Fortunately for us, it isn't usually very often that we must choose our X Windows graphi-cal server. If we had to research this any more often, we'd probably just grow tired and stay contented with the command line interface. Choosing an X server for X11 is hard when you compare the competition: Accerated-X, Metro-X, and XFree86.
The big advantage to X Inside's offering is it's support of a wide base of hardware. Of the three competitors, Accelerated-X supports more video hardware than the other two. If you have some offbeat video card or strange monitor that doesn't work quite right with XFree86, then you should probably try Xi Graphic's Accelerated-X.
While I have heard complaints about Metro-X and XFree86 being slow when compared with Accelerated-X, I have not been able to see it for myself. If anything, Accelerated-X runs a little slower on my hardware than XFree86 or Metro-X. But that is subjective at best. If speed is a big deal for you, for example if you run graphically intensive CAD applications under Linux, then you'll want to test this out on your own. The recorded benchmarks I have seen favor Accelerated-X.
For ease of use, I would have to give the goblet to Metro-X. Accelerated-X uses an ncurses displayed configuration screen, text only, while Metro-X uses either a Tk toolkit graphical interface or an ncurses text interface according to your desire. This graphical utility makes it very easy to change settings when you want to alter your environment, say, for a particular program. (I do this frequently when I want to run an application that only runs under 8-bit color.) Accelerated-X is far more keystrokes for editing your environment than Metro-X. And XFree86 is more keystrokes still.
Also, Metro-X is the easiest to install. If you've bought the Red Hat Linux distribution from Red Hat (the so-called boxed version), you will be offered the chance to install Metro-X by default. Both Metro-X and Accelerated-X use the autoprobe program to determine the default hardware and software settings. So if you're installing Accelerated-X on a system without XFree86 installed, you'll need to reinstall XFree86 before you can install it.
In conclusion, which X server you choose depends on your own tastes and hardware needs. If you need inexpensive first, XFree86, is, well, free. It's also very good, but it's time consuming to figure out and install. Metro-X is easy to install and very easy to use. It might be a little slower than either XFree86 or Accelerated-X. And it's available as an rpm, which is of interest if you use that package manager. Accelerated-X is fast and supports lots of hardware, so it's good if you don't need an rpm, if you don't mind using a text interface to reconfigure it and use it, and if money isn't a priority. Both Metro-X and Accelerated-X cost the same.
©David S. Jackson, 1997.