Re: X 4.0 snapshots
Branden Robinson <branden@ecn.purdue.edu> writes:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 07:25:57PM -0800, Mark Montague wrote:
> Here's my current thinking on the subject. This is really tentative; I
> haven't even compiled 3.9.x yet, let alone implemented the
> packaging.
Looks pretty sensible to me... I'll look at the web site shortly...
> > Well, I've been testing the xlib stuff, too... there have been some
> > changes there, and, in particular, the switch from select() to poll()
> > broke netscape. For the most part, though, I agree with you, and a lot
> > of what I got stuck on was deciding which debian patches I should or
> > shouldn't migrate from 3.3.6 to 3.9, and this will reduce a lot of
> > them (like the debianization of xterm).
>
> Before people on this list panic, we should share with them that Keith
> Packard and others are working to make sure that Xt will continue to
> support nasty old Netscape even with the migration from select() to poll().
> (Actually, I think it is Motif's fault, but I'd have to review the thread
> on the XFree86 devel list).
I was under the impression that netscape made their own select() call,
so that they could interrupt the select() in xlib for their own
nefarious purposes, when xlib/Xt was waiting for an event. There are
several workarounds, though, including a config option to use select()
again, which I've been using for weeks without trouble. But yeah,
it'll probably (?) be fixed in a better way before 4.0 comes out.
> I am not planning on supporting multiple installations of X at once. It's
> going to lead to a rat's nest of problems that I really, really want to
> avoid. Just managing the transition from 3.3.x to 4.0 is going to be bad
> enough.
[...]
> Just thinking about the support issues this would cause is enough to give
> me a stroke.
I guess I was switching context too much; I was thinking of this
primarily for the interim package for developers' use only, not even
to go into unstable. So far, at least, I've found it to be difficult
to have a working debian system running 3.9; I've had to let dpkg
happily install 3.3.6 and just mess with my path, LD_LIBRARY_PATH,
etc., so I was figuring that standardizing that might help people be
able to test 4.0 without crippling their systems.
I agree 100% that this should be expunged before anyone without nerves
of steel should use it. OTOH, there are probably other possible
solutions, and I can certainly respect the desire to avoid it
completely.
> In fact, I'd rather not have xfree86 3.3.x and xfree86 4 packages both in
> the distro at the same time. But I may not have any choice; it depends on
> how much legacy video hardware is out there, and how much of it can be made
> to work with the fbdev or generic vga. I forsee great pain. On the other
> hand, with the x86emu code giving us access to VESA BIOS modes, there is a
> small glimmer of hope.
It may be possible to have a bunch of 3.3.6 servers that have been
hacked to work with the 4.0 libs/fonts/... to minimize collateral
damage. Right now, at least, ATI cards other than mach128 are not
accelerated at all, and most ISA/EISA/VLB cards aren't supported in
4.0, which seems like a mess.
sounds like progress
- M
--
Mark "Monty" Montague | monty@gg.caltech.edu | I don't do Windows(tm)
Give me a perl pocket ref, and I'll give you the world.
If guns are outlawed, we'll have to kill each other with cryptography.
I'd give C++ about a D-... **** Y2K is 2048
Reply to: