Release Notes for XFree86[tm] 4.3.0
The XFree86 Project, Inc
26 February 2003
Abstract
This document contains some information about features present in
XFree86 4.3.0 and their status.
1. Introduction to the 4.x Release Series
XFree86 4.0 was the first official release of the new XFree86 4 series. The
current release (4.3.0) is the latest in that series. XFree86 4 represents a
significant redesign of the XFree86 X server. Not all of the hardware
drivers from 3.3.x have been ported to 4.x yet, but conversely, 4.x has sup-
port for a lot of hardware that is not supported in 3.3.x. Our Driver Status
document summarizes how the hardware driver support compares between 3.3.6
and 4.3.0. Please check there first before downloading 4.3.0.
The 4.0.1 release introduced a new graphical configuration tool, "xf86cfg",
and a text mode interface was added to it for the 4.0.2 release. It is the
preferred configuration tool provided by with XFree86. The trusty old text-
based tool "xf86config" can also be used for generating X server config
files. In addition to these tools, the XFree86 server has some built in
capabilities for generating a base config file. This works well for most
hardware, and in most cases is the easiest way to get an initial config file.
To try it out, just run (as root):
XFree86 -configure
Each of these configuration options will give you a reasonable starting point
for a suitable configuration file. We've put some effort into documenting
the 4.3.0 config file format, and you can find that information in the
XF86Config manual page. Check there and the driver-specific manual pages and
the related documentation for further information. References to this
driver-specific information can be found in the tables below (section 3.,
page 1).
We have plans to make the configuration file optional in a future release.
The XFree86 server is close to being able to automatically determine a com-
plete base configuration for most popular hardware configurations.
Before you go to download and install the binary distributions for this
release, please have a quick read through the Installation Document. It may
save you some time and help you figure out which of the binary releases you
need.
The next section describes what is new in the latest version (4.3.0) compared
with the previous full release (4.2.0). The other sections below describe
some of the new features and changes between 3.3.x and 4.0. There are lot's
of new features, and we definitely don't have enough space to cover them all
here.
2. Summary of new features in 4.3.0.
2.1 Video Driver Enhancements
o ATI Radeon 9x00 2D support added, and 3D support added for the Radeon
8500, 9000, 9100, and M9. The 3D support for the Radeon now includes
hardware TCL.
o Support added to the i810 driver for Intel 845G, 852GM, 855GM and 865G
integrated graphics chipsets, including 2D, 3D (DRI) and XVideo. Sup-
port for the 830M has been improved, and XVideo support added.
o National Semiconductor SC1x00, GX1, and GX2 chipset support added with
the "nsc" driver.
o Support added for the NVIDIA nForce2 integrated graphics, GeForce 4,
and GeForce FX.
o Major SiS driver updates for some of the latest chipsets. Unfortu-
nately the SiS 3D driver has had to be disabled because no one has yet
taken up the challenge to port it to Mesa 4.x.
o The s3virge driver now has support for double scan modes on the DX
(with XVideo disabled).
o Updates to the savage driver, including fixing problems with the
TwisterK, and problems with incorrect memory size detection.
o 2D acceleration added for the Trident CyberBladeXP/Ai1 chipsets.
o Support for big endian architectures has been added to the C&T driver.
o Various updates and bug fixes have been made to most other drivers.
2.2 Input Driver Enhancements
o The mouse driver now has automatic protocol detection for PS/2 mice.
o Several new input drivers have been added, including tek4957, jamstudio
(js_x), fpit, palmax, and ur98 (Linux only).
2.3 X Server and Extension Updates
o Support for the RandR extension has been partially integrated into the
XFree86 server, providing support for resizing the root window at run-
time.
o The Mesa version used for OpenGLŪ 1.3 and DRI driver support has been
updated to 4.0.4.
o The XFree86 server's hot keys (including those for switching modes and
virtual terminals) can now be configured via XKB. Previously they were
hard coded. An X server configuration option has been added to allow
the VT switching hot keys to be disabled.
