I think Cygwin/XFree86 is a great product -- but there is nothing so good that it can't be improved. I agree with all of you comments, although I haven't had the system reboot experience.
One persistant problem that you didn't mention (manybe you haven't run into it yet) is a very persistent and repeatable lock-up when used to login to another host using XDMCP. The symptom is of a sudden large memory leak after 15-30 minutes of use. XFree86 becomes unresponsive, system memory and swap resources are rapidly used up, and finally XFree86 crashes with a seg fault. This also happens immediately (you don't have to wait 15-30 min) when you logoff the host and login again. I've experienced this under Windows 98/98SE/ME. For me this is a showstopper since it makes Cygwin/XFree86 unusable as an X server platform. It's fun to play with, but this "bug" makes it unacceptable for routine use as an X server. Tom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > (last email I sent complained about HTML MIME. i hope i'm not > double-posting) > > I started playing with XFree last week. It's been a few years since I've > used UNIX, so you can call me a newbie, if you like. I'm running Windows > 2000 Pro on a P4 1.7 GHz with 768 MiB of RAM and 10 GB free on my hard > drive. I (eventually) did a full Cygwin/XFree86 download and install > (binaries, not source). > > Please don't flame me if I'm out of line. I didn't know if I should break > this up into several emails or have one big one. Also, please send > responses to me by email. > > Here are my obervations/problems. > Showstoppers: > 1) The very first time I brought up the X server, I had modified > startxwin.bat > to use wmaker instead of twm. It crashed because /home > hadn't been created yet. This was "fixed" by running the text-mode bash > icon first. > 2) when I run Xman, it says "No App-Defaults File". If I run "Xman -notop" > > instead, I can browse one man page, and then it stops working. (it gives a > > "likeToSave" message box with yes and no buttons that don't seem to do > anything.) It seems to be related to missing a locale binary. Is there a > way to get this to work? > 3) within the first few hours of usage, I ran a "find / -name abc -print" > from the command-line, and my trusty Windows 2000 box restarted. no blue > screen, no error. it was like someone pulled the power plug and plugged it > > back in. after it came up, i tried the same command and it worked fine. > 4) i had a similar "restart" to #6 when I ran setup.exe while cygwin was > up. of course, bad user, i should have stopped cygwin before running > setup, but i'm still amazed at how easily my robust kernel, based on NT > Technology, came down. > > Nice-to-haves: > 5) it'd be nice if setup.exe showed the size (in bytes or megabytes, etc.) > > of each package (it's in setup.ini). on my 56 Kb/s modem, downloading a > large, unnecessary file takes a painfully long time, but a small > unnecessary file is not so bad. > 6) on that note, how about displaying those nice descriptions from > setup.ini in setup.exe so we can see what the packages are before > downloading them. a resizable window would come in handy for this. > 7) the first time I downloaded (a partial download, not full), i picked > "more" and "clear", but next time I went into setup.exe, it had > "forgotten" that. perhaps if I can unrust my C, I can fix some of these > bugs myself. give me a few weeks. > 8) the XFree86-fnts package is 16 MiB. it's kind of big. the first time i > downloaded from http:uiuc, it got 98% and stopped responding--1 hour > wasted (at 56 Kb). the second time (no joke) it got 99% and > stopped--another hour wasted. so i copied it from somewhere else. > 9) my X clients on an AIX box didn't work because i didn't use the -kb > switch on XWin. but i found that one on the faq. a possible enhancement to > > setup.exe? > 10) using K (or Ki) and B for byte on setup.exe is always nice. make sure > to leave a space between the number and the unit. 10 KB, not 10KB. how > about estimated download time in addition to % ? > 11) also, what's all that /b stuff about in startxwin.bat? gotos, etc. but > > there is no /b ! (there is no spoon either ;-) > > > Please no one take offense at all this. I'm not trying to throw blame. It > seems like a great product, so far (except for the deadly restarts). These > > are perhaps suggestions for doing it better. I know some coworkers who > tried to get this to work, but gave up because of the problems. So will > the average newbie or the busy IT pro who doesn't have time to read lots > of faqs and will buy Exceed instead. I hope my observations will help > others. > > Gabriel Sroka > gsroka at mmsa dot com >
