[gentoo-amd64] Re: nvidia-drivers is bloking xorg-server

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Sebastian Redl <sebastian.redl@getdesigned.at> posted
46EE991D.1010201@getdesigned.at, excerpted below, on  Mon, 17 Sep 2007
17:11:25 +0200:

> So the dependency is required by x11-7.3, which is also experimental. (I
> just updated to 7.2.) Mask that, too.

[output reformatted a bit for posting]

$epkginfo xorg-server
Package: x11-base/xorg-server
Herd: x11
Maintainer: x11
Location: /p/x11-base/xorg-server

Keywords: xorg-server-1.2.0-r3:  mips

Keywords: xorg-server-1.3.0.0:  ppc ppc64
 alpha arm amd64 hppa x86 sparc ia64 sh

Keywords: xorg-server-1.4-r1:  ~arm ~hppa ~x86 ~amd64
 ~ppc ~sh ~x86-fbsd ~ia64 ~alpha ~sparc ~ppc64 ~mips


So xorg-server-1.3 is no longer experimental.

However, note that Gentoo (or more precisely, the several of the Gentoo 
projects in question including the Gentoo xorg folks) recently instituted 
a policy of no longer waiting on the developers of closed source modules 
to catch up, when the software is stable on open source module supported 
hardware.

IMO, it's about time.  Now those who are slowing down progress get to 
deal with some of the headaches they were causing everyone else.

So it's possible that newer stable versions won't work so well on 
hardware dependent on closed source modules, including NVidia and newer 
ATI Radeon (for now, AMD is releasing specs now, but it'll take a few 
months to work them into new drivers) video cards for those who want 3D 
support.  The legacy versions should remain in the tree for some time, 
and users dependent on them can mask newer versions as necessary.

> The nv driver does not provide 3d capabilities.

Unfortunately true, alto they are working on reverse engineering 3D 
support.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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