Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

apeiro · 2003-10-27 17:52:29

My apologies for the ugly Xfree86 upgrade that's waiting in the repositories.

With XFree86 4.2.x we used external fontconfig and xft2 libraries to render truetype fonts. Then Xfree86 4.3.0 came out and used its own internal versions of these libraries, so we made the new X conflict with fontconfig, since both provided the same .so files.

Some users have been requesting that we rebuild XFree86 and link it to the (newer) external fontconfig/freetype2 libraries, rather than opting to use the internal ones. This gets tricky, because the old Xfree86 4.3.0-6 package _conflicts_ with the fontconfig library, while the new Xfree86 4.3.0-7 _depends_ on it. Pacman will not allow this upgrade.

To properly upgrade X, you will have to remove Xfree86 from your system, then reinstall it (you'll probably have to drop out of X to do this, btw). Don't worry about your /etc/X11/XF86Config file, it will stay where it is.

# pacman -Rd xfree86
# pacman -Sy xfree86

lanrat · 2003-10-28 12:10:23

If somebody has nvidia module installed from http://www.nvidia.com the above procedure will give him another error after

pacman -Sy xfree86

There will be a file conflict with some library. I don't have my AL machine near right now so i don't remember exactly what it was but I think it was libgl. You can do then:

pacman -Syf xfree86

to force the installation. Then you must uninstall the nvidia module with

nvidia-installer --uninstall

(it doesn't have any reinstall option). And again install it with the normal procedure described in readme at nvidia site.
I think a more proper way to do this is to first uninstall nvidia module and do

pacman -Rd xfree86
pacman -Sy xfree86

and then reinstall nvidia module - but the first method worked for me too.

ps. regards for everybody - this is my first post here!

nifan · 2003-10-29 14:32:45

i'm still having problems with the upgrade, by doing the steps shown here everything gets installed, BUT i dont have startx and some libs missing, like when i start gdm its claims that some lib is missing. what sould i do.
i've done what apeiro told to do with this upgrade...

Guest · 2003-10-29 16:01:46

remove xfree86 from your cache and redownload and install it again. sounds like your package is corrupted.

_JeffG_ · 2003-10-29 16:21:51

Would the changes to fonts here cause all fonts on my system when anti-aliased to appear bigger than normal. Normal is defined by what I am used to on other distributions and operating systems running the exact same software (ie Xfree and KDE and mozilla and such)

During my last stint with Arch Linux. I do not remember fonts being like this.

EDIT: This is not a rant. I just want to know why they are larger so I can alter the other systems so they look the same. I am so used to the smaller size by default. However, the fonts do look good. Just that everything is visually larger for the same size font. Maybe what I am seeing is the correct sizes and I was seeing stuff too small before. I dont know. I was not referring to only gtk2 apps either.

At anyrate, the fonts do look good.

Maybe it has something to do with the XFree86 server I am using. I have a Radeon 9800 and am using the ati-drivers package. So, maybe its DPI or something is different. I have to admit that this is not the same card as when I saw the smaller font sizes. I did not think that it made any difference. Maybe it does.

So, if anyone has an explanation of why this happens. Please let me know that if my fonts are correct.

Here are some screen shots illustrating what I am saying.

This is FreeBSD running XFree86 4.3.0 on a Voodoo3 2000 card:

This is Arch Linux running XFree86 4.3.0 on a Radeon 9800 card:

So, if someone could please point out which of these the correct way they should look and why might the other be different.

Thanks

Jeff

Guest · 2003-10-29 17:53:44

could be the order of your 100 dpi and 75 dpi fonts in your x config (or the other path they are listed in which i never remeber the name of)

nifan · 2003-10-29 19:21:22

Anonymous wrote:

remove xfree86 from your cache and redownload and install it again. sounds like your package is corrupted.

i supose if that was the case md5 would take care of the situation

_JeffG_ · 2003-10-29 21:35:16

Well, I have my fonts back down to a decent size. Still odd that a size 12 font on one graphics card is different on another. There was nothing odd or really different from the two X config files. I even used the same fonts.conf and local.conf from my other box that has smaller fonts. Probably has something to do with the ATI drivers from ATI's website I am using. At any rate, the fonts are very clean and nice. But I have to use size 8 for where I used to use size 12.

Time to move on...

Jeff

nifan · 2003-10-30 18:27:33

well i've re-downloaded the xfree86 package again and now its working, but i have a concern about md5sums, isnt it suposet to say when a package is corrupted? if not what's the use for md5sum?
thnkx for the tips btw

hApy · 2003-10-30 20:43:45

AFAIK, md5sums are only used for makepkg verifying the md5sums of downloaded source files, and md5sum support is coming to pacman in the future.

Hapy.

