X Resize and Rotate is an extension to X which allows resizing, rotating, reflecting, and changing the refresh rate of each screen of an X display on the fly. The extension has recently been committed to XFree86; the next version, 4.3 is planned for release this year. Hamish Rodda commited a user interface for this extension to kdenonbeta/kcmrandr. Screenshots here, discussion here.
KDE to Support RandR
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It’s pretty sad that this should be news in the year 2002. That said, does the inclusion of this UI now mean that we finally get ‘normal’ screen control in stock KDE? Nice one Hamish.
(Rotation – can’t think of any practical applications for that though I can think of a few practical jokes)
I still can’t remember when i last changed resolution on any platform, but i guess this could be useful to some.
The rotation option is nice for people who use one of the lcd screens that can be physically rotated 90 degrees, and you can then use it as a 3X4 screen instead of an 4X3.
some modern LCDs allow rotation of the screen. It’s useful or publishing and design because it allows the Portrait layout of the page to be fully visible.
here is an example
http://nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_nvrotate
although, I can’t think why anyone sane would publish on linux
I have seen some LCD’s that do landscape and portait. maybe the rotation would be used there.
Repeatedly patching XFree isn’t going to suddenly make it a modern, fast solution for Linux. Linux needs a completely new replacement. Until then, Linux will never have a fast, modern GUI.
Just now, I was trying to use the xrandr util to test out RandR, but it just hangs and I have to CTRL-C out of it.
Anyways, it will surely be a nice feature to have once it’s all sorted out. It will be nice to read articles, write papers, etc. in portrait mode.
Resize can also be useful for laptop. It’s nice to be able to go from 800×600 (max resolution for some laptops) to 1280×1024 when you plug a CRT monitor in the laptop.
is 1024×768 the maximum resolution!!? Has this guy been living under a rock, BTW all the resolutions should be in drop down menu.
“is 1024×768 the maximum resolution!!? Has this guy been living under a rock, BTW all the resolutions should be in drop down menu.”
I’m sure that is probably the maximum the specific device could handle (or at least the driver could). As for this, I saw in one of the screenshots that it supported multiple screen configs at once, this would be very nice for dula screen stuff!
The RandR extension was contributed by Compaq. It comes from thier iPaq work. Most LCD’s are landscape, so to display in portrait mode (the norm) on a PDA you are required to rotate the screen. Photon (on QNX) has simular support for simular reasons.
chris
Well, I don’t see you out there, re-writing millions of lines of code, and trying to convince developers external of the Linux community that they should port all their apps from X11 to your “great idea”(tm).
X11 works. Its design is sound. It is how it is implemented and whether the toolkits utilise the extensions is actually the issue, NOT the design that you keep ranting on about.
Photon has this feature because it is many times better than X
Well, QNX for sure has a driver version that is turned 90 degrees: vesa_90 vga_90 and tnt_90
The resolution thing is not really a good example. It’s more a fault of a large application base that wasn’t designed to handle resolution changes than of any fault of the design. In fact, until recently, when there arrived a large number of applications all using one or two major toolkits (Qt or gtk+) extensions like Render or RandR wouldn’t be possible, not for technical reasons, but logistic reasons. By the same token, can you fault Windows for not supporting proper color management until years after MacOS did? Not really, because when Windows was designed, nobody envisioned that it would be used for publishing. In the same vein, when X was designed, nobody imagined it would be used on lower end harder (when paradoxically tends to have multisync monitors in contrast to high-end hardware, which often doesn’t).
Now, what is a “fast, modern GUI” and why doesn’t X qualify?
1) Fast, powerful toolkit. We’ve got two, in fact, gtk+ and Qt. Both are fully modern, with support for powerful imaging models (via Render) and internet standards like Unicode and XML. What feature, specifically, do these toolkits lack that you want?
