XFree86 interim experimental source code snapshots, snaps, are fast moving versions which are used to test new features. By their very nature, snaps are unpredictable and can cause loss of service for either your driver, the X server or at very least create very erratic results. Alternatively, you may experience no problems whatsoever.
Because of those caveats, experimental snaps are best reserved for XFree86 developers (typically coders and testers), intrepid souls who are very comfortable, and unpreturbed by, working with code in flux. Questions about your test results should be reported, as always, to the XFree86 community development list.
Our experimental snaps are available from our ftp server in tarball format. They are generated automatically on a semi-monthly basis, which is currently the 7th and 21st, during the experimental phase.
These tarred-snaps are useful for those who prefer to download large source tarballs or source patches instead of using the CVS. Once downloaded, these snaps must still be compiled and installed but they are complete in themselves and there is no need to go back and take previous snaps to have a (un:-)successful build. Everything committed during the whole phase is accumulated into each new tar-snap.
Note: That's why it is always best to take the latest snap. Mixing and matching between snaps and CVS pulls is also not recommended, as our tree contains some binary files that "diff" cannot handle, so using source patches to get versions between snaps may not work reliably from one snap to the next.
As always with experimental work, community feedback is crucial so post your results to the development team (devel at XFree86 dot org) to let them know how it turns out.
XFree86 4.6.0 was released on 10 May 2006. We are currently in the development phase for the 4.7.0 release.
The CVS tag for this snapshot is xf-4_7_99_17.
XFree86 4.7.99.17 (9 May 2008)
48. Fix ATIPreInit() glitch that caused it to ignore the posiibility that the
common layer had relocated a Mach64's PCI block I/O base
(Marc La France).
47. Disable Mach64 hardware cursors when the unaccelerated VGA CRTC is used
to produce server-generated video modes (Marc La France).
46. Fix Mach64 video memory burst transfers on x86_64 (Marc La France).
45. Remove two unused functions from xf4bpp (Miod Vallat, Marc La France).
44. Fix additional incorrect assumptions regarding unassigned PCI resources
(Marc La France).
43. Mitigate brokenness in /dev/console redirection on Solaris. Should this
redirection fail, redirect the server's stderr to the log to avoid screen
corruption due to the server's own console output. (Marc La France).
42. Add a few more Radeon PCI IDs (prompted by Loic Mahe). Also, remove the
tracking of these from the "ati" module. (Marc La France)
41. On SunOS, add a command line flag to disable the server's /dev/console
redirection (Marc La France).
40. Rework the handling of unassigned PCI resources in the server to ensure
they are reassigned while the server is running and restore them to their
unassigned state on server exit (Marc La France).
39. Change the scanpci and pcitweak utilities to simulate a completed master
abort instead of reading PCI register 0xb8 of Sun's Simba PCI-to-PCI
bridges, as reads of this register cause a PCI interrupt acknowledge
cycle on the secondary bus for an interrupt that did not actually occur.
Note that no other code touches this register. (Marc La France).
38. Avoid screen corruption that occurs upon /dev/console output while the
X server is running on SunOS, by redirecting this output into a file.
The file is copied back to /dev/console on server exit. Note that screen
corruption still occurs on output to /dev/wscons because wscons cannot be
redirected in this fashion. (Marc La France).
Last Modified: 9 May 2008
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