Hi,

If you would like to try to use the latest[1] version of
Xorg binaries, without compromising your system, "this is
your oportunity", and you can't let it pass!


To test it, just run:

# urpmi.addmedia contrib_testing <somewhere>/<arch>/media/contrib/testing

Check /etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg for the proper value of <somewhere>
and <arch>.

After adding the media, you can run:

# urpmi xorg-snapshot

And it will ask for confirmation to proceed installing
300+ packages, that uses around 315Mb. These packages are
installed in /opt/xorg-snapshot and don't conflict with any
other package.

Once it finishes installation, you can run, as normal
user or root:

$ xorg-snapshot /usr/bin/xterm

You don't really need to execute xterm, it can be any
other program, or just xorg-snapshot to use the default
xinit configuration.

The xorg-snapshot script is just a front-end to startx,
but it also sets some environment variables. Note that
you may want to prefer to also set PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH
in your .bashrc, if you decide to use regularly this
"xorg snapshot".


For those that don't want to just test 2d features,
there is now also the libdrm-snapshot-dkms package. It
is really easy to use and you will not regret testing
it!!! To properly use it, make sure the standard distro
X Server is not running, what can be done by either
starting in init 3 or just running in a console:

# service dm stop

Now, assuming you have proper kernel source installed,
you can run as root:

# urpmi libdrm-snapshot-dkms

And when running the xorg-snapshot script, if
you have an intel card, you should now notice that
when running a 3d application it will not claim that
it cannot find a TTM manager and will fallback to
"classic acceleration mode". If you have other hardware,
your results may vary.

The libdrm-snapshot-dkms package should also not conflict
with any package in the system, and doesn't build the
nouveau module on purpose, to not conflict with the
dkms-drm-experimental package, that provides the nouveau
kernel module (the dkms packaging "code" from libdrm-snapshot
was mostly a cut&paste from dkms-drm-experimental).

The xorg-snapshot virtual package doesn't depend on
libdrm-snapshot-dkms on purpose, and I hope to make a
few other builds to allow people to test different
development branches.

Paulo


[1] The X Server is almost 3 weeks old, but I will update
it in the next few days, now that almost everything is done
to allow building Xorg snapshots.