2) Good hardware acceleration. XAA (XFree86 acceleration architecture) was designed to be the fastest hardware acceleration model available. If you actually do some low-level benchmarks (instead of using Linux for 5 minutes and complaining its slow) you’ll see that this is true. DRI, the X 3D architecture, is actually newer than everything except maybe OS-X GL, and is wicked fast, easily comparable to Windows given proper (read: NVIDIA) hardware. Throw in support for XVideo and XRender, and you’ve got some serious HW-driven power there.
3) Stability. X has gobs of it when used in proper configurations. I’ve had WinXP and Win2K crash on me several times, but I’ve only crashed X once, and that was using an obscure beta driver. And I abuse my Linux system far more than I do with my Windows system. Aqua has the potential to be quite stable, but it is still too young to have had all the bugs worked out.
And I don’t want to hear any wanna-be OS gurus chiming in on this. If you cite the use of sockets as an X bottleneck, I’d like to see references to specific benchmarks instead of speculation (I’ll save you the trouble, sockets are just as fast as any other IPC mechanism).
ease of use gets another addition with this.. one of the hardest things for newbies to do in linux is change the refresh rate and screensize after they installed it.
I agree with the first comment … it’s really sad that XFree is JUST NOW getting the ability to do this … and this extension came from Compaq, not the XFree team. That said, nice to know that XFree can do this now.
Rayiner Hashem writes:
“Now, what is a ‘fast, modern GUI’ and why doesn’t X qualify?
1) Fast, powerful toolkit. We’ve got two, in fact, gtk+ and Qt. Both are fully modern, with support for powerful imaging models (via Render) and internet standards like Unicode and XML. What feature, specifically, do these toolkits lack that you want?”
Yes, we’ve got two. For me, this is the most important problem with X now. As an app developer, which should I choose? I don’t like the bother of mixing and matching, and the so-called normal user seems to suffer from the inconsistency as well. Personally, I like Qt as a programmer, but Gtk+ is much prettier and more comfortable as a user. Themes are not much of a solution, as it is the behavior of the widgets that really bothers me.
I would really like to see either Gnome or KDE win, and I won’t be heartbroken if it isn’t Gnome. By win I mean get the majority of new application development; neither will ever die off entirely. This way, we don’t end up with more applications like the GIMP where a KDE user is hard pressed to find a suitable native replacement.
My money is on KDE. After digging around the Gtk+2 sources recently, it’s no wonder Gnome development is going so slowly – the API docs are poor to nonexistant, and the sources I looked at are so full of legacy they were no good for UTSL (use the source Luke).
As for Rayiner’s other points, I agree that X can be perfectly fine for a modern desktop regardless of my reservations about its inadequate initial design.
Sorry if I’m too off topic here; I’m very fond of grinding this axe.
Is there any straightforward way to do “transforms” of individual X11 windows, such that it you can do it to any X11 window written with any X-based toolkit (Xaw/Athena, Motif, Qt, GTK+, &c)? That is, rotate and resize individual windows in X? Or am I just too used to using Squeak that I would imagine having this kind of power in X?
“I still can’t remember when i last changed resolution on any platform, but i guess this could be useful to
some. ”
It’s so easy to do in AmigaOS that it is a routine thing. Some
programs are easier to use in lower or higher resolutions than usual,
or you might need to see the whole of an image you are working on
which is bigger than the current resolution.
Just go to the prefs menu in the program and select a different
resolution from the ASL screen modes requester. The system keeps a
linked list of all currently available modes.
Changing the resolution for one program does not affect the other
programs. Each runs on its own screen. If you don’t save the settings,
the program will revert to its old resolution and depth next time you
run it.
Yes, most of the time you run most programs (except some old ones) in
the same resolution. But being able to change quickly when needed is
very useful.
I’m afraid it will be several years before Linux is this flexible.
Need I remind people that these additions to XFree86 not only benefit XFree86, but also all the other vendors that rely on X11, which include SUN/SGI/HP/Compaq/XIG.