2.4 Client and Library Updates
o An Xcursor library providing support for alpha blended (ARGB) and ani-
mated cursors. Two Xcursor themes are provided (redglass and white-
glass), as well as the default "core" theme (the traditional cursors).
o Xterm updated to patch level 173, including the following bugfixes:
o Fix two infinite loops (special cases of mouse hilite tracking,
DECUDK parsing).
o Make repainting of the 256-color example work properly.
o Modify parser tables to improve detection of malformed control
sequences, making xterm behave more like a real DEC terminal.
o Fix a problem with the blinking cursor which occasionally caused
xterm to pause until a key was pressed.
o Fix improper parsing of multiple items in the ttyModes resource.
and the following improvements:
o Modify xterm to invoke luit.
o Add simple session management client capabilities.
o Add a modifyCursorKeys resource to control how the shift- and sim-
ilar modifiers are used to make a cursor escape sequence.
o Check if the printerCommand resource string is empty, and use this
to allow the user to disable printer function.
o Sort the options list which is displayed in help- and syntax-mes-
sages at runtime to simplify maintenance.
2.5 I18N and Font Updates
o FreeType2 updated to version 2.1.1.
o The "freetype" X server font backend has undergone a partial rewrite.
The new version is based on FreeType 2, and handles TrueType (including
OpenType/TTF), OpenType/CFF and Type 1 fonts. The old "type1" backend
is now deprecated, and is only used for CIDFonts by default.
o A new utility called "mkfontscale", which builds fonts.scale files, has
been added.
o The Xft library has undergone a major restructuring, and is now split
into fontconfig (which deals with font discovery and configuration and
is independent from X), and Xft itself (which uses fontconfig and deals
with font rasterisation and rendering. The format of the Xft font con-
figuration files has changed in an incompatible manner.
o Support has been added to the Xft library to do rendering with the core
X11 protocol. This allows clients using this library to render to X
servers that don't have support for the RENDER extension.
o There has been a significant reworking of the XKB support to allow
multi-layout configurations. Multi-layout configurations provide a
flexible way of supporting multiple language layouts and switching
between them.
2.6 OS Support Updates
o Updates for Darwin/Mac OS X, including:
o Indirect GLX acceleration added.
o Smaller memory footprint and faster 2-D drawing in rootless mode.
o Full screen mode now uses shadowfb for much faster 2-D drawing.
o Native fonts can be used on MacOS X.
o Various Cygwin support updates, including an experimental rootless X
server for Cygwin/XFree86.
o AMD x86-64 support (primarily for Linux so far) has been added.
o Support added for OpenBSD/sparc64.
o Major OS/2 support updates.
o Major SCO OpenServer updates.
o Multi-head support has been added for 460GX-based Itanium systems, and
for ZX1-based Itanium2 systems.
o Experimental support for SunOS/Solaris on UltraSPARC systems.
A more complete list of changes can be found in the CHANGELOG that is part of
the XFree86 source tree. It can also be viewed online at our CVSweb server
<URL:http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/pro-
grams/Xserver/hw/xfree86/CHANGELOG?rev=HEAD>.
3. Drivers
3.1 Video Drivers
XFree86 4.3.0 includes the following video drivers:
+--------------+--------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
|Driver Name | Description | Further Information |
+--------------+--------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
|apm | Alliance Pro Motion | README.apm |
|ark | Ark Logic | |
|ati | ATI | README.ati, README.r128, r128(4), radeon(4) |
|chips | Chips & Technologies | README.chips, chips(4) |
|cirrus | Cirrus Logic | |
|cyrix (*) | Cyrix MediaGX | README.cyrix |
|fbdev | Linux framebuffer device | fbdev(4) |
|glide | Glide2x (3Dfx) | glide(4) |
|glint | 3Dlabs, TI | glint(4) |
|i128 | Number Nine | README.I128, i128(4) |
|i740 | Intel i740 | README.i740 |
|i810 | Intel i8xx | README.i810, i810(4) |
|imstt | Integrated Micro Solns | |
|mga | Matrox | mga(4) |
|neomagic | NeoMagic | neomagic(4) |
|newport (-) | SGI Newport | README.newport, newport(4) |
|nsc | National Semiconductor | nsc(4) |
|nv | NVIDIA | nv(4) |
|rendition | Rendition | README.rendition, rendition(4) |
|s3 | S3 (not ViRGE or Savage) | |
|s3virge | S3 ViRGE | README.s3virge, s3virge(4) |
|savage | S3 Savage | savage(4) |
|siliconmotion | Silicon Motion | siliconmotion(4) |
|sis | SiS | README.SiS, sis(4) |
|sunbw2 (+) | Sun bw2 | |
|suncg14 (+) | Sun cg14 | |
|suncg3 (+) | Sun cg3 | |
|suncg6 (+) | Sun GX and Turbo GX | |
|sunffb (+) | Sun Creator/3D, Elite 3D | |
|sunleo (+) | Sun Leo (ZX) | |
|suntcx (+) | Sun TCX | |
|tdfx | 3Dfx | tdfx(4) |
|tga | DEC TGA | README.DECtga |
|trident | Trident | trident(4) |
|tseng | Tseng Labs | |
|vesa | VESA | vesa(4) |
|vga | Generic VGA | vga(4) |
|vmware | VMWare guest OS | vmware(4) |
+--------------+--------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
Drivers marked with (*) are present in a preliminary form in this release,
but are not complete and/or stable yet.
