On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 06:14:34PM -0400, Gary MacDougall wrote:
> Not the point at all.  X might be lightweight memory wise, but its heavy
> when it comes to configuration and installation.  Nobody (I think) would
> argue that X isn't for the faint of heart -- every try to get a video
> card that isn't really that "popular" running under X? Better yet, ever
> try to configure a reasonable font under X?  Please.... All I'm saying is
> that X is about 15 years old, its time to find a better platform, something
> more reasonable to build your GUI foundation on -- yeah, KDE is fat, but
> thats not the point.  The point is when you slap KDE on top of X, then its
> REALLY fat.  X alone is fine. But X without a decent (and good looking)
> window manager isn't useful for 99.9% of the world... you might as well
> stay on the command line...

This is silly.  XFree86 (example X implementation) is going
configuration-file-free and the new fontconfig library for client-side fonts
will have GUIs from KDE/GNOME to make font configuration a piece of cake.
Hell, the config file is just an XML file in your home directory.  X is old,
but adapts surprisingly well.

DirectFB is interesting because it provides a new method of providing hardware
acceleration to windowed applications.  XFree86 has considered a similar
layered approach in the past but it never reached fruition (probably because
there are relatively few people interested/capable of implementing it).
DirectFB provides acceleration for things X just can't do yet.  Further, it
appears (from an outsider's perspective) to be more accessable to spare time
developers.

Don't dog X for being "fat" because it's not.  DirectFB provides pixmap
scaling, compositing/blending, and inter-window alpha blending acceleration in
an exposure-free environment.  That rocks.  Could X do it?  Yes, but not at
the moment.

Jeff


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