From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Dec 28 18:30:27 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id SAA17297 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 28 Dec 1995 18:30:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au (rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au [129.78.129.109]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA17290 Thu, 28 Dec 1995 18:30:17 -0800 (PST) Received: (from dawes@localhost) by rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au (8.6.11/8.6.9) id NAA02877; Fri, 29 Dec 1995 13:28:28 +1100 From: David Dawes Message-Id: <199512290228.NAA02877@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au> Subject: Re: syscons driver To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 13:28:27 +1100 (EST) Cc: hasty@rah.star-gate.com, sos@freebsd.org, msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, jdli@linux.csie.nctu.edu.tw, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <7177.820198788@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Dec 28, 95 04:59:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk >> Me thinks this group is too OS centric . >> >> The point that it must run on minimal hardware is debatable at this time >> tnks to Win95 8) Many are upgrading the systems with enough resources >> to run a multitasking operating system. I bought a P100 not too long ago and >> it is expected that P100 will be the entry level Pentium in less than >> 6 months . Disks are cheap now days. Due to Win95 many are gettting 16MB >> of memory. > >And all unfortunately irrelevant if you CAN'T GET X TO WORK ON YOUR >HARDWARE! > >Seriously, if you think it's easy then I suggest that you spend a >little time hanging out in the questions@xfree86.org mailing list to >find out just how wrong you are. The X installation and configuration >issue is an *utter disaster* that we're slowly getting around to >fixing, but to suggest that the whole X mileau is something you could >drop a novice user into ("What's a clock chip? What do all these >timing numbers mean?!") right now just doesn't seem to match any >definition of reality that I'm currently familiar with. For the majority of cards that XFree86 runs on you don't need to worry about timings and dot clocks, and stuff like that (I never do when getting a new machine up and running). You run 'xf86config' and pick out your card from the list. Unfortunately there is still an impression amongst a lot of people that you still need to worry about all these things for every card, and a lot of people end up making the installation process more complicated than it nees to be. I see all the mail on the xfree86@xfree86.org list, and the answer to too many of those questions is "Get the latest XFree86 release, run xf86config, and select your card from the list. If you have an unsupported or poorly supported card, then things can get difficult/impossible, but for the majority of people it doesn't need to be as difficult as a lot of people make out. Having said all this, we do realise that the XFree86 configuration can be improved a lot, and we are currently working on this issue. We have a mailing list setup for those interested in contributing ideas and/or code to this (and you don't need to sign anything or join the XFree86 Project to join this list). If anyone here is interested, let me know. David