Drivers marked with (+) are for Linux/Sparc only.
Drivers marked with (-) are for Linux/mips only.
Darwin/Mac OS X uses IOKit drivers and does not use the module loader drivers
listed above. Further information can be found in README.Darwin.
XFree86 4.3.0 includes the following input drivers:
3.2 Input Drivers
+------------+----------------------------------+---------------------+
|Driver Name | Description | Further Information |
+------------+----------------------------------+---------------------+
|calcomp | Calcomp | |
|citron | Citron | citron(4) |
|digitaledge | DigitalEdge | |
|dmc | DMC | dmc(4) |
|dynapro | Dynapro | |
|elographics | EloGraphics | |
|elographics | EloGraphics | |
|fpit | Fujitsu Stylistic Tablet PCs | fpit(4) |
|hyperpen | HyperPen | |
|js_x | JamStudio pentablet | js_x(4) |
|kbd | generic keyboards (alternate) | kbd(4) |
|keyboard | generic keyboards | keyboard(4) |
|microtouch | MicroTouch | |
|mouse | most mouse devices | mouse(4) |
|mutouch | MicroTouch | |
|palmax | Palmax PD1000/PD1100 | palmax(4) |
|penmount | PenMount | |
|spaceorb | SpaceOrb | |
|summa | SummaGraphics | |
|tek4957 | Tektronix 4957 tablet | tek4957(4) |
|ur98(*) | Union Reality UR-F98 headtracker | ur98(4) |
|void | dummy device | void(4) |
|wacom | Wacom tablets | wacom(4) |
+------------+----------------------------------+---------------------+
Drivers marked with (*) are available for Linux only.
4. Overview of XFree86 4.x.
Unlike XFree86 3.3.x where there are multiple X server binaries, each of
which drive different hardware, XFree86 4.3.0 has a single X server binary
called XFree86. This binary can either have one or more video drivers linked
in statically, or, more usually, dynamically load the video drivers and other
modules that are needed.
XFree86 4.3.0 has X server support for most UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating
systems on Intel/x86 platforms, plus support for Linux on Alpha, PowerPC,
IA-64, Sparc, and Mips platforms, and for Darwin on PowerPC. Work on support
for additional architectures and operating systems is in progress, and is
planned for future releases.
4.1 Loader and Modules
The XFree86 X server has a built-in run-time loader, donated by Metro Link
<URL:http://www.metrolink.com>. This loader can load normal object files and
libraries in most of the commonly used formats. Since the loader doesn't
rely on an operating system's native dynamic loader support, it works on
platforms that don't provide this feature, and makes it possible for the mod-
ules to be operating system independent (although not, of course, independent
of CPU architecture). This means that a module compiled on Linux/x86 can be
loaded by an X server running on Solaris/x86, or FreeBSD, or even OS/2.
One of the main benefits of this loader is that when modules are updated,
they do not need to be recompiled for every different operating system. In
the future we plan to take advantage of this to provide more frequent driver
module updates in between major releases.
The loader in version 4.3.0 has support for Intel (x86), Alpha and PowerPC
platforms. It also has preliminary support for Sparc platforms.
The X server makes use of modules for video drivers, X server extensions,
font rasterisers, input device drivers, framebuffer layers (like mfb, cfb,
etc), and internal components used by some drivers (like XAA),
The module interfaces (API and ABI) used in this release is still subject to
change without notice. While we will attempt to provide backward compatibil-
ity for the module interfaces as of the 4.0 release (meaning that 4.0 modules
will work with future core X server binaries), we cannot guarantee this.
