Re: iMac DvD : Xfree Mach64 or fb ?
On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Xavier Grave wrote:
> I wonder what's the best to do for my X11 configuration :
> use the fb or the Xfree 4.0 tree ?
> As I understand the fb for the moment is a more stable choice but the
> Xfree solution is a best choice on the long term...
First, the iMac uses an ATI Rage 128 graphics card, so you will be using
aty128fb, and not the Mach64 atyfb.
No matter what X server you use, be sure to get an up-to-date kernel (Paul
and Ben's precompiled kernels are recommended, or source from Paul's rsync
tree). The kernel framebuffer driver for the r128 has seen significant
fixes over the past couple of months to support the latest Macs (including
the iMac DV).
XFree 4 is definitely the fastest and currently the most-maintained X
server for the r128. I have been using it on my iMac DV for several months
with no problems. The downside is that there is no Debian package yet, so
you will have to install it manually if you don't want to wait. There are
tarballs available that make this quite easy, but beware of angering the
dpkg system. Don't let dselect/apt try to "update" X for you and wipe out
your manual install.
XFree 3 is packaged for Debian, which is nice. I haven't used it myself
for quite a while, so I'm not sure if there are any significant issues
with rage128 support (does it even exist in 3.x?).
There's also Xpmac, which is a bit of a hack and has some quirks, but is
incredibly simple to install and configure. There's no Debian package, but
the server is just a single binary that you can toss into /usr/local/bin
without making dpkg get mad. The versions with r128 and USB support run
just fine on an iMac DV with an up-to-date kernel, accelerated but not
quite as fast as the latest XFree 4 drivers.
Glancing at the list archives for the past couple months should point you
towards downloads of XF4 and Xpmac with the latest r128 and ppc-specific
patches applied.
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