redhat-config-xfree86

[Mike A. Harris]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003, Gene C. wrote:

>I was looking over what I could do with configuration and noticed that the 
>"detailed" settings for a video card have been dropped.  I have a setup where 
>I need (I believe) to set:
>
>   Option   "AGPmode"  "4"
>
>in /etc/X11/XF86Config.  The capability of setting this option with the tool 
>was present under RHL 9 but appears to have been dropped.  While I know I can 
>go into the file with an editor and add the line, I was wondering why the 
>detailed settings capability of the tool was dropped.

The "AGPmode" and "AGPsize" and various other options are
intended for developer use only, and are not intended for general
end user usage.  I have confirmed this with the DRI project about 
a month or so ago, as the AGPsize option got renamed to something 
else, and I was a bit upset that when people upgrade, their 
configurations may break.

The VideoRAM, AGP*, and many other X server settings I strongly 
believe to be very risky to put into a GUI.  Users tend to 
experiment with settings if they can easily click on them in a 
GUI without having to read documentation or actually understand 
what they are doing and realize their changes may result in a 
nonworking system when they're done.  Often they break things 
then file bug reports or cry that the OS is at fault.

As such, there are many X server options such as these that 
should not ever be part of the GUI, and should not be end user 
visible.  The number of bug reports coming in from users who 
require one of those options but it isn't autodetected is far 
less than the number of potential bug reports and tech support 
requests that come in due to users changing things they do not 
need to and should not change.

If the default AGP mode does not result in a working X server,
please file a bug report.  In the future, the X server is going
to be changed to use the highest AGP mode available that should
be compatible with the given card/motherboard chipset for all
hardware.  If incompatibilities or hardware oddities are found, 
they'll be blacklisted.

The AGPmode setting if used at all, should identically match the 
setting used in the computer CMOS settings.  A user who is aware 
of that, is generally technically advanced enough to be able to 
edit the config file by hand IMHO without needing an overly 
complex GUI to do it.  Also, I don't believe Windows has a GUI 
method of changing the AGP mode, so we shouldn't even need one 
either.  ;o)

-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat