Release Notes for XFree86[tm] 3.3.6
The XFree86 Project, Inc
31 December 1999
Abstract
This document describes the bugs fixed and the features added in
XFree86 3.3.6 compared with the 3.3.5 release, It also includes
installation instructions for the binary distributions. It is
strongly recommended that anyone using XFree86 update to version
3.3.6.
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, XpExten-
sion (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. X11R6.4
In September 1998 The Open Group changed the copyright of X11R6.4 from the
non-free copyright used for the initial release of X11R6.4 back to the old
free X Consortium style copyright. Given the fact that our main development
focus is on XFree86-4.0 and that the 3.3.x releases are intended mostly to
fix some bugs and get out new drivers to the public, we opted not to include
X11R6.4 in XFree86-3.3.x.
XFree86-4.0 will be X11R6.4 based.
3. OS issues
Always check the OS specific README files for special requirements or
caveats.
Users running Linux should note that Elf is now the only binary type sup-
ported for Linux OSs. This means that binaries for ix86/a.out and AXP/ECOFF
are not available with this release.
Users running FreeBSD 3.0 should note that only ELF binaries are provided
with this release. a.out shared libraries are also included for compatibil-
ity purposes.
4. What's new in 3.3.6?
o Support for ATI Rage128.
o Support for ATI Rage Mobility
o Support for SiS 540/630 and SiS 300
o Support for Silicon Motion Lynx chipsets
o Support for Savage2000
o Support for NVIDIA GeForce
o Support for Intel i810 (not enabled by default as it needs kernel mod-
ule)
o Fixes to several drivers
5. What's new in 3.3.5?
o Support for S3 Savage4 and Savage3D. Limited to Linux/x86 at this point.
Please see README.S3V.
o Support for S3 Trio3D/2X.
o Support for DGux.
o Support for QNX.
o Fix bug in Mach64 server on Rage LT and Rage LT Pro.
o Fix SiS driver for 530 and 620.
o Fix the spurious underline problem on NVidia Riva TNT cards.
o Fix the PS/2 mouse problem with later Linux kernels.
o Misc updates and bugfixes in Rendition driver.
o Updates from SuSE and Red Hat, including more keyboards, PAM support,
ARM and AXP fixes, security fixes.
6. What's new in 3.3.4?
o Several security fixes.
o Intel i740 support (donated by Precision Insight).
o SiS 530 and SiS 620 support.
o 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo3 support.
o Trident Blade3D, CyberBlade and Cyber9525 support.
o S3 Trio3D support.
o Matrox G400 support.
o NVIDIA Riva TNT2 support and better acceleration for all Riva chipsets
(donated by NVIDIA).
o Rewritten Cyrix MediaGX support (donated by Cyrix). Warning: this is
reported to hang some machines! If that happens, please use the SVGA
server in XFree86-3.3.3.1 instead.
o Acceleration for XF68_FBDev on PPC.
o VMWare's DGA-1.1 extension. Note that the next major release of XFree86
will NOT include DGA-1.1 but the newly developed DGA-2.0 that contains
significantly more features than DGA-1.1 and will most likely not be
compatible with DGA-1.1
o Change xterm to use the tty default value for the backspace key.
o Japanese documentation and manpage updates.
o Updates and new hardware support (Acecad flair, Calcomp DrawingBoard)
for xinput extension.
o Bug fixed for cards with S3 Aurora64V+ (M65) chip, VGA output should now
work.
7. What's new in 3.3.3.1?
o A system clock slowdown caused by 3Dlabs driver has been fixed.
o Drawing bugs with C&T HiQV chips have been fixed.
o Drawing problems in the Cyrix driver have been fixed.
o The Matrox G100/G200 PCI versions should now be fully supported.
o The Mach64 server now supports gamma correction.
o Open Source NVIDIA driver has been provided.
o I128 Rev IV support has been added.
o Another S3V lockup has been fixed.
o A drawing bug in cfb24 has been fixed.
o A problem causing lockups with some Trident cards has been fixed.
o Updates for SCO, FreeBSD, Linux glibc OS support.
o DG/ux support has been added.
o GNU/Hurd support has been added.
o Several XINPUT problems have been addressed.
o DGA relative mouse movement events when XINPUT is defined have been
fixed, as have DGA-related problems with the NVIDIA and S3V drivers.
o The X server now reads Xauthority files using the real user id.
o Several small fixes to core clients.
o A bug in Xlib's handling of KOI8-R has been fixed.
o PC98 cards database, sample config file and XKB handling have been
fixed.
