I''ve never changed xfree servers before, and it looks kind of tough. I''ll probably attempt it tomorrow after I have a good run though the documentation. I''m scared of crapping out my X server and trying to figure out how to reinstall if things go bad. Just curious if anyone else has tried ie yet. I have a Radeon 8500 on my linux box, so I was hoping it''d speed up any DRI/OpenGL stuff (like blender). I was also curious if it enabled or enhanced the hardware DVD decoders on-chip? On a slightly related tangent, does anyone have much experience with Xine or MPlayer? I got Mplayer to build on my machine with the GUI interface, but two weird things. One is that it can only play DVD from the command line with: mplayer -dvd 1 dvd-device /dev/cdrom (mandrake lists my dvd as /dev/cdrom) Even when it works though, it''s dropping frames like mad. Should I have it run under a particular video driver? As for Xine, I can''t find docs that say how to get it working with libdvdcss. I compiled libdvdcss fine, but I don''t know how to link it to Xine so that Xine can use it (and libdvdread) to play encrypted DVD''s.

I suggest you wait a while on XFree 4.3 unless you can find a real reason to upgrade. Although, for the vast majority of people, it works fine without any tweaking.

Hardware acceleration support for the Radeon line sounds like it was given a nice upgrade (if that''s a "real reason" or not is up to you ; all video card lines seem to have been given some nice fixes from what I see in the changelog).

About MPlayer: If you can, use XVideo for video output. The newer your version of XFree86, the better XVideo support you''ll get. I''ve never used the GUI for MPlayer (I normally use Totem when I want to use a GUI). Also, make sure you''re using DMA mode for your DVD drive (it could already be doing so, all of my HDD and CD-ROM drives use DMA by default without tweaking anything with 2.4.20).

About Xine: Uh, I can''t help you with that really, Debian did it all for me in the deb''s installation script. I don''t have a DVD drive yet either, so I don''t really have any way to seriously test it.

I emerged xfree 4.3.0 yesterday under gentoo linux. Works fine, haven''t (yet) had any issues with it. If I do, I will post letting you know! Haven''t really noticed any ''visible'' improvements, other than the new mouse cursors, which are all IMO ugly, so I use the old one!

Stu

Anyone know where the extract utility is? I ran the Xinstall.sh, and it says I need the extract utility. However, when I go to the ftp site to look for it in the Common directory, there''s no extract file whatsoever.

Sigh, I need to go back to Gentoo, unfortunately, there''s something Gentoo doesn''t like about my other system. Which means I either backup this computer and install Gentoo on this one (which has had it before in the past), or I try and figure out why Gentoo doesn''t like a multi-homed computer (I keep getting spurrious IRQ interrupts if I try to install Gentoo on my other system with two NIC''s installed...but I don''t get that with Mandrake installed).

From reading the release notes about 4.3.0, it adds 3d compatibility for the Radeon 8500, so I definitely want to install it now.

quote:

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Original post by Dauntless
(I keep getting spurrious IRQ interrupts if I try to install Gentoo on my other system with two NIC's installed...but I don't get that with Mandrake installed).

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Is this interrupt a Bad Thing™? I got it on my older Gentoo box, but I didn't notice any side effects other than a message in the kernel log.

[edited by - erluk on March 5, 2003 4:38:46 AM]

Spurious interrupts are usually some sort of hardware conflict.

Mandrake probably does a better job of sort those things out. (though the generic kernel is really good, too. not sure why you''d have a problem. Do both NICs work?)

That''s the weird thing, only one of the NIC''s work.

When I run ifconfig eth0 I don''t get a message stating that it''s UP and RUNNING, nor does it get an IP address from dhcpcd. However, when I do ifconfig eth1, it gets an IP address from the DHCP server, and once I configure the /sbin/route and give fill in the nameservers, it''s up and running. When I do a modprove and lsmod, everything''s listed fine too.

eth0 is an older 10m only NIC card that uses the natsemi module. And I forgot what the other one uses (it''s a Speedstream 10/100 NIC). If I only plug in one NIC card (either one) everything works fine.