Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 14:11:04 -0500 From: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com> To: freebsd-x11@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: RFC: add text about freedesktop.org and related topics to FAQ Message-ID: <200406051411.04259.linimon@lonesome.com>
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I doubt I have to explain to anyone on x11@ why we need this, but for
the doc folks, we are continually getting questions on multiple mailing
lists about the state of X on FreeBSD.
I would like to commit the following after a brief review, since it _is_
getting asked so frequently :-( I have tried to remove as much of the
'political' side of the equation as possible in an effort to be as non-
controversial as possible.
mcl
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Index: book.sgml
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/FreeBSD/dcvs/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v
retrieving revision 1.620
diff -u -r1.620 book.sgml
--- book.sgml 31 May 2004 14:58:51 -0000 1.620
+++ book.sgml 5 Jun 2004 18:50:56 -0000
@@ -7002,6 +7002,83 @@
<qandaset>
<qandaentry>
+ <question id="whatis-X">
+ <para>What is the X Window System?</para>
+ </question>
+
+ <answer>
+
+ <para>The X Window System is the most popular windowing system
+ capable of running on UNIX or UNIX-like systems, including
+ &os;. <ulink url= "http://www.x.org">X.org</ulink>; administers
+ the <ulink url="http://www.x.org/X11_protocol.html">X protocol
+ standards</ulink>. The current release of the specification
+ is 11.6, so you will often see references shortened to
+ <literal>X11R6</literal> or even just <literal>X11</literal>.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>Many implementations are available for different
+ architectures and operating systems. For instance, an
+ implementation of the server-side code is properly known
+ as an <literal>X server</literal>.</para>
+
+ </answer>
+ </qandaentry>
+
+ <qandaentry>
+ <question id="which-X">
+ <para>Which X servers are available for &os;?</para>
+ </question>
+
+ <answer>
+
+ <para>In the past, if you wanted to run X on &os;, you were
+ basically restricted to running an X implementation called
+ <literal>XFree86</literal>™ which is maintained by
+ <ulink url="http://www.xfree86.org">The XFree86 Project,
+ Inc.</ulink> This software was installed by default on
+ &os; versions up until 4.10 and 5.2. Although X.org
+ itself maintained an implementation during that time
+ period, it was basically only provided as a reference
+ platform, as it had suffered greatly from bitrot over
+ the years.</para>
+
+ <para>However, early in 2004, the XFree86 Project split
+ over issues including the pace of code changes, future
+ directions, and a licensing change. X.org updated its
+ source tree to the last XFree86 release before the
+ licensing change (XFree86 version 4.3.99.903), incorporated
+ many changes that had previously been maintained separately,
+ and has released that software as X11R6.7.0. A separate but
+ related project, <ulink url="http://www.freedesktop.org">;
+ freedesktop.org</ulink> (or <literal>fd.o</literal> for short),
+ is working on rearchitecting the original XFree86 code to
+ reflect modern graphics card technology (with the goal of
+ greatly increased performance) and modern software practices
+ (with the goal of incresed maintainability, and thus faster
+ releases as well as easier configuration). X.org intends to
+ incorporate the fd.o changes in its future releases.</para>
+
+ <para>The current technology roadmap for &os; includes
+ replacing XFree86 with fd.o as the default server sometime
+ later in 2004 under the assumption that the pace of its
+ development will more closely match that of &os; itself.
+ The XFree86 ports
+ (<filename role="package">x11/XFree86-4</filename> and
+ subports) will remain in the ports collection and be supported
+ as developer interest permits. Note that it is not currently
+ possible to mix-and-match pieces of each implementation; this
+ problem is being actively worked on.</para>
+
+ <note>
+ <para>The following paragraphs refer to the existing
+ XFree86 implementation, but most should also be applicable
+ to the fd.o implementation as well.</para>
+ </note>
+ </answer>
+ </qandaentry>
+
+ <qandaentry>
<question id="running-X">
<para>I want to run X, how do I go about it?</para>
</question>
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