8. What's new in 3.3.3?
8.1 Security fixes
o Several buffer overrun problem discovered since the release of
XFree86-3.3.2 have been fixed
o Sanity checks on DISPLAY variable
o Attempt to stop X connection hijacking (sticky bit for /tmp/.X11-unix)
Note that this is only a short-term partial solution, and it is doesn't
help at all for some SYSV based OSs (like Solaris 2.x).
8.2 Bug fixes
o Fix a serious LBX bug using uninitialized variables.
o Fix some Xlib bugs that cause problems when using XKB in some locales
(like latin2), add support for iso8859-15, and include a couple of basic
fonts for iso8859-15
o Fix xf86config to handle more than 10 modes and to be prepared for XFCom
/ XBF servers.
o Lots of xterm changes, see xterm.log.html in the sources.
o Fix problems with high dot clocks in high color depths on Riva128.
o Fix problem in the S3 drivers with disabled onboard S3 chips when using
S3 cards.
o Fix problems with Cirrus 5480 at high resolutions and jitter that
appeared with the 546x's using the BitBLT engine.
o Fix clock limits in some cases in Tseng driver.
o Fix some lockups with ViRGE chips.
o Improved timing calculations for video FIFO in the Mach64 X server.
o Fixed bug in font rendering code in the Mach64 X server.
o Fixed VGA font restoration bug when exiting the Mach64 X server.
o Several XF68_FBDev fixes.
o Fix wrong clock limits for S3 Trio64V+.
o Fix some generic rendering errors in cfb and vga code.
o Fix text restore problems and improve high res 32bpp modes in MGA
driver; fix 24bpp and 32bpp display problems; disable probing for memory
on some MGA chipsets; fix maximum blit size; fix sync on green for Mys-
tique.
o Fix problems with Xnest crashing with too many visuals.
o Fixes for 64bit architectures.
o Fix cursor bug in S3V server.
o Fixes for memory probing, max dotclock probing and DPMS display off on
C&T chipsets.
o Fix LCD detection for CLGD755x and the double mouse bug and the blanking
bug in the cirrus driver.
o Fix some problems with -quiet flag (where some variables stayed unini-
tialized)
o SuperProbe can detect C&T HiQV chips now, with an exception in the case
of No-PCI bus connected. The "-no_bios" option of SuperProbe solve this
situation.
o The C&T chipsets now use software cursors by default to avoid a number
of minor problems in certain circumstances. Hardware cursors can still
be used by adding the "hw_cursor" option to XF86Config.
o EGC server now works on Linux/98. XF98Setup also works with it.
o Fix VT switch problem with MGA server on Linux/98.
8.3 New Features
o New driver for Cyrix MediaGX based motherboards.
o New driver for Rendition V1000 and V2x00 chipsets (not accelerated).
o New driver for Weitek P9100 based cards.
o New driver for SiS 5597/98 and SiS 6326; treat SiS 6215 and 6225 as
6205.
o New server for 3Dlabs based cards using GLINT 500TX and MX (with IBM
RAMDAC), Permedia (with IBM RAMDAC), Permedia 2 and Permedia 2v.
o Support for the Matrox G100 and G200 based cards to the MGA driver.
o Support for C&T 69000 and 32bpp on 65550 and later.
o Support for NeoMagic notebook chipsets.
o Support for EPSON SPC8110.
o Support for NVidia Riva TNT.
o Acceleration for Trident Image975, Image985, Cyber9397, Cyber9388.
o Support for the new ATI Rage Pro, VT4 and Rage IIC based cards has been
added.
o 24-plane TGA support.
o Config support to build XFree86 on Linux with DECnet transport.
o Support to build XFree86 for FreeBSD/ELF.
o Support for vesafb on Linux/x86.
o LynxOS 3.0 support.
o Updates to SuperProbe.
o New XInput drivers for AceCad ADVANCEDigitizer, MicroTouch TouchPen, SGI
dial box.
o Add local font directory.
8.4 Known Problems
The problems listed here are those known at the time of the release. See the
XFree86 FAQ for more up to date information.
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
problems.
o SuperProbe command fails to detect some newly supported chips. Cur-
rently, the probing result with Xserver itself with appropriate setting
in XF86Config (and maybe option "-probeonly") can be more relied on than
the result from SuperProbe for newer chips. If you are interested in
improving the design of SuperProbe's code, let's come and join as the
member of the XFree86 ``developer team''.
