Buggy Thoughts on VL5.9*

[Pita]

I have not tried the latest VL59-rc*

However, I would like to raise the question of how much of the problems with VL59* is on account of those new buggy xorg files? Do they have to be used at all or would the ones of VL58 still do and incorporate the new xorg stuff once the dust has mor or less settled.

If I would be a newcomer I would have to abandon the idea to use slackware12 and any of its clones at all and then either stick with Windoof or try another Linux distro. In my case I could not stick with Windows since I do not have it in my system and know nothing about it.

With the first release of slack12 I could not get X up at all. The next upgrade of xorg trying to get out of X the system would freeze. Now with the next batch when trying to use a program requiring full screen such as tuxtype, megamario, etc the program crashes as well as X.

One wonders how such buggy xorgs could be released, giving a black mark for Linux OS.

[The Headacher]

However, I would like to raise the question of how much of the problems with VL59* is on account of those new buggy xorg files? Do they have to be used at all or would the ones of VL58 still do and incorporate the new xorg stuff once the dust has more or less settled.

Well, you could build xorg 6.9 on VL 59, but I'm not sure how well programs built for xorg 7 will work on 6.

The switch to xorg 7 was inevitable, and I'm sure it was much too late for some of the eyecandy junkies. I wouldn't have minded if Slack 12 would've come with xorg 6.9, but I don't think there's a way back now... However, I agree with you completely: it's a shame it's such a problematic piece of software to get working. Apparently, the new "vesa" driver in xorg 7 isn't very reliable. in 6.x that was the one safe driver that "always" worked.

[M0E-lnx]

Although, I agree that the move to xorg 7 was inevitable and long overdue, I dont see why they went with 7.3 for a final release of VL.

7.2 would have been just fine and a lot more stable IMO. An xorg upgrade even from 7.0 to 7.3 would have been as easy as a slapt-get --install and it would have minimal side effects since xorg 7.0 and later is all modular releases.

I'm still running one of the old Pseudo releases (way before the first alpha got released) and I installed Xorg 7.2 on it... works much better and more stable IMO.

Just my $0.02

[Joe1962]

Something weird going on, or is it me? I just installed 5.9RC1 and gslapt tells me I have xorg 7.2, but xorg-server 1.4. Isn't 7.2 supposed to use 1.2 and 7.3 uses 1.4? I remember we went back to 7.2 on one of the betas, but then went forward to 7.3 again, or did we? Forgive me if I sound baffled...

[uelsk8s]

I am mostly to blame for the switch to 7.3. We were having problems with 7.2 that we could not get over and at the same time slack-current came out with updated 7.3 packages that fixed all the problems we were having.
The problem is 7.3 introduced its own problems. because the problems in 7.3 are limited to only a few types of hardware (savage i810 vesa) instead of across all hardware I thought this would be the better path to take. Unfortunately if you have one of those problem cards you may not agree. the buggy drivers are know about by the folks at X.org and are said to have been fixed in their git repos.
There are no real 7.2 or 7.3 packages since the switch to modular Xorg. We made a 7.2 package to maintain some sort of backwards compatability. that is to keep a package upgrade from installing an older xorg version. that fake 7.2 package needs to be fixed still in 5.9.


Uelsk8s

[M0E-lnx]

If that is the case, then someone should build those drivers from git and get them fixed

Too bad I dont have the time for it anymore

[Joe1962]

There are no real 7.2 or 7.3 packages since the switch to modular Xorg. We made a 7.2 package to maintain some sort of backwards compatability. that is to keep a package upgrade from installing an older xorg version. that fake 7.2 package needs to be fixed still in 5.9.

Ah, ok. I haven't really had time to even look into the modular xorg stuff. However, I forgot to mention that I found out about the 7.2 package because of trying to gslapt some packages and they failed wanting xorg >=7.3. Guess we need either a fake 7.3 package, or a lot of repackaging to fix the deps.

[uelsk8s]

I have not been successful in getting a good working savage driver from git yet. I did find an old laptop with a savage chipset so i can actually test that one here.

We will build a fake package for 7.3 so we shouldnt have to repackage yet Again.