Note about module security
The XFree86 X server runs with root privileges, i.e. the X server
loadable modules also run with these privileges. For this reason
we recommend that all users be careful to only use loadable modules
from reliable sources, otherwise the introduction of viruses and
contaminated code can occur and wreak havoc on your system. We
hope to have a mechanism for signing/verifying the modules that we
provide available in a future release.
4.2 Configuration File
The X server configuration file format has been extended to handle some of
the new functionality. The xf86config utility can be used to generate a
basic config file, that may require some manual editing. The X server also
has preliminary support for generating a basic config file. This is done by
running (as root) "XFree86 -configure". Alternatively, the sample config
file XF86Config.eg that is installed in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 may be used as a
starting point. The xf86cfg utility can also be used to create a new config-
uration file or to edit an existing one. The XF86Setup utility is currently
not usable, but work is continuing in this area.
The main changes are covered here, but please refer to the XF86Config(5) man-
ual page for more comprehensive information:
o The Module section is used to load server extension modules and font
modules, but not XInput drivers. The .so suffix should no longer be
specified with module names. Options may be supplied for modules by
loading the module via a SubSection instead of the usual Load keyword.
The bitmap module is the only font module that is loaded by default. No
server extensions are loaded by default, but some are built-in to the
server. It is strongly recommended that the extension module containing
a range of small miscellaneous extensions (extmod) be loaded because
some commonly used things won't work correctly without it. The follow-
ing example shows how to load all the server extensions plus the Type1
and TrueType fonts support, and a commented example that shows how to
pass options to an extension (this one is for loading the misc exten-
sions (extmod) with the XFree86-VidModeExtension disabled):
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "record"
Load "glx"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
# SubSection "extmod"
# Option "Omit XFree86-VidModeExtension"
# EndSubSection
EndSection
o Option flags have been extended and are now used more widely in the con-
fig file. Options flags come in two main types. The first type is
exactly like the old form:
Option "name"
where the option just has a name specified. The name is case insensi-
tive, and white space and underscore characters are ignored. The second
type consists of a name and a value:
Option "name" "value"
The value is passed transparently as a string to the code that uses the
option. Common value formats are integer, boolean, real, string and
frequency. The following boolean option values are recognised as mean-
ing TRUE: "true", "yes", "on", "1", and no value. The values recognised
as FALSE are "false", "no", "off", "0". In addition to this, "no" may
be prepended to the name of a boolean option to indicate that it is
false. Frequency options can have the strings Hz, kHz, or MHz appended
to the numerical value specified.
Note: the value must always be enclosed in double quotes ("), even when
it is numerical.
o The ServerFlags section now accepts its parameters as Options instead of
as special keywords. The older keyword format is still recognised for
compatibility purposes, but is deprecated and support for it will likely
be dropped in a future release. The DPMS and screen save timeout values
are now specified in the ServerFlags section rather than elsewhere
(because they are global parameters, not screen-specific). This example
shows the defaults for these:
Option "blank time" "10"
Option "standby time" "20"
Option "suspend time" "30"
Option "off time" "40"
The new option AllowDeactivateGrabs allows deactivating any active grab
with the key sequence Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Divide and the new option Allow-
ClosedownGrabs allows closing the connection to the grabbing client with
the key sequence Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Multiply. Note that these options are
off by default as they allow users to remove the grab used by screen
saver/locker programs.
o The Keyboard, Pointer and XInput sections have been replaced by a more
general InputDevice section. The old Keyboard and Pointer sections are
still recognised for compatibility purposes, but they are discommended
and support for them may be dropped in future releases. The old XInput
sections are no longer recognised. The keywords from the old sections
are expressed as Options in the InputDevice sections. The following
example shows typical InputDevice sections for the core mouse and key-
board.
