LCA: Updates on the X Window System [LWN.net]

LCA: Updates on the X Window System

Posted Jan 26, 2007 15:33 UTC (Fri) by ortalo (guest, #4654)
Parent article: LCA: Updates on the X Window System

"Looking further ahead, the X developers would like to move video card mode setting into the kernel."

Wow. What about all the funky arguments thrown upon KGI developers when they proposed the same thing 10 years ago ?

Grumbling...

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LCA: Updates on the X Window System

Posted Jan 26, 2007 18:34 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (1 responses)

amen. That was outrageously frustrating. I think difference is abandoning all the crufty xfree "leaders" in the move to xorg. I'm thinking of one leader in particular.

Or, if Luc Verhagen is to be believed, Keith Packard took a mighty U-turn at some point last year. I'm on the outside, so I have no idea. :)

LCA: Updates on the X Window System

Posted Feb 1, 2007 20:33 UTC (Thu) by Thalience (subscriber, #4217) [Link]

I also seem to recall that the kernel developers were not on board with the KGI interface and code. If you are the sort who enjoys reading old flamewars, the following should be amusing:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=89085703000001&r=9&...

I honestly don't know if there were good technical arguments against the KGI API (I have only browsed the flamewar a bit). But quite a bit of ill will between the two projects seems to have been based on personality conflict and snap judgments that were never reconsidered.

I do agree that the whole episode was "outrageously frustrating". It has always seemed obvious to me that XAA's "pci driver in userspace" design was the wrong way to go. Graphics cards are devices, and the kernel's job is to manage devices.