X Developer's Meeting

On the one hand, you are right. The actual gui front ends that are integrated into the de to perform these configurations does need to be handled at the desktop level.

However, gnome has only recently gotten to a point where it could take on configuration at that fine level at all. Normally this should not have been a problem because someone else who was annoyed with the lack of utilites would have implemented the configuration tools themselves and everyone would have been happy until gnome came along later and integrated the same functionality.

That did not happen because the XF86Config is so totally screwed up and incomprehensible. Sure the people developing could pick up the slack here but in all fairness, this task could be made a lot simpler by cleaning up and standardizing the X config files so that gui developer have an easier time. I dare you to try and configure your matrox g450 to use correctly to pseudocolor overlays. No way. A) the docs are totally wrong. B) no one really knows how this configuration works, C) even after you do figure out how it works you will realize that what you have to do doesn't make sense at all. Now, I agree that the gui for this is not the responsability of X, but X (xorg,fd.o,xfree,whoever) could do a whole lot here to make the job easier. Same situation is true of xinerama. You cannot make a gui for this that will work on all cards because configuration is so different and non standard for all cards.

That all cards are different is unavoidable but how about some standard set of configs that can be mixed and matched in a standard way for individual cards and a way to lookup what options are available for each card either directly from the running x server or driver or from some docs so that config tools have a chance. Right now the same configuration for different cards might be done in totally different ways. Is XFree really just passing the configuration variables straight through to the drivers?

BTW - it is really annoying when a bunch of users complain about the exact same experience only to have a bunch of high and mighty developers or expert users tell them that the tool is fine and the users are wrong. It may be that the users don't understand the nature of the problem but if they are complaining, there IS a problem. In this case I am not only talking about desktop users but anyone who has tried to interface with X at any level (distros, configurator developers, and users who like the command line). Configuring X sucks! Why? That is not the point we are trying to make. It does suck! Now the developers of X should either admit it and say tough luck or they should fix it. Saying it doesn't suck is just wrong and stupid.