xorg development questions and ideas

[Zbigniew Luszpinski]

samuel verstraete wrote:
> Talked about this with Moe...
> To our knowledge 7.1 is just as good as 7.0 and could as well replace
> it in the zbeta section.
> Replacing XOrg with XOrg7 does sound like a bad idea to both of us. I
> guess in time we'll have to do such thing but i rather see that new
> boxes are installed with the XOrg7 than really break old working
> versions of X...

Yes. As for module pack everything goes in the similar way. Since nvidia and 
ati provide basic support for 7.1 we can think that most gfx chips are 
supported now (the rest was supported via xorg's open drivers earlier).
The nvidia's and ati's support is not full yet (missing texture_from_pixmap 
OpenGL extension for eyecandy acceleration). Both chip designers says that 
future release of driver will have support for this extension and then xorg 
7.1 will be fully supported. These drivers releases will happen in late fall. 
That is why I think replacing 7.0 by 7.1 module will not hurt anybody. 7.1 
module I find stable and working in 2D and 3D. Didn't tried video or any 
windowmanager yet.

Replacing XOrg by XOrg7 is very bad idea in my opinion. There is a lot of work 
put in XOrg7(.1) by lunar devs and module works. But solving all the issues 
in this decentralised, huge project will take some time (mostly 'outside' 
dependencies compability). Instead I think it would be good to replace XOrg 
with XOrg-test. The XOrg is a little bit outdated at 6.8.2 version where 
XOrg-test is at more modern 6.9.0 one. I use XOrg-test almost since beginning 
and did not find any issues except some strange behaviour with symlinks 
generation at build script which causes sometimes loop. But this looks the 
same in both modules.

It is worth to know that previous and current nvidia driver is optimized to 
work with XOrg 6.9.0/7.0 so using 6.8.2 release having geforce chip can do 
more bad than good if someone is using composite with 3D or video.
(you can learn more about this optimization by searching for '6.9.0' 
at /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README.txt or online readme at driver's www 
page). It is possible that ati and others follow silently the same way as 
these 6.8.x incompabilities looks to be 'unfinished' features.

> On 8/25/06, Samuel Verstraete <samuel.verstraete at gmail.com> wrote:
> > to my knowledge there are no dependency problems with xorg an sich...
> > the only problems that you could have is dependency problems with other
> > modules...
> > but they are kind of hard to fix if we keep the old XOrg there... The
> > only solution would be to add *all* xorg modules to the default
> > profile...

Yes. Exactly. After fixing my one, local, stupid bug with details file all 
builds fine. Indeed there is problem with as I call them 'outside' 
dependencies. Sofar told me about GL issues and to begin with xscreensaver.
Yesterday I solved xscreensaver break and now GL in apps I tried works, 
including all GL screensavers from xscreensaver which now after fixing some 
'outside' modules builds OK. The fix is transparent for non XOrg7 users so I 
think devs/users will like it as the fix does not break anything.

If anyone on the Lunar list know about any issues with xorg7 let me know.

There is one thing lunar devs should consider. How XOrg7 should be build?
Keeping the same feature/applications list as in 6.9.0 and earlier or we build 
xorg as small as possible and try to extend it later using 'required XOrg7 
dependency path' mechanism in multimedia applications?
Before, xorg 6.9.0 and older was distributed as few large files and built 
itself with predefined list of features/applications. The XOrg7.0/7.1 and 
later are modular. Thus it is possible to build xorg smaller but less 
feature/applications packed like those old and possibly add future features 
as required dependencies to later build applications like video or 3D.
How about users who get used to have some apps 'out of the xorg 6.x box'?
Like xvinfo, glxinfo, xhost etc. Xorg7 runs without them, but some 
applications/users get used to have them without lining them.
If you decide which way to go let me know so I will change my little fixes 
accordingly.

Last question :-)
How to send xorg7 related patches? As current snapshots with all consequences 
of such sending or as one patch file running across moonbase when it will be 
finished (won't happen fast)?

have a nice day,
Zbigniew 'zbiggy' Luszpinski