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Date:      Wed, 05 Feb 2003 23:10:47 -0500
From:      David Cuthbert <dacut@kanga.org>
To:        chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: GGI (was: Project Status)
Message-ID:  <3E41E047.50900@kanga.org>
In-Reply-To: <20030205103556.B7212@papagena.rockefeller.edu>
References:  <20030205035930.45235.qmail@web13404.mail.yahoo.com> <20030205103556.B7212@papagena.rockefeller.edu>

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Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> XFree86 is doing great, and getting better and better, in my opinion.
> What's the problem?  [...]  Stability?  It's rock solid.

Hrm.  Sadly, I must disagree here.

Although the core algorithms of XF86 may be solid, (many of) the drivers 
are far from so.  Much of this, of course, isn't the XF86 developers' 
fault; video hardware is notorious for being poorly or incorrectly 
documented, and the rush to market often introduces bugs which, if not 
worked around, can crash the machine unless the software carefully 
tip-toes around said bugs.

 From what I understand, the hardware developers are reluctant to share 
information with the XF86 team (low volume, questions about enforcing 
NDAs, etc.).  I think they're being overly paranoid, but I understand 
their concern.

Anyway, I'm on a box which allows me to log in about once.  Once the X 
server goes down, it takes the machine with it about 75% of the time 
(this is a card from the long-defunct Number 9 company, the Revolution 
IV card required to drive the SGI flatpanel monitor over an OpenLDI 
connection, the Betamax of LCD connectors).  Under Windows, this was 
never a problem (even switching to full-screen command prompt mode), 
presumably because Microsoft had access to the hardware designers.

I do wish that there was a way to use Windows drivers through some kind 
of (massive and ugly) compatibility interface.  No, I'm not volunteering 
to write it. :-)


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