Should Matrox focus on XFree86 or X.org?

[piaxVirus]

Seeing as most of the major Linux distributions have decided to switch to X.org, and Matrox is dangerously low on resources. Should the Matrox driver developer(s) focus on XFree86, X.org, or both?

[Marshmallowman]

Have they?

Which ones have confirmed support for X.org, I think quite a few have a foot in both...I would like X.org if mandrake has decides on X.org

[piaxVirus]

Distros that are switching too or also supporting X.org:
Redhat X.org only
Fedora will support both
DebianX.org only
Slackware X.org only
Gentoo X.org only
Mandrake X.org only
OpenBSD X.org only

[Greebe]

Matrox only focuses on what they can do for the least $$$ these days. If they can't see profit from it (like they have in the past) they won't do... or put a minimalist effort into for marketing reasons (like w/ Linux).

[leech]

Well, considering from what I've read/been told on the net, the XFree86 driver should be compatible with X.org, at least for now. I'm not sure how far the team at X.org will split the fork though...

Leech

[Ribbit]

They should release the chip specs to interested OSS developers, who can use them to develop high-quality (i.e. not nVidia-style) drivers for whatever system they like, freeing Matrox of both resources and the problem of making such decisions.

Not that I'll hold my breath.

Back on topic: XFree86 is dead. No-one likes the licence change, or David Dawes for that matter. X.org is where all the development is taking place - e.g. even though it's still basically XFree86-4.4 at this point, the released version already includes work to speed up the Render extension. There are also plans to merge KeithP's compositing work, and in fact there's a CVS branch with part of that work merged already.

So my vote goes to X.org only.

[leech]

I completely agree with everything that Ribbit just said.

Leech

[AlgoRhythm]

Agreed. There is phenomenal support for the G400 under Linux. DVD-Max type functionality, etc.

AlgoRhythm

[The PIT]

Why should they focus on a small market share in the first place. Focusing on Linux isn't going to bring them large amounts of dosh is it?

[leech]

Uhm, as it stands they're focusing on small market share even in the windows world. First they dropped Win98 support, which limits greatly people who will buy it, plus not many can afford/need three monitors...

The Parhelia is a specialty card, and really only for geeks and high-end business markets. And it just happens to be that a lot of geeks and high-end businesses are starting to use linux.

Let's look at it this way... If we just took 100 random people, probably 70 or so still run Win98, 25 or so run Win2k/XP and the last 5 probably run either linux or have a mac. Now since already 70 of those people can't just buy a parhelia and slap it into their systems without also upgrading to 2k/XP (which would be 100-300 dollars depending how they did it). That leaves 25 people who already have 2k/xp. Now out of that many people, maybe 5 will buy the Parhelia due to wanting/needing one of their features. With the 5 left that use Mac/Linux maybe there will be 2, and only 1 of that will want/need linux... but that's still 1 more that will plop down the 350-400 bucks....

To make a long story short, Matrox having linux support for the Parhelia allows them to sell at least some more units than they otherwise would.

I think the main reason Matrox listed Linux support from the beginning for the Parhelia was because they knew they could use their reputation, like they have been using for the past 5-6 years..... From the G400 days when they opened up almost all of the specs, and it was (and still IS) the BEST supported card under linux. I personally bought my Parhelia because I thought that they'd support linux at least as well as they did with the G400, and I can bet that a lot of other people did as well.....

Too bad we guessed wrong... Damn PR.

Sorry for the rant...

Leech

[G400SG16mb]

Exactly, the specialised professional markets Matrox is aiming for now are increasingly going back to Unix.

[Kooldino]

What's the difference between x.org and xfree86?

[spadnos]

Originally posted by Kooldino
What's the difference between x.org and xfree86?

x.org is a fork of XFree86, due to license changes in XFree86 version 4.3 or 4.4.

So, they started out the same. X.org is getting a lot of development done because they're actually open source (XFree86 is actually kind of like a "moderated open source" - you can contribute, but only if the registered developers like you).

- Steve

[Kooldino]

Gotcha. So does one have any distinct advantages over the other at the moment?

[GehRehmee]

Originally posted by piaxVirus
Distros that are switching too or also supporting X.org:
Debian X.org only

Nope. Debian does not, and quite possibly will never, support X.org. They're waiting on X.org's more modular replacement.