Also, development is not as fast as Windows, why? because Microsoft uses the GDI and GDI+ which is only used by one company! where as the contributions must go through committee process to ensure that the feature and api can work on all distributions of UNIX that rely on it.
So, in one corner, you have GDI+ supported by one company, in the other, you have X11 supported by a large number.
Anon, this is a troll to the highest degree.
Sure, the architecture of X11 may not be as nice as Quartz or NeWS, but what matters that it works. You complain about speed, but may I remind you that the past 2-3 years XFree86 has increased the speed enourmously.
Surely, an X11 replacement would be nice (X11 still ruling UNIX could be blamed party on Sun for keeping NeWS to itself and later on killing it). But as for now, X11 isn’t only the best solution, it is the only solution.
So if you don’t like things, why not you go out and write some code to fix the situation? Make something new? A lot of projects tried it and many more is trying it but what stops most of them is the lack of coders. For example, Fresco lacks anybody fultime, and all the part time programmers are numbered, and most of them don’t really contribute that much.
It seems like more and more vendors are droping like flies, literary, by going the Linux route for its workstations (like HP, using RH’s Advance Workstation). Besides, once upon a time, development of X Window System was very fast, even under the X Consortium. In the past 3/4 of the decade or so, it appears to be almost stagnant……
I wonder why….
“Repeatedly patching XFree isn’t going to suddenly make it a modern, fast solution for Linux. Linux needs a completely new replacement. Until then, Linux will never have a fast, modern GUI.”
yea…..those guys at Industrial Light & Magic, BlueSky, WETA, DreamWorks….THE GODDAMN GRAPHICS PEOPLE love using linux because it’s a patchwork quilt that’s slow, unsophisticated, and unproductive.
graphics/effects studios are switching to linux en masse, because we all know those guys don’t make any money
they couldn’t afford to install XP, so they downloaded from alt.binaries.warez.linux copies of redhat and debian.
let me just get around the bullshit, because maybe you still are not catching on, mr. quick wit:
XFREE WILL BE RE-WRITTEN/REPLACED WHEN MICROSOFT GOES OPEN SOURCE AND GIVES THEIR SOFTWARE AWAY!
and it makes about as much sense too.
“””DRI, the X 3D architecture, is actually newer than everything except maybe OS-X GL, and is wicked fast, easily comparable to Windows given proper (read: NVIDIA) hardware. “””
Bad example — there is still no NVidia driver for DRI, is there? 😉
“””yea…..those guys at Industrial Light & Magic, BlueSky, WETA, DreamWorks….THE GODDAMN GRAPHICS PEOPLE love using linux because it’s a patchwork quilt that’s slow, unsophisticated, and unproductive. “””
They use Linux to build cheap rendering farms (makes a big difference with the new MS licensing stuff). That has nothing to do with X at all.
>”They use Linux to build cheap rendering farms …”
Ummm.. not only that, but they have them on their desktops as well, because it was easy to port all their motif stuff from their old SGI workstations… and there have been many interviews about how fast their new workstations are…
And there appears to be quite a bit of development on directfb. Doesn’t support many video cards yet, mostly matrox. But it’s being designed from the ground up to be lightweight, flexible, and blazingly fast. In 2-3 years, a number of desktop distros might use it as default..
I’ve been a happy MetroX user back in the RH 4.1 days. I have to say that MetroX had left a very positive impression on me, but I have no idea what happened with it in these last 7 years. Anyone with info, please share.
mbishop wrote:
“Yes, we’ve got two. For me, this is the most important problem with X now. As an app developer, which should I choose?”
Since when is having different toolkits a problem of X?
Almsot every platform has more than one toolkit and still people seem to complain only wh referring to X or Linux.
I don’t see any problem with X window system. XFree is only a free and imature implementation of X, but it can be made better.
Reinventing the wheel is the worst thing that can be done now.
Even with XFree Linux will conquest the desktop in the future. QNX ? Amiga ? BeOS ? OS/2 ? All of these are operating systems for niches or are dead.
