Kdrive (Xvesa) dropped from Xorg

The Xvesa (Kdrive) server got merged into Xorg awhile back. It was in Xfree86, but Xorg dropped it. Now they have dropped it again.

I read earlier today that it was seriously neglected anyway. The T2 people were trying to compile it in Xorg 7.4 back in Feb. this year, but then Rene Rebe found out this:

Even more annoying is that the kdrive xvesa was deleted from
the xorg-server git repository some weeks ago!

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/commit/?id=6d21fbf00648307208146aca0837ec63ea490659

Too bad the commit message does not even indicate why, ...

...quoted from T2 mail list:

http://www.mail-archive.com/xorg@lists.freedesktop.org/msg05155.html

Remi Cardona replied:

Because it had been severely broken by other changes in the server and
no-one really cared about it anyway.

You'll probably be much better off using kdrive's Xfbdev on top of
uvesafb or another kernel fb driver.

Yes, I might follow-up the latter recommendation. We used to use Xfbdev in Puppy way back.... v2 I think. There's even a bit of Xfbdev-specific code still in /usr/X11R7/xwin I think.

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Comments

Xfbdev was in Pup v1.x
Username: BarryK
No, further back, early to mid 2005. The "Xfbdev Video Wizard" (the script was called "framebufferwizard") was in Puppy 1.0.4: http://puppylinux.com/news/news2005a.htm ...do a search for "xfbdev". I forgot that there ever was such a wizard. Kernel framebuffer support has progressed, apparently there's new stuff in the 2.6.29 kernel. So worth another look.

xvesa valuable asset
Username: raymundo dionicio
"I am just a Linux user seeing sadly my preferred video layer struggling to survive. In a side note of interest to APUP: http://www.archlinux.org/news/441/ signed by Eduardo Romero on 2009-04-02 [b]'i686 support not being dropped'[/b] 'Hi, Arch Linux users, we are pleased to inform you that the i686 architecture is not going to be dropped from Arch Linux. It all was part of an April Fools joke, in which all the developers and the forum moderators played a big part....'

Go with XfbDev
Username: happypuppy
"XfbDev has one major advantage: You can select the refresh rate (it's not fixed to 60Hz as in Kdrive / Xvesa) Great news for those running old CRT monitors and quality LCD displays.

Another reason for dropping Xvesa
Username: happypuppy
"Another disadvantage of Xvesa is the mouse cursor doesn't respond for 5 seconds after the desktop appears on screen.

Modesetting
Username: BarryK
"Yeah, the 2.6.29 kernel has inbuilt video modesetting, see intro here: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_29 However, it is too immature to actually use. Oh, here's another place to read about what's going on in the kernel: http://lwn.net/Kernel/

spup_devx_011.sfs
Username: 8-bit
"I run Puppy from VirtualBox in Vista. And the virtual interface to my hardware does not seem to support Xorg. So unless I am missing something, I need XVesa to be able to continue to do so. Also, there are a lot of end users that have video hardware that is unsupported by Xorg. So the option for a generic video driver is still needed. My 2 cents worth.

The future XServer for Puppy
Username: happypuppy
"And this is the future: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=xorg_wayland&num=1

VirtualBox - maybe is like Qemu?
Username: Pizzasgood
"8-bit: I don't know about VirtualBox, but in Qemu the display sort of dies after xorgwizard does the probing. Somebody on the forum explained what was actually happening and how to fix it, but I don't remember who or how. But the good news is that it doesn't actually die, so if you can finish the xorgwizard blindly, the wizard will finish and the screen will reactivate when Xorg starts. So maybe VirtualBox has the same problem. If so, you should be able to just mash the enter key for a while after the display dies, and it will come back up.

Opera can't see this site
Username: drongo
"Barry, I can see this new layout OK in Firefox but not in Opera 9.64 (on XP). All I get is the icons not the text and hyperlinks. I'm in the UK and about to go to bed so I'm not going to check it in Puppy tonight (actually it's morning now!)

It works with Opera 10
Username: happypuppy
"Use Opera 10 Alpha: http://snapshot.opera.com/windows/o100s_1413.exe It works perfectly :)

Opera Ok now
Username: drongo
"Well what do you know, everything is OK now. I tried the Register, Distrowatch, the puppy forum and Tuxmachines last night and they all rendered perfectly. I don't know what it was, I was getting the icons from the next page down (avatar rather than Puppy logo). Maybe a local cache problem? I'd previously visited using Seamonkey yesterday. Sorry for the false alarm.

Tags: woof