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- README for XFree86[tm] 4.0
-
- The XFree86 Project, Inc
-
- 26 February 2000
-
- Abstract
-
- XFree86 is a port of X11R6.4 that supports several UNIX(R) and
- UNIX-like operating systems on Intel and other platforms.
-
- 1. What is XFree86 4.0?
-
- XFree86 4.0 is the first
- full release of the new XFree86 4 series. The road to XFree86 4 began in
- mid 1997, with serious work starting in early 1998. The first pre-4.0 snap-
- shot was released in mid 1999, and 4.0 was released in early 2000. A lot has
- been completed in that time, and even more has been started since the "4.0"
- design was drafted. The result is that this release contains a lot of new
- features, some new drivers, and some significant performance improvements.
- This release contains components in various stages of development, ranging
- from stable and well tested to new and not-so-well tested. One the other
- side, there are drivers from the 3.3.x series that have not yet been ported
- to XFree86 4. Most of these are for old hardware. To find more information
- about which hardware is supported, see the Driver Status document.
-
- XFree86 4 uses a very modular design. We had hoped to finalise and fully
- document the driver module API/ABI in time for the 4.0 release, but instead
- we are planning to have this done for a subsequent release. We will try
- where possible to retain backward compatibility with the module interfaces in
- 4.0 in future releases, but we can't make guarantees about that until the
- interfaces have been fully documented.
-
- Information on this release's features and their status can be found in the
- Release Notes.
-
- Information about obtaining and installing binary distributions of this
- release can be found in the Installation Document.
-
- Copyright and Licensing information for this release can be found in the
- License Document.
-
- 2. Developers
-
- If you would like to work on the development of XFree86 4, then it is recom-
- mended that you join the XFree86 development team
- <URL:http://www.xfree86.org:/developer.html>. That way you will have access
- to the latest source and to other developers.
-
- 3. How to get XFree86 4.0
-
- XFree86 4.0 can be found at the XFree86 ftp server
- <URL:ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.0/>, and at mirrors of this server.
- Information about obtaining and installing binary distributions of this
- release can be found in the Installation Document. Information about obtain-
- ing the release in source form is given below.
-
- The source for version 4.0 is split into three tarballs: X400src-1.tgz,
- X400src-2.tgz, X400src-3.tgz. The first contains everything except the fonts
- and general X11 documentation. It is sufficient for building XFree86 is you
- already have a set of fonts. The second contains the fonts and the source
- for the general X11 documentation. The third contains the general X11 docu-
- mentation in hardcopy format.
-
- A source patch relative to version 3.9.18 is also available. Because of its
- size, it is split into two parts. The patch files are 3.9.18-4.0.diff1.gz
- and 3.9.18-4.0.diff2.gz. These patches should be applied to a clean 3.9.18
- source tree, working from the directory containing the xc/ directory. The
- patches should be applied by running:
-
- gunzip < 3.9.18-4.0.diff1.gz | patch -p0 -E
- gunzip < 3.9.18-4.0.diff2.gz | patch -p0 -E
-
- The contrib part of the distribution has now been folded into the main source
- tree, so a separate contrib tarball is no longer required.
-
- To format the XFree86 documentation, the latest version of our doctools pack-
- age. That is available as doctools-1.1.2.tgz.
-
- 4. Reporting Bugs
-
- Bugs should be reported to <XFree86@XFree86.org>. Before reporting bugs,
- please check the X server log file, which can be found at
- /var/log/XFree86.0.log on most platforms. If you can't resolve the problem
- yourself, send the entire log file with your bug report. Please don't edit
- out what you think might not be important. The information contained in the
- log file is there to make it easier for the developers to determine what is
- going wrong when there are problems.
-
- If you have patches (bug fixes or enhancements, etc) that you'd like to sub-
- mit for inclusion in a future version of XFree86, please send them to
- <fixes@XFree86.org>.
-
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