From: robin@interlabs.com (Robin Cutshaw)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: XFree86 3.3.2 released
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:59:39 GMT
Organization: The XFree86 Project, Inc.
Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Mikko Rauhala)
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Reply-To: XFree86@XFree86.Org
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Announcing the Release of
XFree86[tm] 3.3.2
5 March 1998
XFree86 version 3.3.2 is now available. The XFree86 3.3 distribution is
available in both source and binary form. Binary distributions are
currently available for FreeBSD (2.2.2+ and 3.0-CURRENT), NetBSD (1.2
and 1.3), OpenBSD, Interactive Unix, Linux (ix86 and AXP), SVR4.0,
UnixWare, OS/2, Solaris 2.6 and LynxOS AT.
The XFree86 documentation is available on-line on our Web server. The
documentation for 3.3 can be accessed at http://WWW.XFree86.org/3.3/.
The XFree86 FAQ is at http://WWW.XFree86.org/FAQ/.
Note that the mirror sites listed below are those that have indicated
that they will be mirroring this release. Only a small number of sites
have done so at this time.
XFree86 is a port of X11R6.3 that supports several Unix and Unix-like
operating systems on Intel and other platforms. This release consists
of new features and performance improvements as well as many bug
fixes. . The source distribution is available as both source patches
against the X Consortium X11R6.3 code and the XFree86 3.3.1 release.
1. XFree86 and X11R6.3
XFree86 releases starting with the 3.2A beta are based on the X
Consortium's X11R6.3 (the final release from the X Consortium).
R6.3 is an update to R6.1, and is intended to be compatible with R6.1
and R6 at the source and protocol levels. Binaries should be
upward-compatible. X11R6.3 includes some new Xserver extensions:
SECURITY, XC-APPGROUP, XpExtension (print extension), and an updated,
and standardised version of LBX. X11R6.3 also has new standards,
including RX (X Remote Execution MIME type), and a proxy management
protocol. X11R6.3 includes support for gzipped fonts.
R6.1 is an update to R6, and is intended to be compatible with R6 at
the source and protocol levels. Binaries should be upward-compatible.
X11R6.1 includes some new Xserver extensions: DOUBLE-BUFFER, XKEYBOARD
and RECORD.
What about R6.2? X11R6.2 is the name given to a subset of X11R6.3,
which has only the print extension and the Xlib implementation of vertical
writing and user-defined character support in addition to those features
included in R6.1.
2. Revised XFree86 release/access policy
As of March 1997, The XFree86 Project has revised its source/binary
access and release policy. The main points of the new policy are:
o There will be no more time-limited public binary-only beta releases.
Instead we plan to increase the frequency of full public releases
to about four releases per year.
o The source access/use is divided into three categories:
o End users. End users have access to only the source of full
public releases. The main reason for this restriction is that
our development code often contains code from other sources
which cannot be released to the public immediately.
o Active developers (members of the XFree86 ``developer team'').
Active developers must formally become non-voting members of
the XFree86 Project, and have full access to our internal
development source. They are permitted to make time-limited
binaries (in coordination with the Core Team) of the servers
they are actively working on available to external testers
for specific testing.
o Commercial members. Commercial members are non-voting members
of The XFree86 Project who donate US$5000/year to the Project.
Additionally, companies who contribute significantly to the
development effort of XFree86 can be awarded commercial
membership by the Core Team on a yearly bases. Commercial
members can use the internal XFree86 development source for
derived binary-only products providing that they take full
responsibility for supporting the product, and don't call it
``XFree86'' (although the derivation of the product must be
acknowledged in any accompanying documentation). Binary
packages for the OSs we support which are simply compiled from
our internal source without significant added value are
explicitly NOT allowed.
3. Future Release Plans
This release (3.3) is the final release in the 3.x series. If any major
problems show up with this release, patches will be made available.
All our current work is now going towards the next release, 4.0, with the
highlight of this being the loadable module code.
4. New in 3.3.2
4.1 Security fixes
o Several buffer overrun problems discovered since the release of
XFree86-3.3.1 have been fixed
o Several insecure X server command line options have been removed
o The X servers now run the xkbcomp program under the user's real uid
o Additionally, a wrapper program for the X servers has been added which
eliminated the need for the servers to be installed SUID root
4.2 Bug fixes
o A black screen problem in the Tseng driver has been fixed.
o Several drawing problems in the Tseng driver have been corrected.
o Timeouts to all routines waiting for the accelerator have been added.
o DPMS has been fixed in the Tseng driver.
o The memory clock for the Matrox Millennium II is now set correctly.
o Several drawing bugs in the MGA driver have been fixed.
o The problem with some Millennium II cards in higher resolutions and 24bpp
is fixed.
o Some problems with 24 and 32bpp in the Trident driver have been fixed.
o Some problems in the C&T driver with the TMED DSTN dithering scheme for
the 65555 and 68554 have been fixed.
o The C&T driver now adheres much more strictly to the clock limits.
o Allow DacSpeed command to work correctly in more servers.
o Several small bugs for Cirrus Laguna chipsets have been fixed.
o Fixes to the Wacom driver.
o The Cyrillic fonts have been updated.
o BSDI is supported again.
o Several XAA problems have been fixed.
o XKB for PC98 has been updated.
o S3 Aurora64V+ now works with 16bpp.
o cursor offset for some S3 cards has been fixed.
o S3 server support for STG 1700 ramdac has been fixed.
o imake correctly works on Linux glibc-2 systems now.