_JeffG_ · 2003-11-02 22:29:48

OK, I figured out my font problem. It is not a font problem but rather a DPI issue. Running the 'xdpyinfo' command in X on my Radeon results with a dpi of just over 100. However, I can not run this on the old box because I reloaded the system and X is not back on yet. However, when I specify a -dpi 75 to startx, I get the exact same font sizes as I did on the old card. The other thing is that the radeon drivers are based on a snapshot of XFree 4.3.99 and not 4.3.0 so maybe the dpi handling has been changed some how.

At any rate, I know how to fix my fonts now.

Jeff

EDIT: Got X installed again on my old box. Sure enough. 75 dpi. Same monitor. Only differences are XFree 4.3.0 vs 4.3.99 and Voodoo3 2000 vs Radeon 9800.

LB06 · 2003-11-04 21:42:43

nifan wrote:

i'm still having problems with the upgrade, by doing the steps shown here everything gets installed, BUT i dont have startx and some libs missing, like when i start gdm its claims that some lib is missing. what sould i do.
i've done what apeiro told to do with this upgrade...

Same problem here. gdm is complaining about missing libX11, emacs about libXmu and when using pacman it says libfreetype truncated. I don't have startx/xinit or XF86config or something. The only package I installed for X was xfree86 and I can't find more. Debian had to install many more packages, like xlibs, xfont, xfs, etc.

Xentac · 2003-11-04 22:40:00

Sounds like you have to remove the libfreetype file from /var/cache/pacman/pkg.

galen · 2003-11-18 15:22:39

followed the main page instructions on the ugly xfree86 upgrade.
but as pointed out in this thread
nvidia was NOT mentioned and therefor
X gets removed but not reinstalled.
:evil:

had to remove /usr/lib/libGL....
to get X to install

I request that more info be placed in the main notice about the X upgrade, since it will do not good when the victim removes X and can't get X back, no way to check these boards without X.
:idea:

plus not to mention the invassive change of
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
to
twm

Guest · 2004-01-23 20:41:38

Gents:

Does the "Ugly X-86 " problem occur every time you try to upgrade ...even after performing the outlined procedure the first time?

Is there relief from this problem by installing an earlier version of X-86? What is lost if one should be able to do that?

What happens to the GUI KDE when this procedure is utilized? How does one recover from the impact on KDE? Is there any other consequence?

Frequent upgrades are recommended for arch or any linux OS. This makes such a mess of the process , if it happens every time, that I am discouraged about arch which is touted as a fast distro.

dp · 2004-01-23 21:11:55

Anonymous wrote:

Does the "Ugly X-86 " problem occur every time you try to upgrade ...even after performing the outlined procedure the first time?

NO! this one was ugly, because now X is configured (fonts ..) a little bit different than before --- "ugly" things only happen, when you change something fundamental on packages

arch is very easy to upgrade and quite no time problems happen (compared to other distros)

sarah31 · 2004-01-23 22:53:50

followed the main page instructions on the ugly xfree86 upgrade.
but as pointed out in this thread
nvidia was NOT mentioned

it is not mentioned because nvidia cards are not universal to all systems.

and therefor
X gets removed but not reinstalled.

i don't get this when you pacman -R(d) something your are removing it it is not automatically replaced

had to remove /usr/lib/libGL....
to get X to install

no you did not have to you could have either first removed your nvidia drivers and then installed (as you would have to reinstall anyway) or simply pacman -Sf xfree86 this would replace the nvidia libGL and replace it with Xfree86's libGL. then reinstall the drivers.

I request that more info be placed in the main notice about the X upgrade, since it will do not good when the victim removes X and can't get X back

yes a little more info could have been placed in the original news item but at that time the full extent of what was needed to be done on some systems was not known. this should be in the FAQs and other official documentation until 0.5 is history (iso-wise that is).

no way to check these boards without X.

when you rely on x too much and fancy gui tools you quickly forget the beauty of *nix systems. that being they are very functional without a gui. the internet and world wide web were being browsed from the console long before fancy gui browsers came along. you can use links or lynx for example to browse the web and the forum. you can even login and post. it isn't pretty or necessarily quick browsing within pages but it is very very functional.

plus not to mention the invassive change of
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
to
twm

it was invasive only because you did not schedule this file to be ignored. otherwise it will always be replaced. all distros usually replace this file upon upgrade. you only noticed it because you changed the default settings.

Does the "Ugly X-86 " problem occur every time you try to upgrade ...even after performing the outlined procedure the first time?

this is the only time you should have this trouble. this problem came about because fontconfig was separated out of the Xfree86 code as it was getting too old and uncompliant with newer software.

s there relief from this problem by installing an earlier version of X-86? What is lost if one should be able to do that?

well basically you would be pretty well screwed for upgrading alot of things.

What happens to the GUI KDE when this procedure is utilized? How does one recover from the impact on KDE? Is there any other consequence?

well basically i advise that you do this upgrade outside of X. it is just easier. there will be no effect on KDE but you could have problems running the new KDE if you do not upgrade X.

