retitle 548862 The last of its habitat has been destroyed. So long and thanks for all the fish. stop
Actually it's worse than you think. STM does what it does by interacting directly with video hardware, much the way X used to, in fact so much so the support for some cards came directly from X source code. More than 10 years ago now, development down this line pretty much ceased. Linux kernel had framebuffer support, and that's where the future was at... But STM was still better for some hardware and some uses, and even now still seems to have a core of devoted users. I myself haven't had a machine I've used it on for many years now either, but good bug reports and good patches have kept it chugging along with barely a glitch. By the time the next Debian release is tagged and bagged though, that will no longer be enough. Xorg now delegates all mode setting to the kernel, which leaves STM in the lonely and unfriendly place of messing directly with hardware that the kernel (rightfully) thinks it controls. So pretty soon now, when people start clicking little pretend 3D buttons that make the kernel mess with the screen mode, STM is going to bump into them awkwardly in the dark. The only way to 'save' STM now would be to make it interoperate with the kernel in the same way X and other screen control applications do. But that would just be a config file parser around some existing tool. So it's probably time to take a bow. Thank Koen and all the many people who put their work into making it what it has been. Wait respectfully for the screaming and denial to subside. Then quietly file a request to have this package removed for the squeeze release. But that's a good thing, because it means its replacement is maturing. There's no rush or need to panic, the code has changed very little in the last few years, so anyone who does want to keep it until something really horrible really does happen will be able to do so with very little effort. Now would be a pretty good time to plan for crossing to the other world though. What they told you about it being kinda nice is mostly true. If you're using brand new video hardware, then yeah, this package is your granddad's war. There's nothing but grief for you here, let the kernel take care of this now, from a free driver if you can get one. For the rest of you, and you know who you are, it's been fun, thanks a lot! but it seems our work here is very nearly done now. </smallcaps> Ron -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