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard 1"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 5"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse 1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "SampleRate" "80"
EndSection
o The Monitor section is mostly unchanged. The main difference is that a
set of VESA modes is defined internally in the server, and so for most
monitors, it isn't necessary to specify any modes explicitly in the Mon-
itor section. There is also a new Modes section that can be used to
define a set of modes separately from the Monitor section, and the Moni-
tor section may "include" them with the "UseModes" keyword. The Monitor
section may also include Options. Options that are monitor-specific,
like the "DPMS" and "Sync on Green" options are best specified in the
Monitor sections.
o The Device sections are mostly unchanged. The main difference is the
new (and mandatory) Driver keyword that specifies which video driver
should be loaded to drive the video card. Another difference is the
BusID keyword that is used to specify which of possibly multiple video
cards the Device section is for. The following is an example for a
Matrox card:
Section "Device"
Identifier "MGA 1"
Driver "mga"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection
o The Screen sections are mostly unchanged. The old Driver keyword is no
longer used, and a mandatory Identifier keyword has been added. The
DefaultColorDepth keyword has been renamed to DefaultDepth.
o A new section called ServerLayout has been added to allow the layout of
the screens and the selection of input devices to be specified. The
ServerLayout sections may also include options that are normally found
in the ServerFlags section. Multiple ServerLayout sections may be pre-
sent, and selected from the command line. The following example shows a
ServerLayout section for a dual-headed configuration with two Matrox
cards, and two mice:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout 1"
Screen "MGA 1"
Screen "MGA 2" RightOf "MGA 1"
InputDevice "Keyboard 1" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse 1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Mouse 2" "SendCoreEvents"
Option "BlankTime" "5"
EndSection
See the XF86Config(5) man page for a more detailed explanation of the
format of the new ServerLayout section.
The config file search patch has been extended, with the directories /etc/X11
and /usr/X11R6/etc/X11 being added. The full search path details are docu-
mented in the XF86Config manual page.
4.3 Command Line Options
The following new X server command line options have been added:
-depth n
This specifies the colour depth that the server is run-
ning at. The default is 8 for most drivers. Most
drivers support the values 8, 15, 16 and 24. Some
drivers also support the values 1 and 4. Some drivers
may also support other depths. Note that the depth is
different from the ``bpp'' that was specified with previ-
ous versions. The depth is the number of bits in each
pixel that are significant in determining the pixel's
value. The bpp is the total size occupied by each pixel,
including bits that are not used. The old -bpp option is
no longer recognised because it isn't a good way of spec-
ifying the server behaviour.
-fbbpp n
This specifies the bpp format to use for the framebuffer.
This may be used in 24-bit mode to force a framebuffer
format that is different from what the driver chooses by
default. In most cases there should be no need to use
this option.
-pixmap24
This specifies that the client-side pixmap format should
be the packed 24-bit format that was often used by the
3.3.x servers. The default is the more common 32-bit
format. There should normally be no need to use this
option.
-pixmap32
This specifies that the client-side pixmap format should
be the sparse 32-bit format. This is the default, so
there should normally be no need to use this option.
-layout name
This specifies which ServerLayout section in the config
file to use. When this option is not specified, the
first ServerLayout section is used. When there is no
ServerLayout section, the first Screen section is used.
-screen name
This specifies which Screen section in the config file to
use. When this option is not specified, the first
ServerLayout section is used. When there is no Server-
Layout section, the first Screen section is used.
-keyboard name
This specifies which InputDevice section in the config
file to use for the core keyboard. This option may be
used in conjunction with the -screen option.
-pointer name
This specifies which InputDevice section in the config
file to use for the core pointer. This option may be
used in conjunction with the -screen option.
-modulepath path
This specifies the module search path. The path should
be a comma-separated list of absolute directory paths to
search for server modules. When specified here, it over-
rides the value specified in the config file. This
option is only available when the server is started by
the root user.
-logfile file
This specifies the log file name. When specified here,
it overrides the default value. This option is only
available when the server is started by the root user.
-scanpci
This specifies that the scanpci module should be loaded
and executed. This does a scan of the PCI bus.
-logverbose [n]
This options specifies the verbosity level to use for the
log file. The default is 3.
The following X server command line options have been changed since 3.3.x:
-verbose [n]
This option specifies the verbosity level to use for the
server messages that get written to stderr. It may be
specified multiple times to increase the verbosity level
(as with 3.3.x), or the verbosity level may be specified
explicitly as a number. The default verbosity level is
0.
-xf86config filename
This option has been extended to allow non-root users to
specify a relative config file name. The config file
search path will be used to locate the file in this case.
This makes it possible for users to choose from multiple
config files that the the sysadmin has provided.
A more complete list of XFree86 X server command line options can be found in
the XFree86(1) manual page.
4.4 XAA
The XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA) has been completely rewritten
from scratch for XFree86 4.x. Most drivers implement acceleration by making
use of the XAA module.
