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From: d...@mtgzfs3.att.com (David E. Wexelblat)
Subject: Preliminary information on XFree86 2.0...
Reply-To: xfre...@physics.su.oz.au
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1993 19:20:00 GMT
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Just to frustrate you (:->), here's some pre-release information on
XFree86 2.0.  We currently plan to release 2.0 at the end of October,
barring any unforseen problems.  Here's a list of what's definitely
in (i.e the code is in the base and tested), on top of the 1.3 feature
list:

	- OS support:
		- BSDI BSD/386
		- OSF/1
		- NetBSD, FreeBSD
			(including VT switching with syscons)
	- New hardware supported:
		- VGA: Generic 16-color
		- SVGA: Oak 067/057
		- Monochrome: Sigma Designs LView, Hyndai HGC-1280
		- Accelerated hardware:
			- Cirrus 542{6,8}
			- Western Digital WD90C31
			- IBM 8514/A
			- ATI Mach-8, Mach-32
			- S3 911/924, 801/805, 928
	- Input devices:
		- Hitachi Puma Plus digitizer
		- Support OS mouse driver for SCO
	- Lots and lots of bug fixes

The Cirrus and WD accelerated support is incorporated in the SVGA server.
The 8514, Mach-8, Mach-32, and S3 each have their own servers (for now;
we will likely merge these for 2.1).  The 16-color server is still 
experimental; it has known bugs, and does not support banking yet.

For the Mach-32 and S3 servers, linear framebuffer access is supported
for EISA and VLB cards for OSs that support such access (currently
Linux, SVR4, Mach, OSF/1, BSD/386 and SVR3 (with the installation of 
a device driver to support this access, which will be included)).  On
ISA bus cards, and OSs that don't support the linear framebuffer access,
the normal 64k VGA window is used.

We will be supplying a list of know working accelerated cards (i.e. those
that the beta testers are using).  All of the ATI Ultra boards should
be supported, and S3 boards from Actix, #9, ELSA, and STB are known to
work (there may be others, but I haven't compiled the list yet).  

We have just completed our 5th beta-test release since 1.3 was released
in June; there have been 28 alpha releases.  So far.  There will be
one more beta before the final code freeze, and an unknown number of
alphas.

We have been making extensive use of the MIT X Test Suite with these
servers.  The accelerated servers are know to have the same pass/fail
cases as the SVGA server has (there were bugs in the MIT X11R5 server;
we haven't gone out of our way to fix them, but we don't fail anything
that passes in the MIT code).

There may be other features added before 2.0, but they will not be 
significant.  We are hoping to add one or two more SVGA chipset drivers,
but we haven't seen the code for them yet.

Please do not bombard us with questions; we are working very hard to
complete this release, and get it out when we say it will be out.  Between
now and then, Jon Tombs will be leaving the scene (headed for a location
without net access), and I will be changing jobs and moving.  This is
a very hectic time, but we believe that people will be quite pleased
with the results when the release is made.

--
David Wexelblat <d...@mtgzfs3.att.com>  (908) 957-5871  Fax: (908) 957-5305
AT&T Bell Laboratories, 200 Laurel Ave - 3F-428, Middletown, NJ  07748

XFree86 requests should be addressed to <xfre...@physics.su.oz.au>

"Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are."
	Yes, "Yours Is No Disgrace"