XGL and the future of X Windows

[Christopher Browne]

On 2/17/06, R.R. <rrod-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Thought some of you might be interested in this video:
> http://www.freedesktop.org/~davidr/xgl-demo1.xvid.avi (60 MB)
>
> (Original news release here: http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/)

Is there anything interesting about the release of some new version of
the X server that runs atop OpenGL that is worth saying anything
about?

>From what I hear about it, there is a big downside to it namely that
it requires hardware accelerated OpenGL in order to use it at all,
which requires selecting graphics cards very carefully.  You have to
have a graphics card where the proprietary not-at-all-open 3D drivers
are available and stable for Linux.

Availability of stable 3D drivers on a timely basis has traditionally
been a BIG problem.  Furthermore, the heavy tendancy to highly
proprietary drivers tends to mean that only those users that are
prepared to do a lot of bootstrapping that includes building custom
kernels with (nonredistributable!) patches provided by card vendors.

To say that that sort of process "does not scale" grossly understates things.
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