Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
Commercial X servers
voidmain:
quote:Originally posted by Panos:
I agree with that, since most people nowadays use Geforce cards that provide excellent drivers for Linux but what about those laptop users that have to deal with Trident or SiS chipsets and so on?
--- End quote ---
Yes that is true (even though I don't buy such hardware). I would say that it is a niche market. At one time if you didn't know how to figure out your horizontal and verticle sync rates and build your own XF86Config the commercial X servers also filled that void.
Most distros today come with pretty good automatic video detection and configuration for most hardware. XFree v4 has made life much easier as well. I'm not trying to say that there is no use for the commercial X servers, just that there is less of a need today than there once was.
Calum:
so do other x servers typically cost a lot?
voidmain:
quote:Originally posted by Calum:
so do other x servers typically cost a lot?
--- End quote ---
Other X servers? Are you referring to MetroX or X servers other than what we have discussed and other than XFree? I'll assume the latter.
On all other UNIX operating systems (Solaris, AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, etc) the X server comes with the operating system. You can't really purchase it separate. And I don't believe I ever heard of a commercial third part X server for those operating systems. Part of the reason for that is most of those other operating systems run on proprietary hardware and graphics cards built by the same company that writes the operating system so who would know the most about optimizing X for their hardware?
There are a few 3rd party X servers for Windows. I have used Hummingbird Xceed and believe it to be the most popular (although recently XFree on Cygwin might have taken over). I believe Xceed went for between $300 and $600 USD (maybe the price has come down in recent years). See http://www.hummingbird.com/
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version