Re: X Window System version -- xsrc or pkgsrc?

[Matthew Mondor <mm_lists%pulsar-zone.net@localhost>]

On Sun, 8 Aug 2010 11:13:10 -0600
Sverre Froyen <sverre%viewmark.com@localhost> wrote:

 > It now seems, however, that the pkgsrc versions are lagging behind the 
 > NetBSD 
> xsrc version, particularly with respect to acceleration. Currently, I am 
> using 
> the pkgsrc wip version of Mesa (7.7.1) and related modules, which appear to 
> be 
> faster than the regular pkgsrc versions (7.4.4), but both now lag behind the 
> xsrc version (7.8.2).

I tend to track netbsd-5 for most of my hosts, and am using the in-base
X11 myself.  I indeed think that it has more chances of being better
integrated, and my second reason is that I have less trouble upgrading
it with the base system than as a bunch of packages, especially that I
also track stable pkgsrc branches.  I guess that another good reason
would be to be able to use already provided packages from TNF, which
are built for native X11, but I use a custom repository (yet also
built against base-X11).

Perhaps the situation is different for someone tracking both -current
NetBSD and pkgsrc on a regular basis, my only -current system still
uses base-X11 and stable pkgsrc netbsd-5 packages under COMPAT_5 for
convenience.

I agree, there always remains the mess of possibly unsupported
modern hardware.  I do what I can to try NetBSD on hardware I intend
to buy where possible, but there are cases where I couldn't and
I occasionally was disapointed.  Chosing motherboards with enough free
slots, and holding a collection of cards which are known to be well
supported often saves the day (not only for video, and not only on
NetBSD, from experience).  Of course, chosing a laptop is more
difficult.

For video, over the years I found the support for ATI chips generally
excellent, even older PCI/AGP ones for good 2d acceleration (Mach64,
Rage128), and more recently stable 2d+3d acceleration on several
Radeons on netbsd-5 or -current and base-X11...
-- 
Matt