Various notes

[Pavel Roskin <pavel_roskin at geocities dot com>]

Hello!

I have tried the current binaries of XFree86. Here are some notes that
could help developers make it less frustrating in the future.

Everything has been tested on Windows NT Workstation 4.0 + SP6. It also
has cygwin1.dll from Cygwin 1.1 in the $PATH (in /bin).

It is very hard to login to ftp://sourceware.cygnus.com/ (as anynomous, of
course). I had to leave a script that downloaded the files this night.
There is only one mirror in USA, and the new drivers were not there as of
yesterday (they are today). IMHO Cygnus/Redhat can afford a better ftp
server for developers.

There are no README files on the ftp server explaining what is what. I
don't need any clients, because I'm going to login into Linux boxes with
XDM, but how could I guess that cygwin-xfree-x11r6.4-cygwin-B20.1.tar.bz2
contains clients? Any reason to use "cygwin" twice in the name? Especially
frustrating was the fact that Lesstif was there. Why should I download it
without knowing what is is?

Similarly, xfree86-bin.tar.bz2 doesn't tell me that it contains both
servers and the clients. The official XFree86 binaries from
ftp.xfree86.org have all the servers packaged as separate files.

The same applies to the drivers. I don't have M$VC, why should I download
the sources? 

There are readme files with the drivers but they don't say how to install
them. I put ntux_ddx.dll to /bin in the hope that it's Ok. By the way,
only the Debug version seem to work for me. If the Release ntux_ddx.dll is
in $PATH, test.exe (both versions) exits silently. The same happens if
ntux_ddx.dll is missing

xf_init.exe doesn't warn me that xfddx.dll is not found in the Windows
system directory. Also I would expect it remind me to reboot.

gcc_tst.exe crashes if it cannot find xf_vfs.dll. Otherwise is works both
with the Release and Debug versions of xf_vfs.dll.

No problems with xfddx.dll yet (Ati Mach 64). xfddx.readme.txt says "This 
release of xfddx must be installed manually." Hopefully, this is not
true. I was using xf_init.exe and it worked.

xfmap.readme.txt doesn't even mention how to install xfmap.sys. Hopefully,
it is not used yet (well, ntux_ddx.readme.txt says that it is)

Now the time comes to run the XServer. Xvnc.exe shows a message that it
could not open /usr/lib/X11/rdb. Why do you configure it this way if RDB
is in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt? Using "-co" helps, but I could not make
it find the font "fixed". Probably it cannot decompress fonts, I don't
know. Also it tends to display every message in a separate window, which
is highly annoying.

XWin.exe dies with the message "no screens found". I could make it work by
specifying "-screen". Unfortunately, XWin.exe has some problems with
keyboard. Cursor arrows don't work in rxvt. Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is ignored.
Color depth 16bpp doesn't work well. Also XWin.exe runs on the full screen
only and it crashes if I switch to another window from the Task Manager.
Finally, XWin.exe doesn't seem to use ntux_ddx.dll - shouldn't it go to
the contrib directory?

XntUx.exe also requires "-screen". For most settings it displays some
garbage and it doesn't accept my input. My NT screen is configured as
1024x768x16. I have found that if I run it as "XntUx.exe -screen 0
512x768x16" it actually displays a screen 512x768x16 occupying the right
hand side of the NT screen. But it doesn't accept my input.

Removing xf_vfs.dll doesn't change anything. If I remove ntux_ddx.dll
XntUx.exe still runs but it displays nothing. Shouldn't it show a warning?

For your information, here are all the warnings it prints:

C:\usr\X11R6\bin>XntUx.exe -screen 0 512x768x16
scheduling timer: Invalid argument
_XSERVTransmkdir: Owner of /tmp/.X11-unix should be set to root
trying to get pointer to video RAM, size = 001803a0
ntux_ddx : mapped buffer at 14930000
pvfb->pXWDHeader = 14930000
using video memory at 14930000
screen 0

screenInfo->ScreenPtr[0] = 0a04f770
CreateWindow = 0045ad30
DestroyWindow = 0045ad70
CreatePixmap = 0045a790
DestroyPixmap = 0045a89c
PEXExtensionInit: Couldn't open default PEX font file  Roman_M
error opening security policy file
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xserver/SecurityPolicy

After that XntUx.exe runs until I interrupt it.

Regards,
Pavel Roskin