Windows XP ? If you like to pay much for an alpha-quality trojan horse and feed the Bill Gates monopoly, stay with XP. With Palladium on every CPU, M$ will charge for every time you run a software, play a music and a video on your PC. Drugs ? NT (No Thanks) 🙂
For me, this is the most important problem with X now.
Actually, for me it’s probably one of the things that appeals most about X, choice!
As an app developer, which should I choose?
Whichever one suits you best. I’ve coded for both GTK+ and Qt and both have their strong/weak points. Personally I prefer GTK+ because of its speed and flexibility. I also don’t like to be forced into using C++ for all my projects. With GTK+ I can still use C++, either via gtkmm or by simply creating my own GUI classes.
and the so-called normal user seems to suffer from the inconsistency as well.
Redhat 8.0 has fixed this supposed problem quite nicely. It still needs some refinement but if you have followed the development of both GTK+ and Qt over the past couple of months you would have noticed that both are getting more compatible with each other. And I suspect that the “normal user” will have a very hard time figuring out wether an app is written in Gtk or Qt. In fact, the “normal users” I’ve seen using my applications couldn’t care less, as long as the job gets done!
KDE user is hard pressed to find a suitable native replacement.
And herein lies the big trouble with these “KDE users”. Did you notice how everything they use has to be prefixed by a K? I bet that they’d be more productive if they simply used excellent tools like GIMP because of their excellence, rather than spending time and looking for The KIMP (the sad part is that there actually was a project called KIMP once! Luckily it got shot down because it couldn’t compete).
I mix and match both Qt and KDE applications on my desktop and I have no problem at all. It’s just that right now there is not a single killer KDE (Qt) app, where there are IMHO may GTK+ based ones (Pan, Mozilla, Nautilus2, Gimp).
-fooks
Bad example — there is still no NVidia driver for DRI, is there? 😉
But NVidia does have their own DRI. Remember DRI is
“Direct Rendering Interface”. It doesn’t really matter if it’s compatible with the DRI developed by the guys from (now) Tungstengraphics. Fact is that X supports GLX and every vendor can give do their own GLX implemention, be it based on their own system, or on the Open Source DRI one. Applications talk to GLX, not to DRI.
-fooks
They use Linux to build cheap rendering farms (makes a big difference with the new MS licensing stuff). That has nothing to do with X at all.
Bzzzt! Wrong answer. They use Linux for both rendering farms and on graphics workstations.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6011
http://www.linuxjournal.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=NS-lj-issue…
Oh yeah, engineers were fighting to get their hands on Linux workstations with NVIDIA Quadro boards. Now tell us again, how does it have nothing to do with X at all? 🙂
You should keep yourself better informed.
-fooks
“””Bzzzt! Wrong answer. They use Linux for both rendering farms and on graphics workstations.”””
I thought deployment of Linux in redering farms is standard but the exception for modelling jobs on workstations. Maybe I was wrong
You have more than one toolkit on Windows too. The only difference is that Microsoft isn’t telling you which one is the “One True Toolkit” this week. If it makes you feel better to have a big voice telling you what to do, I can do that for you. THE ONE TRUE TOOLKIT IS QT. GO WRITE ALL YOUR APPS IN QT AND BE HAPPY!
Rayiner, cut the trolling/zealotry/off-topic-ness. You are an intelligent guy so this is why I don’t mod you down and giving you a chance (and yes, I do like Qt).
Err, the Qt thing was a joke. I am partial to Qt, but to those who were offended, I’ll make an alternate comment here.
THE ONE TRUE TOOLKIT is $TOOLKIT. GO WRITE ALL YOUR APPS IN $TOOLKIT AND BE HAPPY!
hi, i am wondering why all these bad KDE/QT flamery won’t get modded down. as soon as one starts bashing GNOME/GTK+ his voice will disappear in the dark. this is not fair.
