X11 sample server

[Jim Gettys]

On Sun, 2005-09-04 at 12:48 +1000, Russell Shaw wrote:
> Hi,
> Where do i find the oftenly mentioned "sample server" source?

Once upon a time, UNIX vendors thought they could "add value" by
proprietary extensions and enhancements.  Over the years, the folly of
their ways have become clear.  While on some "legacy" UNIX systems you
may find such things, over time, more and more of the worthwhile of them
have found their way into the "sample server" implementation that is
standardly used on Linux and *BSD, and more and more on older UNIX
implementations.

So the "sample server" is now really the production server most people
use, despite the name.

> 
> Is it in the xc tree with everything else?

Yes.

> 
> How can i tell what files belong to the sample server
> and what belongs to specific implementations?

There are a number of driver frameworks where specific drivers can be
found; XAA (AKA the XFree86 driver framework) is the most commonly used
family; kdrive is often appropriate for embedded use, and there is work
underway on two other driver framworks: one based entirely on OpenGL,
and the other called EXA, which should allow us to deploy composite and
other new extensions sooner on much existing hardware.

The long term future, to be clear, is seen as the GL based driver, but
it will be a while before it is deployable.

You will also find a number of other driver frameworks for old Sun, DEC,
and other hardware in the source pool.

			Hope this helps,
					- Jim