4.5 Multi-head
Some multi-head configurations are supported in XFree86 4.x, primarily with
multiple PCI/AGP cards. However, this is an area that is still being worked
on, and we expect that the range of configurations for which it works well
will increase in future releases. A configuration that is known to work well
in most cases is multiple (supported) Matrox cards.
One of the main problems is with drivers not sufficiently initialising cards
that were not initialised at boot time. This has been improved somewhat with
the INT10 support that is used by most drivers (which allows secondary card
to be "soft-booted", but in some cases there are other issues that still need
to be resolved. Some combinations can be made to work better by changing
which card is the primary card (either by using a different PCI slot, or by
changing the system BIOS's preference for the primary card).
4.6 Xinerama
Xinerama is an X server extension that allows multiple physical screens to
behave as a single screen. With traditional multi-head in X11, windows can-
not span or cross physical screens. Xinerama removes this limitation. Xin-
erama does, however, require that the physical screens all have the same root
depth, so it isn't possible, for example, to use an 8-bit screen together
with a 16-bit screen in Xinerama mode.
Xinerama is not enabled by default, and can be enabled with the +xinerama
command line option for the X server.
Xinerama was included with X11R6.4. The version included in XFree86 4.x was
completely rewritten for improved performance and correctness.
Known problems:
o Most window managers are not Xinerama-aware, and so some operations like
window placement and resizing might not behave in an ideal way. This is
an issue that needs to be dealt with in the individual window managers,
and isn't specifically an XFree86 problem.
4.7 DGA version 2
DGA 2.0 is included in 4.3.0, but is not implemented by all drivers. Prelim-
inary documentation for the client libraries can be found in the README.DGA
document. A good degree of backwards compatibility with version 1.0 is pro-
vided.
4.8 DDC
The VESA(R) Display Data Channel (DDC[tm]) standard allows the monitor to
tell the video card (or on some cases the computer directly) about itself;
particularly the supported screen resolutions and refresh rates.
Partial or complete DDC support is available in most of the video drivers.
DDC is enabled by default, but can be disabled with a "Device" section entry:
Option "NoDDC". We have support for DDC versions 1 and 2; these can be dis-
abled independently with Option "NoDDC1" and Option "NoDDC2".
At startup the server prints out DDC information from the display, and can
use this information to set or warn about monitor sync limits (but not mode-
lines yet). For some drivers, the X server's new -configure option uses the
DDC information when generating the config file.
4.8.1 Changed behavior caused by DDC.
Several drivers uses DDC information to set the screen size and pitch. This
can be overridden by explicitly resetting it to the and non-DDC default value
75 with the -dpi 75 command line option for the X server, or by specifying
appropriate screen dimensions with the "DisplaySize" keyword in the "Monitor"
section of the config file.
4.9 GLX and the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI)
Precision Insight <URL:http://www.precisioninsight.com> was provided with
funding and support from Red Hat <URL:http://www.redhat.com>, SGI
<URL:http://www.sgi.com>, 3Dfx <URL:http://www.3dfx.com>, Intel
<URL:http://www.intel.com>, ATI <URL:http://www.ati.com>, and Matrox
<URL:http://www.matrox.com> to integrate the GLX extension for 3D rendering
in an X11 window. The 3D core rendering component is the Mesa
<URL:http://www.mesa3d.org> library. SGI has released the sources to the GLX
extension framework under an open license, which essentially provides the
glue between the 3D library and this windowing system. Precision Insight has
integrated these components into the XFree86 X Server and added a Direct Ren-
dering Infrastructure (DRI). Direct Rendering provides a highly optimized
path for sending 3D data directly to the graphics hardware. This release
provides a complete implementation of direct rendering support for the 3Dfx
Banshee, Voodoo3 and Voodoo5 graphics cards, as well as the Intel i810/i815
cards, ATI Rage 128, and Matrox G400. Updated information on DRI compatible
drivers can be found at the DRI Project <URL:http://dri.sourceforge.net> on
SourceForge <URL:http://www.sourceforge.net>.
4.10 XVideo Extension (Xv)
The XVideo extension is supported in XFree86 4.x. An XvQueryPortAttributes
function has been added as well as support for XvImages. XvImages are XIm-
ages in alternate color spaces such as YUV and can be passed to the server
through shared memory segments. This allows clients to display YUV data with
high quality hardware scaling and filtering.
