Re: Will virgin XFree86 run under LINUX?

Davor Buvinic wrote:
> On Saturday 14 December 2002 05:50 pm, Paul Elliott wrote:
> 
>>I was at my local LINUX group, where it was said that if you
>>get the virgin XFree86 tarball, then make World;make install
>>the resulting system will crash. It was said that to get an
>>XFree86 system that actually works, you need the patches
>>associated with the various distributions. Is this True?
>>
>>Thank you.
> 
> 
> I'm working with current CVS without any patch and I don't see any crash. 
> Frequently the distribution maintainers include patches to fix some issues 
> with hardware but generally they also send it to the XFree86 developers so 
> they are integrated into the main tree.

I too have successfully installed X from CVS numerous times.
> 
> I think that the proper way to build XFree86, before do a 'make World', is at 
> least read the documentation included in the distribution and look at the 
> configuration options in xc/config/cf. Tell this to the folks at your local 
> LUG.
You should probably check for a custom host.def in your 
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config directory.  I suppose there may
be a custom one there.  You could use that for the new build.

I usually move the installed XFree to a temporary location before
attempting a permanent install. i.e. cd /usr/; mv X11R6 X11R6.bak;
cd /path/to/build; make install;
If the install goes off without a hitch and the new X runs OK, I
them move the saved version back and do a make install over the
top. I've noticed that sometimes even though the make World goes
off without a hitch the make install will sometimes fail.

Fred