrox drivers or use the mgapdesk utility.
i just used the above instructions and that was it right out of the box....
also as to everyone badmouthing fedora core 2 , i am very impressed and
have found a great many features that have been improved and generally
well thought out. i am very glad i upgraded....
if anyone wants to see my xorg.conf file here it is:
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Multihead layout" Screen 0 "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1" Screen 1 "Screen1" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" Option "Xinerama" "on" Option "Clone" "off" EndSection Section "Files" # RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the # file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally # no need to change the default. # Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together) # By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of # the X server to render fonts. RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "unix/:7100" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "extmod" Load "fbdevhw" Load "glx" Load "record" Load "freetype" Load "type1" Load "dri" EndSection Section "ServerFlags" Option "Xinerama" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1)) # Option "Xleds" "1 2 3" # To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable. # Option "XkbDisable" # To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the # lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S. # keyboard, you will probably want to use: # Option "XkbModel" "pc102" # If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use: # Option "XkbModel" "microsoft" # # Then to change the language, change the Layout setting. # For example, a german layout can be obtained with: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # or: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" # # If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and # control keys, use: # Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps" # Or if you just want both to be control, use: # Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" # Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "keyboard" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "us" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" Option "Emulate3
Re:fedora core 2 & matrox g450 & xinerama (Score:1)
insertion after
all the x file entries
Fedora core 2 rpms (Score:1)
Re:Fedora core 2 rpms (Score:1)
I haven't tried it out with Linux... but Cygwin... (Score:1)
MDK oblig (Score:2)
On Mandrake 10:
Re:No problems here... (Score:2)
I'd imagine you could install the experimental cvs X-Server too, portage is huge and extremely well maintained.
Re:No problems here... (Score:2)
I thought the article was talking about xserver and xlib :)
Now those are a real challenge to install on your own.