4.3 New Features
o Support for ET6100 has been added to the Tseng driver.
o Acceleration has been added for W32 and W32i.
o Text performance has been improved for the Tseng driver.
o Support for new RAMDACs, including the ch8398, the ch8391 and the MUSIC
MU9C4910 has been added to the Tseng driver.
o Accelerated support for the AT3D and AT25 has been added to the APM
driver.
o Support for accelerated NV1 and accelerated Riva128 has been added to the
NV driver.
o Support for the Matrox Millennium II AGP has been included into the MGA
driver.
o New support for several Trident chips has been added, including Cyber9397,
3DImage975 and 3DImage985 (unaccelerated and not completed, yet),
TGUI9685.
o CrealTV support has been added for the TGUI9685.
o Acceleration of all TGUI chipsets has been improved.
o Support for Rage Pro based PCI and AGP cards has been added.
o Maximum dotclock for newer Mach64 cards has been increased.
o Support for 1600x1200 and 1600x1280 mode has been added for VT and newer
Mach64 chips.
o Support for the auxiliary register aperture for newer Mach64 cards has
been added.
o Support for the I128 Revolution (T2R) has been added.
o Additional acceleration for the I128 server has been added.
o Support for sw cursor, pci_retry, 24bpp HW cursor has been added to cirrus
Laguna chipsets.
o S3 ViRGE/MX and ViRGE/GX2 support has been added (SVGA server only!).
o support for S3 ViRGE hardware cursor added in SVGA server.
o An S3 driver has been added to the SVGA server.
o S3 server and SVGA/S3 server now recognize some fake S3 chips and print
out a warning message.
o XAA has been extended to support hardware cursors and provide accelerated
support dashed lines and trapezoid fills.
o Several new mouse protocols have been added to all servers. They should
now support Kensington ThinkingMouse, ALPS GlidePoint, Genius NetScroll,
Genius NetMouse, Genius NetMouse, ASCII MieMouse, Logitech MouseMan+, Log-
itech FirstMouse+. This includes all buttons on these mice as well as the
wheels. The wheel can be used to either create additional buttons or for
z-axis indication.
o login.conf/setusercontext support to xdm for FreeBSD has been added.
o XF86Setup now supports setting the default color depth and choosing the
modes the user wants to use.
o XF86Setup allows to select all the new mouse protocols (depending on the
OS it is running on).
o Japanization of XF86Setup has been added.
o XF98_MGA server for Millennium and Mystique has been added. This server
is very new and has some problems with Mystique support.
o XF98_SVGA server for CLGD755x has been added. This server also is very new
and has some problems.
o Linux/98 support has been added. Linux/98 is very new and perhaps the
servers also have some problems.
o XF98_TGUI server now works on PANIX98.
o XF98Setup(i.e. XF86Setup for PC98) has been added.
o Many changes to xterm including support for double-size characters (posi-
tioning), blinking characters (render in color), improvements to logging,
transparent printing, delete/backspace toggle, and better support for Sun
and PC keyboards.
4.4 Known Problems
o There are problems with some Cirrus laptop chipsets (75xx). The driver
seems to work for some people, but not others. Until someone with the
appropriate hardware can look into this, these problems are unlikely to be
fixed. If you wish to work on this, please contact us. We don't need
testers, we need people willing and able to fix the problems.
o There are problems with some of the Trident laptop chipsets. The driver
seems to work in a limited way for some people, but not others. Until
someone with the appropriate hardware can look into this, these problems
are unlikely to be fixed. If you wish to work on this, please contact us.
We don't need testers, we need people willing and able to fix the prob-
lems.
5. Source and binary archive sites
Source patches are available to upgrade X11R6.3 PL2 from the X Consortium (now
The Open Group) to XFree86 3.3.2. Binaries for many OSs are also available.
The distribution is available from:
o ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86
and the following mirror sites:
o North America:
o ftp://ftp2.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/XFree86-current (source and bina-
ries)
o ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/X/XFree86 and http://www.rge.com/pub/X/XFree86
(source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.varesearch.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/mirrors/xfree86 (source and binaries)
o Europe:
o ftp://fvkma.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/hci/X11/XFree86 and
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/hci/X11/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.fee.vutbr.cz/pub/XFree86 (source patches and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/xfree86/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.mpi-sb.mpg.de/pub/X/mirror/ftp.xfree86.org (source and
binaries)
o ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/X/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/Linux/MIRROR.xfree86 (source and Linux
binaries)
o ftp://ftp.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/X11/Xfree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/X11/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/X11/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.pvv.unit.no/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o Asia/Australia:
o ftp://x.physics.usyd.edu.au/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.netlab.is.tsukuba.ac.jp/pub/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/X/XFree86/XFree86 (source and binaries)
o ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/Linux/xfree86 (source and binaries)
Ensure that you are getting XFree86 3.3 - some of these sites may archive older
releases as well. Check the RELNOTES to find which files you need to take from
the archive.
The XFree86 Team
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