emh Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 What are the advantages of Xorg over XFree86? (or vice versa?) Can they be installed side by side, or do they conflict with each other? [moved from Software by spinynorman] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phunni Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 As I understand it, xorg is simply a more up to date version of xfree I think the development of xfree stalled for some reason (maybe someone else can fill in the gaps) so someone forked the project into xorg and simply continued. As to whether they can be installed side by side, I don't know - although I doubt it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 The advantage is simple: Xorg is still being supported and developed while XFree is not. So using XFree will be fine for now, but it'll never be improved upon. So abandon it along with the rest of the world and use Xorg. Xorg is almost like a split in the development of XFree and, as such, is virtually identical to XFree at the moment. It would be dumb to have them both installed and since they currently both do the same thing in the same way, unecessary. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nocturnes Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 Are any of you using X.org at the moment? If so what are your thoughts on it and how was the install (and the replacement of XFree)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 when you get it through cooker (rpmdrake or urpmi) it takes care of everything, removing XFree and installing xorg. I've used it for several months w/o any problems. I don't see any improvement at all, really. Soon, xorg is supposed to support alpha-trans, which is useless imo....but nevertheless fun to tinker with ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 Here is my understanding of the X.org/XFree86 debacle: Xfree86 is still being developed. It's development has not stopped, but a lot of changes are occuring in it's organizational structure as far as coding goes. It's not a dead project. That being said, XFree86 is notorious for slow development, new features rarely make their way into it. X.org is a fork from the last XFree86 before the license change they made which is why a lot of distributions decided to go with X.org Mandrake 10.1 will have X.org instead of XFree86. Most distributions have switched over to X.org. It is also developing more rapidly, and the next release is planned to include alpha (true) transparency and shadow rendering (something many Linuxers have been waiting for). This came from Xserver, which is sort of a "proving ground" for X.org. I've been trying to keep myself well informed of the X.org and XFree86 deal, as I find it very interesting. Please let me know if any of my statements are incorrect :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 sounds right to me....in fact as I recall, slow devel was the biggest reason for the fork. I know I'm not alone when I say I'm very glad it happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 in fact as I recall, slow devel was the biggest reason for the fork. Although I think the license change was "the straw that broke the camels back"...as the saying goes. I know I'm not alone when I say I'm very glad it happened. I think the entire Linux and Open Source community is pretty glad it happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 <<"the straw that broke the camels back"...as the saying goes.>> Funny that! In French, we say "la goute qui fait déborder le vase", which translates more or less into: "the single drop of water, that makes the recipient overflow". (Sorry I know it is off-topic, I won't follow on this fork) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulSe Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 My switchover was painless and, as I said before, Xorg and Xfree are pretty identical at the moment, so nobody should have any problems. To all your DE's/WMs and apps nothing has changed drastically on your system. I heard that XFree was being abandoned, my bad then. Oh, and has anyone heard of the Y-windows project? Sounds silly... so naturally it appeals to me. I'm sticking with what I know for now though, which is why I still use Lilo and chose Xorg to replace Xfree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted September 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2004 I'm asking because there are ready-made xorg RPMs available here for Mandrake 10.0 Official: http://rpm.nyvalls.se (this site is where I get ready-made RPMs for music/audio programs) And I'm just wondering if there are any issues or things I should do before I switch to xorg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linux_learner Posted September 2, 2004 Report Share Posted September 2, 2004 My switchover was painless and, as I said before, Xorg and Xfree are pretty identical at the moment, so nobody should have any problems. To all your DE's/WMs and apps nothing has changed drastically on your system. I heard that XFree was being abandoned, my bad then. Oh, and has anyone heard of the Y-windows project? Sounds silly... so naturally it appeals to me. I'm sticking with what I know for now though, which is why I still use Lilo and chose Xorg to replace Xfree. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> after doing a bit of reading, Y-windows sounds really cool. i naturally have a few questions, but from what i've read.....way cool. Modularity (plug-in style: dynamically unloadable and reloadable) Unload an old video driver, load a new version. On the fly. No restart in sight. now i dunno about yall, but not restarting the windows server to load or unload a driver.... http://www.y-windows.org/ my questions are; will it work with kde/gnome and other de's and wm's? if so how? guess we have more reading to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted September 2, 2004 Report Share Posted September 2, 2004 About the XFree86 debacle that has now lead to the adoption of the X.org graphical server: What I understood from the various stories/posts etc on the web: David Dawes is the XFree guy in charge, the organisation was already very slow and elitist. He actually uses and prefers MSWindows graphical system (he stated this himself).... They were very closed, not accepting input or requests from outsiders. Keith Packard (of HP) is one of the main guys behind the original X.org Xserver, he was also on XFree development/management team. All this while on the payroll of HP, so IBM isn't the only one employing FLOSS developers. Then, the license for XFree got changed, they wanted that all those distributing their code print the names of the developers on the product. Along with the fact that this is not compatible with the GPL (which states that you cannot put extra restrictions on the code), this made it impossible for distributions to include XFree 4.4. Mdk 10 has 4.3, others opted for 4.4rc2 since that is the last release that didn't have the 'b0rked' license. X.org forked XFree 4.4rc2, which is the X.org xserver that now all distributions are using... Alpha transparency was already in the very alpha status original Xserver, that functionality will get included into X.org in time. In short: Dawes: booh!! Keith Packard: yeah!! X.org xserver: yeah!! All's well that ends well. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solarian Posted September 2, 2004 Report Share Posted September 2, 2004 Does/Will X.org support ATI 3D acceleration drivers made for Xfree? Oh and NVidia too. I didn't run a Linux box when I bought my ATI card a few years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted September 3, 2004 Report Share Posted September 3, 2004 Does/Will X.org support ATI 3D acceleration drivers made for Xfree?Oh and NVidia too. I didn't run a Linux box when I bought my ATI card a few years ago. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes,`because it is almost exactly the same, it has retained compatibility. I myself have found xorg, much much better than Xfree. Mainly because of the work that has gone into the display driver used in my laptop. Much more stable now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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