4.11 X Rendering Extension (Render)
The X Rendering extension provides a 2D rendering model that more closely
matches application demands and hardware capabilities. It provides a render-
ing model derived from Plan 9 based on Porter/Duff image composition rather
than binary raster operations.
Using simple compositing operators provided by most hardware, Render can draw
anti-aliased text and geometric objects as well as perform translucent image
overlays and other image operations not possible with the core X rendering
system.
XFree86 4.3.0 provides a partial implementation of Render sufficient for
drawing anti-aliased text and image composition. Still to be implemented are
geometric primitives and affine transformation of images.
Unlike the core protocol, Render provides no font support for applications,
rather it allows applications to upload glyphs for display on the screen.
This allows the client greater control over text rendering and complete
access to the available font information while still providing hardware
acceleration. The Xft library provides font access for Render applications.
4.11.1 The Xft Library
On the client side, the Xft library provides access to fonts for applications
using the FreeType library, version 2. FreeType currently supports Type1 and
TrueType font files, a future release is expected to support BDF and PCF
files as well, so Render applications will have access to the complete range
of fonts available to core applications. One important thing to note is that
Xft uses the vertical size of the monitor to compute accurate pixel sizes for
provided point sizes; if your monitor doesn't provide accurate information
via DDC, you may want to add that information to XF86Config.
To allow a graceful transition for applications moving from core text render-
ing to the Render extension, Xft can use either core fonts or FreeType and
the Render extension for text. By default, Xft is configured to support both
core fonts and FreeType fonts using the supplied version of FreeType 2. See
the section on FreeType support in Xft for instructions on configuring
XFree86 to use an existing FreeType installation.
The Xft library uses a configuration file, XftConfig, which contains informa-
tion about which directories contain font files and also provides a sophisti-
cated font aliasing mechanism. Documentation for that file is included in
the Xft(3) man page.
4.11.2 FreeType support in Xft
XFree86 4.3.0 includes sources for FreeType version 2.1.1, and, by default,
they are built and installed automatically.
4.11.3 Application Support For Anti-Aliased Text
Only three applications have been modified in XFree86 4.3.0 to work with the
Render extension and the Xft and FreeType libraries to provide anti-aliased
text. Xterm, xditview and x11perf. Migration of other applications may
occur in future releases.
By default, xterm uses core fonts through the standard core API. It has a
command line option and associated resource to direct it to use Xft instead:
o -fa family / .VT100.faceName: family. Selects the font family to use.
Xditview will use Xft instead of the core API by default. X11perf includes
tests to measure the performance of text rendered in three ways, anti-
aliased, anti-aliased with sub-pixel sampling and regular chunky text, but
through the Render extension, a path which is currently somewhat slower than
core text.
4.12 Other extensions
The XFree86-Misc extension has not been fully ported to the new server archi-
tecture yet. This should be completed in a future release.
The XFree86-VidModeExtension extension has been updated, and mostly ported to
the new server architecture. The area of mode validation needs further work,
and the extension should be used with care. This extension has support for
changing the gamma setting at run-time, for modes where this is possible.
The xgamma utility makes use of this feature. Compatibility with the 3.3.x
version of the extension is provided. The missing parts of this extension
and some new features should be completed in a future release.
4.13 xedit
Xedit has several new features, including:
o An embedded lisp interpreter that allows easier extension of the editor.
o Several new syntax highlight modes, and indentation rules for C and
Lisp.
o Flexible search/replace interface that allows regex matches.
o Please refer to xedit(1) for more details.
4.14 Font support
Details about the font support in XFree86 4.x can be found in the
README.fonts document.
4.15 TrueType support
XFree86 4.x comes with two TrueType backends, known as `xfsft' (the
"freetype" module) and `X-TrueType' (the "xtt" module). Both of these back-
ends are based on the FreeType library.
4.16 CID font support
Support for CID-keyed fonts is included in XFree86 4.x. The CID-keyed font
format was designed by Adobe Systems <URL:http://www.adobe.com> for fonts
with large character sets. The CID-keyed font support in XFree86 was donated
by SGI <URL:http://www.sgi.com>. See the LICENSE document for a copy of the
CID Font Code Public License.