ALL bashing will be moded down. No matter if it is about GTK+ or Qt or my haircut.
“Repeatedly patching XFree isn’t going to suddenly make it a modern, fast solution for Linux. Linux needs a completely new replacement. Until then, Linux will never have a fast, modern GUI.”
how does linux development occur…? by submitting patches to Linus(or the maintainer of the kernel you want to submit to, ofcourse). while fundamental changes may need to take place, that can be done in a developmental branch, until it becomes stable…then it becomes a stable branch and the masses are welcome to use XFree with the addition of some radical new feature or design.
Why does everyone insist on REPLACING XFree when Linux, the system the majority of the users have, uses the same principal of patching itself.
> The KIMP (the sad part is that there actually was a project called KIMP once! Luckily it got shot down because it couldn’t compete).
You’re pretty much inventing history here. I’m a (minor) GIMP contributer, but a long time user, and have been tracking development since late ’96. The GIMP originally used the Motif toolkit. The last version to use Motif was Gimp 0.54. gtk was invented for gimp 0.6x, which was never publically released. This version of gtk was horrible, and many people were talking about either going back to Motif or using something like Qt (KDE had started the year before, and was already getting popular). Eventually, it was decided that gtk should be rewritten. GTK+, the modern toolkit that is still around today, was the fruit of this.
However, between GIMP 0.6x and GIMP 1.0, there was always still an interest in making GIMP work better with KDE (read gimp-devel between 1997 and 1998). For a while, there was a half done Qt port in gimp cvs. However, there were three reasons that it never got done. First, the latest GIMP branch at that time, GIMP 0.9x, was closely tied to the new tookit developed for it, GTK+. GIMP 0.6x was less tied to GTK+/gtk, as gtk was still quite experimental at that stage, and nobody knew wether it would get done, or if the old GIMP stable motif 0.5x branch would be brought back from the dead. GIMP 1.2 and GIMP 1.4 haven’t fixed these problems.
The second reason was Qt’s licensing problems and the creation of GNOME. THe GIMP developers were generally never too attached to GNOME, but it none-the-less hampered the completetion of the Qt frontend.
The third reason was the fact that Qt 2.0 came out. Qt 1.x to 2.0 porting wasn’t hard for trivial applications, but was hard for involved applications like the GIMP. It would have needed a rewrite of the current Qt 1.x- based Qt code in GIMP , and nobody was willing to do it. This was in the unstable GIMP 1.1.x series, when many GIMP developers stopped contributing mainly for real life issues.
Now, one of the main goals for the next major version/rewrite of the GIMP is a better seperation between drawing/image manipulation code and the interface code itself. The goal of this is to make possible third party frontends to GIMP, including GNOME, KDE, mdi-Gtk based, and native MacOSX and Windows frontends.
Did anyone here tried this new extension to X?
Having different refresh rate on different screens and switching back and forth ?
This may be good for driver developers but I don’t see any good for app developers or end users.
Well, it’s just showing that X golden days are over – all developement is focusing on catching up with other modern GUIs. Hey, may be we get some alpha channel patch soon.
Funny example is ,of course, Steve Jobs’s Pixar studio – can’t get them switch to Mac OS yet :
The RenderMan® Artist Toolsâ„¢ and RenderMan Toolkitâ„¢ are available on three popular platforms – IRIX, Linux, and Windows
Which just proves that no matter how old and unmodern existing app/framework/protocol is the mere fact that it works is gazillion times better than latest and greatest super modern prototype.
But Eugenia, I’m telling you, that’s the worst haircut I have ever seen!
Speaking about GIMP, I wonder, it has less features than Photoshop Elements 2.0, but why does the user interface is more clutters than Photoshop 7.0? I hope one day somebody does port it to Qt because with all Qt apps, I could enjoy a little bit :-). Of course, when that happens, we might see Photoshop 70000.0 on Linux, nullifying any use of GIMP.