9. XFree86 and Open Source Software
XFree86 public releases in general follow the Open Source Software definition
as set forth at http://www.opensource.org/osd.html. This definition is actu-
ally a subset of our requirements.
All code in XFree86 3.3.6 satisfies the Open Source Software definition.
10. Installing the XFree86 3.3.6 Release
The XFree86 3.3.6 binaries are distributed as a full release.
NOTE: the X servers are no longer installed setuid root. If you are starting
your X servers with startx/xinit, or something similar, you will need a copy
of the setuid Xwrapper, and an updated xinit. These can be found in
Xbin.tgz.
What follows is a list of the XFree86 3.3.6 components. There may be some
variations in this for some OSs.
The following are required for all new installations, or when upgrading from
a version older than 3.3:
preinst.sh Pre-installation script
postinst.sh Post-installation script
extract XFree86 extraction utility
Xbin.tgz Clients, run-time libs, and app-defaults files
Xdoc.tgz Documentation
Xfnts.tgz 75dpi, misc and PEX fonts
Xlib.tgz Data files required at run-time
Xman.tgz Manual pages
Xset.tgz XF86Setup utility
Xjset.tgz XF86Setup utility (if you prefer the Japanese version)
XVG16.tgz 16 colour VGA server (XF86Setup needs this server)
Xcfg.tgz sample config files for xinit, xdm
The following are required when upgrading from version 3.3 or later:
preinst.sh Pre-installation script
postinst.sh Post-installation script
extract XFree86 extraction utility
Xbin.tgz Clients, run-time libs, and app-defaults files
Xdoc.tgz Documentation
Xlib.tgz Data files required at run-time
Xman.tgz Manual pages
Xset.tgz XF86Setup utility
Xjset.tgz XF86Setup utility (if you prefer the Japanese version)
XVG16.tgz 16 colour VGA server (XF86Setup needs this server)
While it isn't essential to update the standard fonts, this version does
include some minor fixes to some of them, as well as the addition of two
basic ISO 8859-15 fonts. If you want to upgrade the standard fonts you will
also need:
Xfnts.tgz 75dpi, misc and PEX fonts
NOTE: Be very careful about installing Xcfg.tgz over an existing installation
if you have customised your xinit and/or xdm config files. Installing
Xcfg.tgz will overwrite any existing files. If you do have customised files,
there is no need to install Xcfg.tgz.
NOTE: The bitmap fonts distributed with this release are compressed using
gzip rather than compress. This means that you will probably want to remove
the old versions (after backing them up). The Xservers and font server in
releases prior to 3.2A cannot read gzipped fonts, so keep a copy of the old
fonts if you wish to run older servers.
The following X servers are for PC/AT based hardware (i.e., typical Intel
ix86 based PCs). Choose at least one which matches your hardware, as well as
the VGA16 server. The VGA16 server is required by the new configuration
utility (XF86Setup). A list showing which X server is required for a range
of video cards can be found at http://www.xfree86.org/cardlist.html.
X3DL.tgz 3Dlabs server
X8514.tgz 8514/A server
XAGX.tgz AGX server
XI128.tgz I128 server
XMa32.tgz Mach 32 server
XMa64.tgz Mach 64 server
XMa8.tgz Mach 8 server
XMono.tgz Mono server
XP9K.tgz P9000 server
XS3.tgz S3 server
XS3V.tgz old S3 ViRGE server (please use SVGA server)
XSVGA.tgz SVGA server
XVG16.tgz 16 colour VGA server (XF86Setup needs this server)
XW32.tgz ET4000/W32, ET6000 server
The following X servers are available for Alpha hardware:
XMa64.tgz Mach 64 server
XMono.tgz Mono server (generic driver only)
XP9K.tgz P9000 server
XTGA.tgz DEC 21030 (TGA) server
XS3.tgz S3 server
XS3V.tgz old S3 ViRGE server (please use SVGA server)
XSVGA.tgz SVGA server (Matrox Millennium and S3 ViRGE drivers only)
The following X servers are for PC98 hardware. Note that PC98 is a Japanese
computer standard and has nothing to do with Win98, or the Intel and
Microsoft PC98 specification. If you have a PC98 machine, choose one which
suits your hardware. If you don't know what a PC98 machine is, you don't
need any of these. These servers will not run on "normal" PCs, so don't even
try them if you don't have a Japanese PC98 machine. A list showing which X
server is required for a range of PC98 video cards and computers can be found
at http://www.xfree86.org/cardlist98.html.