4.17 Internationalisation of the scalable font backends
XFree86 4.x has a ``fontenc'' layer to allow the scalable font backends to
use a common method of font re-encoding. This re-encoding makes it possible
to uses fonts in encodings other than their their native encoding. This
layer is used by the Type1 and Speedo backends and the `xfsft' version of the
TrueType backend. The `X-TrueType' version of the TrueType backend uses a
different re-encoding method based on loadable encoding modules.
4.18 Large font optimisation
The glyph metrics array, which all the X clients using a particular font have
access to, is placed in shared memory, so as to reduce redundant memory con-
sumption. For non-local clients, the glyph metrics array is transmitted in a
compressed format.
4.19 Unicode/ISO 10646 support
What is included in 4.x:
o All ``-misc-fixed-*'' BDF fonts are now available in the ISO10646-1
encoding and cover at least the 614 characters found in ISO
8859-{1-5,7-10,14,15}, CP1252, and MES-1. The non-bold fonts also cover
all Windows Glyph List 4 (WGL4) characters, including those found in all
8-bit MS-DOS/Windows code pages. The 8-bit variants of the ``-misc-
fixed-*'' BDF fonts (ISO8859-1, ISO8859-2, KOI8-R, etc.) have all been
automatically generated from the new ISO10646-1 master fonts.
o Some ``-misc-fixed-*'' BDF ISO10646-1 fonts now cover a comprehensive
Unicode repertoire of over 3000 characters including all Latin, Greek,
Cyrillic, Armenian, Gregorian, Hebrew, IPA, and APL characters, plus
numerous scientific, typographic, technical, and backwards-compatibility
symbols. Some of these fonts also cover Arabic, Ethiopian, Thai,
Han/Kanji, Hangul, full ISO 8859, and more. For the 6x13 font there is
now a 12x13ja Kanji extension and for the 9x18 font there is a 18x18ja
Kanji/Han/Hangul extension, which covers all ISO-2022-JP-2 (RFC 1554)
characters. The 9x18 font can also be used to implement simple combining
characters by accent overstriking. For more information, read Markus
Kuhn's UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ <URL:http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/uni-
code.html>.
o Mark Leisher's ClearlyU proportional font (similar to Computer Modern).
o ISO 10646/Unicode UTF-8 Level 1 support added to xterm (enabled with the
-u8 option).
o Both the xfsft (the "freetype" module) and the X-TrueType (the "xtt"
module) TrueType font backends support Unicode-encoded fonts.
4.20 Luxi fonts from Bigelow and Holmes
XFree86 now includes the ``Luxi'' family of Type 1 fonts and TrueType fonts.
This family consists of the fonts ``Luxi Serif'', ``Luxi Sans'' and
``Luxi Mono'' in Roman, oblique, bold and bold oblique variants. The True-
Type version have glyphs covering the basic ASCII Unicode range, the Latin 1
range, as well as the Extended Latin range and some additional punctuation
characters. In particular, these fonts include all the glyphs needed for
ISO 8859 parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 13 and 15, as well as all the glyphs in the
Adobe Standard encoding and the Windows 3.1 character set.
The glyph coverage of the Type 1 versions is somewhat reduced, and only cov-
ers ISO 8859 parts 1, 2 and 15 as well as the Adobe Standard encoding.
The Luxi fonts are original designs by Kris Holmes and Charles Bigelow from
Bigelow and Holmes Inc., who developed the Luxi typeface designs in Ikarus
digital format. URW++ Design and Development GmbH converted the Ikarus for-
mat fonts to TrueType and Type 1 font programs and implemented the grid-fit-
ting "hints" and kerning tables in the Luxi fonts.
The license terms for the Luxi fonts are included in the file `COPYRIGHT.BH',
as well as in the License document. For further information, please contact
<design@bigelowandholmes.com> or <info@urwpp.de>, or consult the URW++ web
site <URL:http://www.urwpp.de>.
4.21 Directory rearrangements
Some changes to the installed XFree86 directory structure have been imple-
mented for 4.x. One important change is a modified search path for the X
server's XF86Config file. The details of this can be found in the XF86Config
manual page. The other main change is moving most of the run-time configura-
tion files to /etc/X11, with symbolic links in the old /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
location pointing to the new location. Some run-time generated files are now
located under the appropriate subdirectories of /var, again with the relevant
symbolic links in the old location.
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