Hello, forum world, a very simple question:

Xfree86 has changed licence terms... so now it's not so good, I mean, most of the community's efforts have moved on to other projects. I know about two other Graphical servers:

- Y Windows
- X.Org
(sorry, I haven't posted enough to post URLs... , well, if you don't know about them, just Google them up )

I know X.Org is the most used one now, but is Y-Windows worth trying? Is it 100% compatible with XFree86 and X.Org?

Ah, another question. Is X.Org that ancient-born graphical server, born in the 80s by some Unix consortium? Why was XFree born? I'd appreciate some X History...


Thanks, everybody, for helping out a poor, confused,

There are several implementations of the X11R6 server, some free but most are commercial (Metrowerks, et al).

The current X.org branch was forked from the XFree86 4.3.99 (IIRC) CVS tree just before the license change was introduced. The XFree86 organisation was also a slow moving hulk, and X.org intend to speed up development and introduction of new features from several sources, most notably the Freedesktop.org X Server project (XComposite and XDamage, originally from fd.o, was introduced in X.org 6.8.0 for example).

Y Windows was the work of a student a couple of years ago, and I don't know if it's actually possible to run a Linux desktop using it. It was more of a proof-of-concept thing as a school project.


Håk

So you suggest Y-Windows isn't worth the try? Strange, a website claimed it could be considered as an XFree successor...

Another thing: I've read about the X.Org new functionalities, such as translucent windows or animations... but KDE and Gnome have had translucent menus and animations for ages!

KDE and Gnome has not had true transparency until very recently (Metacity in Gnome 2.8 for example). They have had quasi transparency, or "fake" transparency displaying the root window through windows, but not layered windows.


Håkan