[Request for Testing] X.Org X11 CVS rpms are now in rawhide

Mike A. Harris mharris at www.linux.org.uk
Sun Aug 15 11:43:35 UTC 2004


Over the last couple of weeks I've been preparing new X.Org CVS rpm
packages for rawhide.  After several rounds of internal testing by
a few people, I've stomped out the obvious upgrade breakages that
turned up.  Now it is time to get more widespread testing for two
purposes:

1) To help upstream X.Org get wider testing coverage before the
final release of X11R6.8.0, which is currently slated for
August 25th barring any slippage, and get any software bugs that
are found reported to X.Org bugzilla on freedesktop.org.

2) To get distribution testing for Fedora Core 3 of the new X
release, as we will be shipping 6.8.0 in FC3.

*** IMPORTANT ***

If you upgrade or install the new CVS rpms and experience any bugs
in the X.Org X server, video drivers, client libraries, or other
parts of the X11 release, they need to be filed in *X.Org* bugzilla,
so that they stand a chance of getting fixed before 6.8.0 is
finalized.

This is very important, because bugs filed in Red Hat bugzilla
will NOT likely be seen by the many people who are working
upstream that do not look at Red Hat bugzilla.  The proper place to
file X.Org bugs, is at:

     http://bugs.freedesktop.org in the "xorg" component.

By doing this, bug tracking is centralized, and developers can look
in one spot to find what bugs there are in X.  It also helps all
distributions out, by being able to query bugs, and minimizes
duplication of effort amongst distributions and X developers.

Before reporting a bug in bugzilla, query bugzilla first to see
if someone else has already reported the issue or not.  If someone
has, add yourself to CC, and add your own information to the report,
as this helps confirm issues happen with multiple people, and that
often raises the priority of the issue.

When filing a bug upstream, describe your problem very thorougly with
as much detail as possible, and be sure to give the exact steps to
reproduce the problem in detail.  If a problem is not 100%
reproduceable, please indicate that in your report and tell any
details which might help X.Org developers reproduce the problem.

You should automatically attach your X server config file and log
file to *ALL* bug reports filed in bugzilla, even if you think the
information is not useful for the bug report, as developers usually
do get some useful information from both of these, and it is easier
if the bug report starts out with this information than it is to
ask for it later and wait for someone to attach it.  Also, if you
experience crashes, wether using DRI or not, please attach your
complete /var/log/messages file as well, and the output of "lsmod".

When attaching files to bug reports, as always, attach one file per 
attachment as single individual uncompressed file attachments so
developers can click on the file in a web browser and see it right
away without having to download it, unzip, and try to keep track
of it.

We're trying to help X.Org test this release out, so it is very
important that bug reports go to their bugzilla.


If you find a flaw in the rpm packaging, or an upgrade related bug,
script bug, or have found a bug that is Red Hat specific, and not
likely to be a X.Org generic bug, then of course please report
the issue in Red Hat bugzilla, including all of the information
and files mentioned above for upstream X.Org bug reports.


Things to test:

- Different video modes and color depths
- Xvideo (run various video player applications)
- DRI
- Xinerama
- DMX (Distributed Multihead X - like Xinerama, but works over a
        network with multiple machines)
- Switching VTs to console and back
- Suspend and resume on laptops et al.
- Anything else you can think of.

The more test coverage things get ahead of time, the more bugs
that will likely be fixed for 6.8.0, and the less problems people
will experience when FC3 comes out.  ;o)


Additional Notes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With every new X release, people often wonder about various things,
such as:

Q) What is new in this release?
A) Lots.  Read the CVS Changelog for the full details, as the
    release notes haven't been written yet.  If you're brave enough,
    volunteer to write the release notes on xorg at freedesktop.org.

Q) Will this work with my Nvidia or ATI binary drivers?
A) Generally speaking, you will always have to test that yourself to
    find out.  One of the goals of X.Org is to retain module ABI
    compatibility with XFree86 4.4.0.  To the best of our knowledge,
    the 6.7.0 release did good with that.  To the best of my own
    knowledge, there are no ABI changes in 6.8.0, however part of
    the testing process is to find that out.  If there are any ABI
    changes, X.Org would like to fix them if at all possible, to
    ensure the maximum level of compatibility, without losing any
    new functionality.

Q) What if it doesn't work with my binary drivers?
A) Report this in X.Org bugzilla.  It could be an ABI problem, or
    it could be a problem in the binary driver.  Developers can try
    to determine this only after a problem has been reported, then
    if possible hopefully the problem can be resolved.  If an ABI
    compatibility issue happens which turns out is required for some
    new functionality, then 3rd party driver vendors will have to
    recompile and/or enhance their driver to work with the new
    ABI before people can use them.  3rd parties such as ATI and
    Nvidia will most likely release new drivers to support the
    new X release, some time after it has been released in a major
    OS release.  (this is what usually happens).

Q) Does the new release have translucent window support?
A) Yes, and no, and maybe.  The new release currently has several
    new X extensions, including "XFIXES", "DAMAGE", and "COMPOSITE".
    The COMPOSITE extension is *EXPERIMENTAL ONLY* at this point
    in time, is disabled by default until you enable it in the
    config file, and is currently broken although Keith and others
    are hacking diligently to try and get it working for 6.8.0.  It
    will be off by default no matter what, but hopefully it will
    work properly when enabled in 6.8.0.  If you decide to test it,
    do so realizing it is experimental only, and not ready for
    primetime yet.  You WILL experience bugs/flaws/problems, and
    may find it partially works or not at all.  It may slow down
    your system to a crawl, or it may eat your family.  ;o)  If
    you need assistance trying it out, subscribe to xorg mailing
    lists and ask for help.


That's about all I can think of off the top of my head for now, so
have fun testing the new release, I hope it is reasonably stable
at this point, and that any major probs get worked out before
6.8.0 by all of the bug reports that will be going to the
freedesktop.org bugzilla.  ;o)

One more note...  Please do not email me directly for help, as I
probably won't respond.  I usually get 10 million emails when I
send out a notice like this, and I can't help 10 million people
one at a time.  ;o)  That is what mailing lists are for, so please
use xorg mailing lists or Red Hat mailing lists to ask for help
with anything if you have trouble configuring things, or whatnot.

Other than that, thanks in advance for taking the time to pound
on the new X11 release and report bugs to X.Org bugzilla.  Your
test coverage will help to ensure this release is of good
quality!

Enjoy 6.7.99-2, and look forward to frequent updates between now
and the release of 6.8.0!

Take care,
TTYL





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