XFree86 4.2.0 is now available.
Please read this entire message, as I have invested quite some
time in trying to explain as much as possible so I do not get
flooded with email questions. Please direct any questions back
to this or some other XFree86 mailing list, so I can spend my
time making X better rather than being tech support guy. ;o)
I have built XFree86 4.2.0 rpm packages for Red Hat Linux 7.2,
and placed them on my ftp account.
This new release of XFree86 includes support for a lot of newer
hardware, that has not been supported in previous releases. SOme
new hardware support includes:
- ATI Radeon 7500/7200/7000 (2D and 3D)
- ATI Radeon 8500 (2D *ONLY* - no 3D support is available at
this time, and no estimate of when it will be
other than "at some point in time hopefully")
- ATI Radeon Mobility M6/M7 (2D and 3D)
- ATI Rage 128 PP and other r128 cards that were previously
unsupported.
- Matrox G550
- Trident Cyberblade updates and fixes
- SiS 630 and other SiS driver updates
- Savage driver updates
- S3 - a brand new driver is included now which supports various
hardware which was previously unsupported in XFree86 4.x
- Intel i830 support (2D and 3D)
- many more updated drivers and fixes
For the complete list of changes, please visit the XFree86
website and look at the CHANGELOG document. If you don't know
where it is located, please ask someone on the list.
You will notice that Mesa is no longer a separate package. The
Mesa libraries included with XFree86 itself are now being used.
If you use an XFree86 3.3.6 server, and require software OpenGL
support, DO NOT upgrade to this release, as OpenGL support will
not work with a 3.3.6 server.
When upgrading, you will also need to obtain the "glut" rpm
packages that I have created, and install them as well, otherwise
any applications that use the GLUT libraries will give you
dependancy warnings. One such package is Mesa-demos although
many other OpenGL applications use glut also.
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*** IMPORTANT NOTE TO 3D ACCELERATION USERS FOR DRI ***
As with all XFree86 releases, the DRI 3D hardware acceleration
support relies on the kernel DRM modules. Any new XFree86 major
release requires that you also be using the new DRM kernel
modules also in order for 3D to operate properly. Using the DRM
modules that ship with current Red Hat Linux 7.x kernels will NOT
WORK with XFree86 4.2.0 properly, nor will the modules that come
with the official kernel.org Linux kernel.
You *MUST* upgrade your kernel modules in order to ensure 3D
acceleration works properly. I have sent the new DRM code to our
kernel maintainers, and we will be releasing rawhide kernels
containing the new DRM at some point in time soon (no ETA).
Currently, this means that you must compile the kernel modules
for yourself by hand. If you require help doing this, please do
not email me, as I wont have time to help explain how to build
the DRM, however when kernels are available with the new DRM, I
will make them available on my ftp space as well.
In the mean time, you can obtain instructions on how to build DRM
from one of the dri.sf.net mailing lists, or from
xpert@xfree86.org. Again - I will not be able to help anyone via
email, so please do not ask.
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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
These packages are of "beta" quality and are NOT a polished
XFree86 release. They are unnofficial unsupported packages which
one could consider to come from unstable rawhide.
Many changes will occur to the XFree86 4.2.0 packages in the
months to come, and they will likely break, many times.
Upgrades to these packages are not guaranteed to work properly,
nor be compatible with your current system setup. Also, as
always, after using these packages, or any future unofficial
XFree86 packages I release, your system may not upgrade cleanly
to the next official Red Hat Linux release when it is released.
As such, if you use these packages and your system explodes, keep
in mind that you were warned first that such explosion could
happen. ;o)
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Every effort has been made to solve any major issues that have
been reported to me so far during the 4.2.0 prerelase cycle.
Some users have reported the packages to work fairly well,
however your experience may vary depending on your system and
what hardware, etc you use.
All bugs found, as well as any enhancement suggestions, should be
reported via bugzilla against the Rawhide component. You should
include the exact XFree86 package release that you are using (ie:
XFree86-4.2.0-0.2), and you should be as detailed as possible.
Before reporting a bug, it is also recommended that you query
bugzilla to see if someone has reported it already, to help avoid
duplication.
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla
Make sure you attach to the bug report, your XFree86 server log
(/var/log/XFree86.0.log) and your XFree86 config file
(/etc/X11/XF86COnfig-4) using bugzilla's file attachment feature.
Do not cut and paste large files inline in the bug report, as it
makes difficult to deal with, please use the file attachment
feature. Also, please do not compress the files when you attach
them. If you have some graphical display screwup, and can make a
screenshot of it, please attach that to the bug report as well.
Also, it is a good idea to paste the output of the following
commands into the bug report to aide debugging, especially for
hardware that is newly supported with this release:
lspci -v
lspci -n
uname -a
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You can obtain all of these new packages at the following URL's:
ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris/testing/7.2/XFree86
ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris/testing/7.2/glut
The packages you want, are the ones in the "i386" directory for
AMD Athlon, Intel Pentium, etc systems. The SRPMS directory
contains the source code RPM package (src.rpm), which is provided
for developers interested in programming XFree86 source code and
fixing bugs.
Be sure to obtain the packages with the highest release number
(currently XFree86-4.2.0-0.2) and don't forget to get glut also.
You *MUST* download all of the packages that are required, do not
mix and match XFree86 4.2.0 and 4.1.0 packages please. After
downloading everything into a single new directory, run the
command:
rpm -Uvh XFree86-*4.2.0*.rpm glut*.rpm
You will then need to either reboot your system, or shutdown the
xfs font server, and start it back up again (do not just use
restart).
If you encounter problems, please use this and other mailing
lists to try and find a solution first. If you are sure you've
found a bug, remember Yoda's XFree86 jedi wisdom:
"If, in bugzilla, your bug is not - then, a bug, it is not."
BUGZILLA: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla
I hope the new test release works well for you all.
Enjoy!
--
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Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address:
OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie,
XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3
Red Hat Inc. Phone: (705)949-2136
http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
Red Hat XFree86 mailing list: xfree86-list@redhat.com
General open IRC discussion: #xfree86 on irc.openprojects.net
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