Driver Status for XFree86[tm] 4.2.0 : Introduction
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1. Introduction

This document contains one section per vendor (organised alphabetically) for each chipset family that is supported in XFree86 3.3.6 or XFree86 4.2.0. It includes information about the status of the drivers and the hardware they support, including a comparison of the level of support between versions 3.3.6 and 4.2.0. Unless otherwise stated, hardware is classified as "supported" if its driver provides basic 2D support. Support for additional features may or may not be present.

In XFree86 3.3.6, several X servers are available; much hardware uses the XF86_SVGA server, which has a set of driver modules that are built into it at compile time. In other cases, X servers for specific chips (or families of chips) are provided (such as XF86_AGX, XF86_Mach64, etc.).

In XFree86 4.2.0, there is only one X server, called "XFree86", which can load driver modules at runtime. Thus there is no specific mention of a server binary when 4.2.0 is discussed; only the XFree86 server is used. Third-party vendors (often the manufacturers of various video chipsets) may provide their own drivers for the XFree86 server, but these third-party modules are beyond the scope of this document.

NOTE: Status information needs to be checked carefully and expanded where possible. E.g., include information about acceleration, multi-head, known problems, hardware known to work on, platform dependencies/limitations, other architectures known to work on (e.g., Alpha, PPC), etc.


Driver Status for XFree86[tm] 4.2.0 : Introduction
Previous: Driver Status for XFree86[tm] 4.2.0
Next: 3Dfx