I have many questions about X, and how the new xorg will be working. Many of these questions may not be able to be answered unless you are using the new tests of xorg like the 6.9rc2 or the 7.0rc2. Bear in mind, I am a highly advanced noob. I can do a ton, but am not that proficient overall, far from being a guru...

Based on the list of updates from 6.8.2 to the soon-to-be-released 6.9/7.0 series of xorg, I must say I am impressed at quite a bit of the new features, and many of them look appealing to me across my computer, my parents computer, and even my laptop.

Based on the release schedule it will be December 7th(or there abouts) when they release the full 6.9 and 7.0 versions. How many distros are going to adopt those as they go live? I am using SuSE 10.0 and they as yet still don't have a 2.6.14 kernel, so I got my own. Which I would be happy to do with new versions of Xorg as well, but Xorg has more tie ins for requirements which take a lot more work to tweak than the kernel. I say that as KDE 3.4.3, ATI, and numerous others already worked perfectly on the 2.6.14, with no tweaking at all, short of installing the ATI drivers again after the update I can't imagine. xorg going so smoothly, or will it?

What kind of workload may be entailed with manually moving up to a new Xorg, where my keyboard, mouse, monitor, video card, and other devices will all have to be reconfigured? Or will they?

Will ATI happily release a new set of drivers and fglrx to go along with the new xorgs, or will I not even need them anymore?

Will KDE 3.4.3 be happy, or will I have to try and time this to go with KDE 3.5 when they release?

Anyone currently using the RCs that can tell me how nice the 6.9/7.0 xorgs are?

wow impressive

There are a bunch I would consider key updates that really look nice, and that I think a lot of people would like. But I don't know how well XOrg 7.0 will be supported right upon release, and not sure how many depencies it might cause to break.

Those are just ones that affect me or others I see on these forums a lot. It looks like some really nice changes are going in too, like modularization. I would love to hear from anyone who is testing this now as to who well it works with current stuff, and if it improves as much as it looks like it would, inlcuding the faster rendering, I like that.

From what I have observed about X, KDE, GNOME and just about every package and application in Linux is that they rarely install the way that they are supposed to. Although each distro is similar for the most part, they tinker with smaller things to make their distro unique and as a whole more unstable from the general (as in generalist) programmer's point of view. There really is no standardization of such things as libs, CLRs, APIs, etc. Is this such a good idea? Developing a distro just because you want to do something diferent without a real need? I have tried all sorts of distros, before settleing with SuSE. No distro including SuSE will be able to predict what a certain package, application, etc will do until they are installed. X is going to be a bigger problem than upgrading to a newer KDE.

My point: Until there is standardization in areas such as libs, CLRs and the like, it is unlikely that any upgrade like X will go smoothly. It is just not possible to create a general piece of software like X, one that is intended for use on all distros; including FreeBSD and UNIX, that will have a small bug list.

Look at the bugzilla for the current version of X and all distro specific problems.

Moral: If it ain't broke, don't fix it! At least not yet, Wait a few months and read the bug reports.

Hopefully distros like SuSE, Mandriva, and RH will provide updaters that worked out most of the bugs for their distro.

Sorry Redshit for preaching in your thread. I just would love to see a paradigm shift from creating more distros for the sake of multiplicity to one of stability, security, usefullness and most of all QUALITY. Think of how much better a product X would be if it did not have to generalize to meet the requirements of 300+ distros.

I think the standards are mostly quite clear. If to things doesn't work together, then it's a bug in one of them. The problem should then be fixed where the bug is, and nowhere else. fixing problems in the wrong places is part of what makes the windows platform such a mess.

If a distro is different, it also fulfills different needs.

The great part about linux and open source in general is that each and every application needs to follow the standards in order to work everywhere. Its not called generalizing, its called standardizing. Didn't you state earlier in your post that you liked standards?

yea i was going to say the same thing
all versions of the x server are basically the same
sometimes one or the other takes the lead and the others follow but they cannot be different in any substantial way or interoperability would be broken.
No projects to my knowledge ever take into consideration various distributions or their needs unless the distribution is on the board or a major contributor or something.
All Linux distributions are basically the same only with different packages and package managers or build system sometimes using different options available to all Linux software builders.
Options are a good thing.

Most if not all of the marketing hype surrounding Xorg is just that - marketing hype - and reflect only the underlying and long standing corporate backing of Xorg and in no way is an actual indication of true "exciting advances", "new and improved", "now with amazing zingaflex technology" in x.

Generalize:

2. To apply to other genera or classes; to use with a more
extensive application; to extend so as to include all
special cases; to make universal in application, as a
formula or rule.


Standard:

1. Being, affording, or according with, a standard for
comparison and judgment; as, standard time; standard
weights and measures; a standard authority as to nautical
terms; standard gold or silver.

Now read your comment

The word I used was accurate. X is GENERALIZED not STANDARDIZED. In order to get X to work, it has to be generalized as each distro is diferent in regard to its underlying OS. If there were standards like you perport, then there would not be bugs when libs, APIs, CLRs and other elements of the OS need to work together.

Please develop a major application and then talk about programming standards. If you knew a little about engineering (or science or programming for that matter), you would understand the benefit of "PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS" Would like to drive your car over a NON-Standard bridge? Or fly in a NON-Standard Aircraft? Perhaps not. All major advances in technology within the last 250 years were made reliable by standards of some sort. 1 OHM should equal 1 OHM and 1Hz should equal 1Hz. Ohterwise it is trial and error and not engineering. All principles in engineering apply to computer science as well. It is essential for fundamental standards to be established in order to develop a quality product.

You can still have a million distros and a million seperate OSS applications, and each of them can follow some fundamental rules.

All I am saying is that the overall experince of distributing and installing applicaitons can be made better with a few fundamentals being applied.

Visit: http://www.linuxbase.org/index.php poke around and then tell me how Linux could not benefit fromt this.

Okay, well this has turned from my hopeful conversation with others about the soon-to-be-released Xorg 7.0, to a... well let's just say it has gotten off topic.

Has anyone used the new RC or beta or even alpha and want to tell us how you like it? I would love to know more about it than just some of the specs and that it will be modular.

Sorry, my fault.

OK, generalize is quite much the opposite of standardizing.

The only standard that would concern me when driving over a bridge is that I have a line at least 2.5 or so meters wide on wich traffic only pass in my direction, this line should be able to take at least the weight of my car and the others that theoretically may be on it. Apart fronm that I wouldn\t be concerned about standards.

Likewise I would only caare about having a seat fitting my body to certain extent, which moves from A to B. I would also need air to breath in. And a restroom available would be nice. Apart from that i wouldn\t care.

When did you last see a computer using 9bit bytes, or anything else in that direction? I don\t think that is an issue on linux computers.

I think the fundamental standards of X is established, and that X is standarised not generalized.

Sorry for beeing off-topic, but I had to answer direct questions. I think I have avoided to ask any that will need answering.

Well at least your name fits well