Submitted by The X.Org community is proud to announce the release of X11R7.2, the third modular release of the X Window System. It incorporates significant stability and correctness fixes, including
improved autoconfiguration heuristics, enhanced support for GL-based compositing managers such as Compiz and Beryl, and improved support for PCI systems with multiple domains. It also incorporates the new, more extensible XACE security policy framework.
X11 R7.2 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I went to the link to see if I could get to the release notes. I went all over their “wiki” but I didn’t find them. I found one place that looked like it might have a link, but the link was invalid. Does anyone have a link to the release notes?
I found these 4 lines of info on the announce mailing list. I was unable to find full release notes too (the changelog does not cut it IMHO, way too detailed and not coherant).
Says they’re forthcoming here:
http://ftp.x.org/pub/X11R7.2/
From http://wiki.x.org/wiki/X11R72Release
“NOTE: Due to documentation toolchain bugs, these links do not work yet. Sorry. We’re working on it.”
otherwise the link should have been
http://ftp.x.org/pub/X11R7.2/doc/RELNOTES.html (doesn’t work)
Still not used to frequent X updates. Great to see this level of activity on such a terrific and vital project.
Once this hits the FreeBSD stable ports tree I will be happy
XFCE 4.4, xorg 7.2 …what more could a desktop ever need?
nice pr0n wallpapers?
Or a nice calendar like XXXbuntu. X^D
For anyone that want to know when new xorg goes in FreeBSD ports tree, visit here: http://tinyurl.com/2pdu6s
I can’t wait for xorg 7.3, finally hotplugging and easy multi-monitors with XRandr..
Oh and 7.2 should be very good in terms of stability.
Should be in Ubuntu Feisty Fawn too, they’ve been waiting on it since November actually: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/84731
You mean monitor hot-plugging? I don’t even know if Windows can do this, I thought it’s a bit dangerous for hardware, but it’d be cool anyway.
When I started using Linux I’ve seen XFree as some really boring old relic and that we couldn’t expect more from it. It’s a surprise that it picked up so much steam after X.org forking.
Yeah, monitor hotplugging with proper resolution switching. You can do it already with some git code, if you have an Intel graphics adapter. See my blog post:
http://www.happyassassin.net/2007/02/06/randr-12-mode-and-display-s…
and Ross Burton’s:
http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/randr-2007-02-06-17-50
Ross’ post has info about some third party Ubuntu packages. We’ll likely have some experimental packages in Mandriva soon (parallel packages that install alongside the regular X server).
I’ll settle for being able to plug my laptop into a projector and have it work.
(“Work” defined as either creating a second display, a second display extension of my current desktop (preferred), or resizing and cloning my current desktop like Windows does)
EDIT: Oh, that IS what they meant. Sadly, I’ve got an nVidia graphics card, so I’ll have to wait a bit.
Edited 2007-02-16 06:41
Well thats for xorg 7.3 which is at least 6 or 7 months off… nvidia likely will be creating new drivers to support the new features of it. nvidia probably will support them before the end of 2007, as nvidia does have some involvement in the xorg development process now.
This video has some info about Xorg 7.2 and projector support. As well as whats in the future for 7.3
http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/linux.conf.au/2007/video/monday/mond…
Well, that works great… I’ve given a presentation some time ago with my old laptop, just plugged in the projector and it worked. Didn’t have to do anything to set it up, rather boring…
As I understood it, XFree was (and is) a very bureaucratic monolith, and many members acted like arthritic dinosaurs through a swamp. Why, I can’t say, but I think there are stories to be found on the Web. By contrast, X.org was founded by people who wanted badly to make things better but weren’t allowed to. Of course it would move so much faster and implement many new things.
“When I started using Linux I’ve seen XFree as some really boring old relic and that we couldn’t expect more from it. “
In the 80s, when PCs were boring 80×25 DOS boxes, X allowed you to run an application on machine A and see (and use) it on machine B.
Boring old relic?
If you look at the beginning of X, e. g. the Xerox Alto or Xerox Star, you’ll notice it even had some of the stuff that is “new” in “Vista” (or even in MacOS X): a calendar, a clock, mail notification…
Boring old relic?
I don’t think so…
X has gotten the standard for GUI. Not only for PCs, for workstations as well (SGI, HP, Sun etc.).
By the way, some time ago, I’ve read that the path component /usr/X11R6/ should me moved into /usr/local/ (which would really make sense), so something like X11R6@ -> ../X11R7 or vice versa hopefully won’t be neccessary.
“””You mean monitor hot-plugging? I don’t even know if Windows can do this, I thought it’s a bit dangerous for hardware, but it’d be cool anyway.”””
Yeah. I think about the monitors that I have had that sent incorrect EDID information.
You’d think it would be easy for the *manufacturer* to get something like that right for *their own product*. But it’s amazing how many monitors get it wrong.
I guess they figure it doesn’t matter, as long as “The Driver” (i.e. the Windows .inf file) has the right information.
We don’t have to wait that long for randr 1.2. It’ll be in xorg-server 1.3 to be released shortly. 7.3 will include xorg-server 1.4.
Yes, Xorg 7.3 is the one we’ve all been waiting for. I need this for switching to my 2x 20″ panels when I dock my T42p. Unfortunately, it has an ATi FireGL, and the red company is usually slower than the green company at getting their proprietary Xorg driver up to date.
Others have noted the fast pace of Xorg development since the XFree86 fork. One associated effect is that we’re forcing the graphics vendors to pay attention. Every time Xorg adds new hooks, users whine at the graphics vendors until their drivers implement the hooks. Especially now that Intel is working with the community to keep their drivers in sync with Xorg development, this puts pressure on the red and green guys. Even though many of us have needs that are not adequately served by the Intel graphics chipsets, we all benefit from the “why doesn’t this work with my Radeon, too?” effect.
