The XFree86 package depends on the Glide3 package, which should only be needed in the case the user has a 3dfx card.
It's needed by the DRI driver for 3dfx cards. Making it otherwise implies shipping each driver seprartely, which is messy.
Isn't that more technically correct though?
It may or may not be technically correct, however at this point my choices are: 1) Make Glide a requirement. 2) Split every driver into separate packages, making glide dependant only on the tdfx driver, modify the installer to handle the vastly changed x packaging, and make sure it handles upgrades from all previous releases. Considering 3dfx (the company) is no more, the effort hardly seems worth it at this stage in the game. A *LOT* of work would need to be done to do #2, so it isn't going to happen at least not for our next release. I agree though that it would be more "correct". If it bothers people that don't have 3dfx cards, my suggested fix is "force uninstall glide". Had 4.0.2 come out a couple of months earlier, then #2 could have been a possibility right now.
Glide is now integrated into XFree86, and will remain there. Splitting drivers into separate packages has the disadvantage that if someone installs, they would only get one video driver installed. Later if they change their card for another card, they will have to find the CD and install the driver manually, or we'd have to resort to some nasty Windows 95/98 hack ala: "Linux needs the CDROM, please go get it"... This is a horrible PITA in Windows IMHO, and not one I want to see repeated in Linux. The total size of the 2D video drivers for all video cards combined is approximately 2.2Mb. The 3D drivers total in at: 9.2Mb Glide3 is 900k. Total of all of that is approximately 13Mb. That is an incredible small amount of space for the amount of functionality it gives. It would probably take 2Gb of space in Windows to have drivers for all that hardware. Add to that the fact that hard disk space is $200 for 60-80Gb drives or larger right now, and I think 15Mb worth of disk space is moot. The benefits of having all drivers installed are that a user can change video cards easily, configuration is easier, and our tech support lines are going to be less busy. I've thought this through for months now, and all in all, I have changed my mind about splitting the packages up. XFree86 packaging will remain with all drivers installed, including Glide because it is easier for the end user and wastes minimal disk space. Those who may disagree are definitely in the minority.
*** Bug 27101 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The Glide3 libraries have now been integrated into our XFree86 packaging for some time including the Red Hat Linux 7.1 official release. Glide3 is basically for all intents and purposes "DRI for 3Dfx", and really the ultimate solution would be if someone were to reimplement what Glide does as a native DRI driver, however that is unlikely to ever happen at this point. The XFree86 trunk code can detect the proper tdfx card at runtime and load the correct Glide lib although it doesn't come with the Glide3 code, it makes no sense not to include it just because the tdfx driver suffers from the legacy of Glide. Short version: Glide3 is here to stay in the XFree86 packaging until it is no longer necessary for 3D acceleration on 3Dfx hardware.