>This workaround for the BIOS bug will be officially part of the
>next Red Hat Linux release. There are no plans to backport the
>new driver to Red Hat Linux 8.0 as that would entail a rather
>large amount of development engineering for what is not even an
>XFree86 bug, but is a hardware bug.
So the conclusion is:
1. It is a serious bug (laptops with i830 are plain unusable with X for
regular users).
2. It can be fixed in software (it really is a hardware bug, actually
BIOS, but it does not matter since Dell has apparently no intention to
fix it and Windows drivers already workaround this in software).
3. RedHat will fix the bug for the next version of RedHat Linux (good
news here)
4. RedHat will not fix the bug for current (and officially supported) RH
releases.
I respect the fact that it is up to RedHat to decide whether this bug
warrants by itself an XFree86 update for 7.3 and 8.0, but I strongly
support that updated XFree86 packages should be released to address this
issue (maybe wait until XFree86 4.3.0 is out), given that Dell hardware
is de facto common hardware and regular RedHat users expect some support
for it.
It may also send a very bad message by appearing as a veiled 'forced
upgrade' policy.
I have pesonally no problem with upgrading and testing the latest stuff
when time allows, and always had very good experiences of RedHat on Dell
laptops so far. But I have been frustrated all along by this i830 fiasco
(on a Dell inspiron 2600 with RH 8.0) and had to resort to a commercial
(xig) X server, since Mike's RPMs did not work in my case.
Best regards,
--
Philippe Rigault
_______________________________________________
xfree86-list mailing list
xfree86-list@redhat.com
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/xfree86-list
IRC: #xfree86 on irc.redhat.com