Wasn’t this supposed to be released back in late november/early december or something like that?
The RC3 was out for a few months, I know that.
*EDIT* Ahh, here it is.
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/ReleaseSchedule
It was supposed to be released december 11th. so it’s two months late. I wonder why.
Edited 2007-02-16 03:54
What took so long?
Probably quality code.
The parts that forms xorg 7.2, and most important xorg-server 1.2, has been out for some time already. It’s just the announcement that’s late.
i’m using it since two weeks ago, i’m using gentoo
its not as revolutionary, but it works fine with GLX-based compositing managers.
I have always been wandering when X12 is coming out
I have always been wandering when X12 is coming out
I would guess only when the underlying protocol (as opposed to the implementation) has fundamental changes. There were rapid changes to the protocol in the 1980s until it stabilized with X11 in 1987.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
Yeah, me too
There’s –probably– a reason why they wont move from 11 Or isn’t there?
EDIT: Nevermind, I got my answers
Edited 2007-02-16 15:06
looking forward to all the hotplugging goodness in 7.3
is this still on a (rough) six month schedule?
.’. SUSE 10.4 should have it in Sept…….
I *always* am surprised at how *dull* announcements like this are. Linux/X/OpenOffice/Other *nix application it doesn’t matter. To be fair Linus tries to inject a little bit of humor. I know that Linux doesn’t have the 500million advertising budget of Vista, but a little glitz never hurts.
Most announcements are dull because they are incremental improvements that happen quite often and thus get incorporated into distros quite often. There’s also nothing to sell. There’s also a lot of transparency so any hype is shot down early.
In the Windows world, releases happen quite infrequently so Microsoft has to get over the complacently of Windows users who are happen doing what they’re already doing. They also depend on Windows sales so they will oversell and make a big deal over the smallest things and downplay serious problems. There’s little transparency so the hype tends to be shot down later as people actually use the product.
Personally, I prefer the open source way of doing things.
I *always* am surprised at how *dull* announcements like this are. Linux/X/OpenOffice/Other *nix application it doesn’t matter. To be fair Linus tries to inject a little bit of humor. I know that Linux doesn’t have the 500million advertising budget of Vista, but a little glitz never hurts.
Excuse me, how Linus/Linux is involved with Xorg development?
He meant how Linus releases kernels.
Well, Linus’ announcements are mostly pretty fun to read… So I guess he meant the X.org announcement, which was indeed rather dull.
That’s what I meant. Read again
I haven’t been following it closely of late, so, now with this release, and the umpteen tarballs to download, untar, configure with whatever proper options are necessary, make, make install (and all in whatever proper order) has anyone come up with a decent script that does at least some of this for you?
(yes, as someone who does software packaging at my work, going from the old edit one or two files, and running make World on the whole thing, to the new modular method with 287 separate components, doesn’t seem to make my job easier…)
has anyone come up with a decent script that does at least some of this for you?
Yes, there are a lots of scripts that automate this process – I guess each linux distro that follows the release process incrementally has one
As you do packaging work, I guess you have to come up with an infrastructure that automates the process. Again, there might be several of those, I only know FreeBSD’s, which works like you’d expect it: one command to install (and even package if you run make package-recursive) everything.
I don’t know whom you expect to this for you – users expect this from their distribution maintainers. If you don’t use a distribution (you are yourself the distributor and packager) – than I would say this was your responsibility. On the other hand, you could probably borrow from other’s work. If you are a linux guy, I’d probably look at how the archlinux folks do their thing – but you will find probably an infrastructure there (similarly to FreeBSD) that is generic, as it handles automation of building packages for everything, not just xorg.
Gentoo portage can do it for you too. You don’t have to really run Gentoo in order to use Portage, just download the starter bits and use an alternate install root, and artificially insert the dependencies your current distro provides (like glibc).
Or you could install it into a chroot directory and keep a complete mini-Gentoo system inside there.
That’d turn Portage into a Xorg compiler script.
Yes, we do have an internal system (src and dest dir are mounted in AFS volumes, which are distributed via a program called depot. smake (another internal tool) is used for the actual compiling/installing bits) I didn’t write these, they go back quite a ways before my time.
“I don’t know whom you expect to this for you – users expect this from their distribution maintainers.”
I don’t expect anyone to do the compiling for me, I’m just pointing out that going from a single (or 7 split) tarball, editing the host.def and running make, to having to individually compile close to 300 seperate components for a single collection is a _lot_ more work. It’d be nice if the x.org folks themselves provided something to assist in this regard. Having done this as much as I have, you get to know that there are some projects that write their stuff keeping distro packagers in mind, and others that don’t. (“$DESTDIR? why, isn’t everyone installing locally to a single machine?” sigh…) That said, I don’t intend to be pointing fingers at the X.org folks, otherwise they seem to be putting out good stuff.
I wonder for instance if this is why Patrick V. is still using 6.9 for Slack.
I think Xorg does have a build script, called something like build-from-tarballs.sh, but it’s a bit hard to find in their documentation.
great release! congratulations!
As a long time Linux user, I am amazed at how fast Linux is being worked on now. I am convinced that the work done in the last two years is more than the work in the past 5 years prior to that.
The speed of which new things are being developed, from KDE, Xorg, Gnome, the kernel, and many other apps such as Beryl, the next two years are going to be even more amazing.
Good work guys, good work.
I totally agree.