X9NS3.tgz PC98 NEC(S3) server
X9SPW.tgz PC98 PCSKB-PowerWindow(S3) server
X9LPW.tgz PC98 PowerWindowLB(S3) server
X9EGC.tgz PC98 EGC(generic) server
X9GA9.tgz PC98 GA-968V4/PCI(S3 968) server
X9GAN.tgz PC98 GANB-WAP(cirrus) server
X9480.tgz PC98 PEGC-480(generic) server
X9NKV.tgz PC98 NKV-NEC(cirrus) server
X9WS.tgz PC98 WABS(cirrus) server
X9WEP.tgz PC98 WAB-EP(cirrus) server
X9WSN.tgz PC98 WSN-A2F(cirrus) server
X9TGU.tgz PC98 TGUI server
X9MGA.tgz PC98 MGA server
X9SVG.tgz PC98 CLGD755x server
X9set.tgz PC98 XF98Setup utility
The following are optional.
Xf100.tgz 100dpi fonts
Xfcyr.tgz Cyrillic fonts
Xfnon.tgz Other fonts (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew)
Xfscl.tgz Scalable fonts (Speedo and Type1)
Xfsrv.tgz Font server and config files
Xprog.tgz X header files, config files and compile-time libs
Xnest.tgz Nested X server
Xvfb.tgz Virtual framebuffer X server
Xprt.tgz X Print server
Xps.tgz PostScript version of the documentation
Xhtml.tgz HTML version of the documentation
Xjdoc.tgz Documentation in Japanese
Xjhtm.tgz HTML version of the documentation in Japanese
Xlkit.tgz X server LinkKit
Xlk98.tgz X server LinkKit for PC98 servers
If you already have a version of XFree86 installed, MAKE A BACKUP OF
/usr/X11R6 BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE. The standard installation procedure
will overwrite your existing version of XFree86.
If you are installing from scratch, create a directory called /usr/X11R6,
then extract the required .tgz files. If you don't have enough space in /usr
for this, create a directory elsewhere and create a symbolic link to it.
E.g., if you create a directory in /home:
mkdir /home/X11R6
ln -s /home/X11R6 /usr
The next step is to run the pre-installation script. This script makes some
preliminary checks of your system. For some OSs, it may tell you to install
new versions of some system components before proceeding with the installa-
tion. This script may also remove some outdated files and symbolic links
from a previous installation that could cause problems.
For the purposes of these installation instructions, it is assumed that you
have downloaded all the files to the /var/tmp directory. If you've put them
in another directory, that's fine -- just replace all occurrences of
``/var/tmp'' with the name of that directory.
To run the pre-installation script, go to /usr/X11R6 and run it:
cd /usr/X11R6
sh /var/tmp/preinst.sh
The next step is to make the installation utility executable. To do this,
make sure the `extract' file is in the same directory as all the X*.tgz
files, and run the following from that directory:
chmod 755 extract
The installation utility ``extract'' is used to unpack the .tgz files that
make up the XFree86 distribution. The .tgz files are gzipped tar files.
However, ``tar'' in its standard form on most OSs is not well-suited to the
task of installing XFree86. The extract utility is a modified version of GNU
tar 1.12 built with the options required to make it suitable for installing
XFree86. The source for extract is available from the same place you got the
XFree86 distribution.
It is strongly recommended that you use the provided extract utility to
unpack the XFree86 distribution. If you choose to ignore this and use some-
thing else, we don't want to hear from you if you run into problems. It is
also important that you do not rename the extract utility. If renamed, it
behaves just like the normal GNU tar.
To extract the XFree86 binaries, run the following as root:
cd /usr/X11R6
/var/tmp/extract /var/tmp/X*.tgz
Once the required .tgz files have been extracted, run the post installation
script:
cd /usr/X11R6
sh /var/tmp/postinst.sh
For OSs which use ldconfig, you may need to run ldconfig or reboot to com-
plete the installation. The postinst.sh script should run ldconfig correctly
for you if you are using Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD. For other OSs
that use ldconfig, check how it normally gets run at boot time.
Once the installation is complete, you should run the one of the configura-
tion utilities (XF86Setup or xf86config) to configure the X server. This is
essential for a new installation but optional for an existing installation.
Refer to the QuickStart document for configuration information.
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