Frequent upgrades are recommended for arch or any linux OS. This makes such a mess of the process , if it happens every time, that I am discouraged about arch which is touted as a fast distro.

well you are drawing all sorts of conclusions from one really old post. there have been several upgrade of Xfree86 in arch and this was the first time that it was a bit messy. but to be honest it is hardly as bad as it sounds for every post in the thread by someone that had a problem there are probabaly ten who didn't.

if you are going to judge this distro without using it then well mabe you should move along. sorry but really why complain if you are not even using it? besides there is an easy way to avoid this issue altogether. download the base iso and then upgrade and install x and all of your other desired programs. this way you will get the new x and not even have to deal with the x from the full cd. you could also do an ftp install and not have to worry about anything.

lilsirecho · 2004-01-24 04:50:47

Was able to utilize the remove and replace procedure for Xfree86 and get the ....pacman -Syu to download upgrade material....
However, after "checking package integrity"...
....received : "archive scrollkeeper 0.3.12-5 . pkg.tar is corrupted"

The upgrade then terminated,

I assume this means the upgrade did not occur due to this one error.

One of the salient features of a good program is the outline of what is to occur. I am in the dark about what was supposed to happen and now, because of the error, don't have a clue as to what I can do to eliminate it.

Am I wrong in assuming I have to run ...pacman -Syu.... all over again(after solving the error problem): Or was the error incurred during the download???

Did the upgrade occur? Is the error correctable? Do I run the command again? How do I know the upgrade has occured?

Blaasvis · 2004-01-24 08:31:56

remove /var/cache/pacman/pkg/scrollkeeper-0.3.12-5. pkg.tar.gz
there went something wrong with oyur download of scrollkeeper

dauphin · 2004-01-24 09:42:55

Hi Lilsirecho - likely nothing has been upgraded yet. For every package installed/upgraded by pacman it tells you: "installing [package name]....done". Anyway, you will find a full report in /var/log/pacman.log
Remove the scrollkeeper package from cache as advised by Blaasvis. Then run pacman -Syu again. It won't take long because pacman will detect that it already has all the packages it needs (except for scrollkeeper which you will have deleted) in cache, so it will only download scrollkeeper.
You can't really go wrong running pacman -Syu again, since if a package has already been updated it won't be selected by pacman for updating this time, will it?
It's pretty well failsafe really - I think you are worrying unnecessarily.

lilsirecho · 2004-01-24 16:21:28

Gents:
I followed another advise and removed cache with ...pacman -Sc .....and then re-ran ...pacman -Syu....

It resulted in a completed download and I assume it also installed since its last act was to check for file conflicts.

I then ran ....pacman -Q and found that the wine program had not upgraded (probably need to setup the new if...I can find it!).

I tried out KDE multimedia and it played an mp3 file. I tried to run Kde disk free with no success. The KDE display became unstable selected item started rapid blinking. The cursor in command line shell raced across the screen from top to bottom line after line. I restarted the system to obtain stability again. Shades of windows!!!!

I have no internet access nor disk-free access to other hdd's.

It is not an upgrade but a degrade.

I am in windows to address the forum. I have lots in arch I don't want to lose but without access to other hdd's I can't save it.
Other things may be affected...these are the major problems.

dauphin · 2004-01-24 16:56:25

But you can still boot into Arch?
OK, you can't run Kdisk free, but you could probably access other partitions by using the mount command.
The first thing I would do is go back into Arch and try to figure out logically why you have lost internet access.
Tackle one issue at a time, starting with the most important, and you will get there.
Do you want to get Arch running properly again, or are you now just wanting to recover your data?

Either way, it might be a good idea to start a new thread in a different section of the forum.

lilsirecho · 2004-01-24 17:06:50

Newbie forum... Thread "upgrade causes failures"

Arch Linux

#1 2003-10-27 17:52:29

Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#2 2003-10-28 12:10:23

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#3 2003-10-29 14:32:45

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#4 2003-10-29 16:01:46

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#5 2003-10-29 16:21:51

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#6 2003-10-29 17:53:44

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#7 2003-10-29 19:21:22

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#8 2003-10-29 21:35:16

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#9 2003-10-30 18:27:33

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#10 2003-10-30 20:43:45

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#11 2003-11-02 22:29:48

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#12 2003-11-04 21:42:43

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#13 2003-11-04 22:40:00

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#14 2003-11-18 15:22:39

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#15 2004-01-23 20:41:38

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#16 2004-01-23 21:11:55

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#17 2004-01-23 22:53:50

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#18 2004-01-24 04:50:47

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#19 2004-01-24 08:31:56

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#20 2004-01-24 09:42:55

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#21 2004-01-24 16:21:28

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#22 2004-01-24 16:56:25

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

#23 2004-01-24 17:06:50

Re: Ugly Xfree86 Upgrade

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