X.org

[Brian J. Tarricone]

Rick King wrote:

>Ok, here is a stupid question.  What is the difference between xfree and x.org?  If I want to get an rpm of 6.8 from someplace like rpmbone, since there is no mandrake package available past 6.7, is it going to crispy fry my x install that I have now?
>
the current x.org server is a fork of a release candidate of xfree86 
4.4.0.  the fork occurred due to a license change on the xfree86 side, 
and a lot of people in the OSS community strongly disagreed with this 
change.  the xfree86 development process has been stagnant and pretty 
much useless for quite some time now, so this was essentially the "straw 
that broke the camel's back" that caused the fork.

x.org is a bit more advanced than xfree86 is now.  xfree86 seems intent 
on maintaining the status quo, while x.org has some innovative features 
planned, some of which have already been integrated into the 6.8.x 
series (though composite, in particular, can be unstable).

as with any RPM, you take a risk of crispy frying your system if you use 
an RPM not compiled/designed for your particular system, so... well, 
unless anyone else has tried that particular RPM on the same version of 
your distro, it's hard to say if it'll work right or not.  at any rate, 
if you break something, you should still be able to uninstall the 6.8 
RPMs and reinstall the original 6.7 RPMs without adverse effects (in 
theory).

    -brian