Whither X?

[Jan Henrik Sylvester]

Peter Jeremy wrote:
> On 2009-May-15 19:28:28 -0500, Robert Noland <rnoland at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>>While FreeBSD does support hot-plugging of mice via moused, it doesn't
>>support any other types of input devices.
> 
> Actually, hot-plugging keyboards _is_ supported and works according
> to some testing last night.

There are other common input devices than keyboards and plain mice. I 
guess I am not the only laptop user with a Synaptics Touchpad that has 
so much more functionality with the xorg driver than with the one of 
FreeBSD. At the same time I would like to be able to attach and remove 
my usb mouse at any time.

The way the configuration has to be setup for this to work changed a 
couple of times from xorg 6.9 to the current version -- it was sometimes 
pretty hard to get the information. Anyhow, considering how difficult 
such a common setup was (and still is) to make work, I think xorg is 
going in the right direction overall. (I have not been able to change 
from the classic configuration with the devices configured in xorg.conf 
to the new order in a way that is satisfying, but that is not the point.)

Yes, xorg gave me some pain, but just now I am very satisfied: My intel 
945GME based Eee PC can switch VTY/X11 for the very first time without 
the screen blanking after the upgrade to 7.2-RELEASE (thanks so much for 
the DRM updates!) and does not crash anymore on playing video after the 
latest driver update -- which happened independently of an server 
release. My rather old radeon r200 based laptop does 2D and 3D with less 
problems than ever before. Another nvidia based laptop works fine with 
the closed driver -- I hope an open one will replace it one day, but it 
works with composite and 3D at the same time now.

Some less xorg related breakage would be nice, but xorg makes progress 
that is obviously needed for new cards to be supported with good 2D and 
3D and at the same time eliminating the archaic xorg.conf that is a pain 
for multiple input devices, multiple screens, and so on. Each time this 
progress hits me, I swear, too, but overall it seems to be necessary.

Robert does incredible work porting all this to FreeBSD following all 
Intel, ATI, and Nvidia with their obviously very different development 
styles.

Cheers,
Jan Henrik