"Green, Keith" wrote: > > Currently, we tell our users to buy Exceed. However, I installed > XFree86 on my machine and have been able to run the program under > it with no problem. Unfortunately, this is way overkill for what we want > the users to do; I just want them to be able to run the program, > without having them tinker for hours getting configurations correct.
I don't think you've told us quite enough to understand your problem. I'm guessing that "the program" is an X client. That suggests that it's meant to run in some Unix, or Linux, or VMS (?) environment. Exceed is an X server that runs under Microsoft Windows. So that makes sense -- "The program" runs on some Unix box, with a network connection to the Hummingbird Exceed server. Makes good sense for people who have Windows on their desks, and the appropriate Unix box on their network. But you say you installed XFree86 on your machine. XFree86 doesn't run under Windows, so you must be describing a rather different situation, with Unix (or Linux) on the desktop. If the users have Unix on their desks in 2002 they almost certainly already have X11 already configured and running on those desks, so there's no problem. Or perhaps when you say "I installed XFree86 on my machine" you mean not just XFree86, but a complete operating system, like Linux? If that's what you mean, then I'm afraid you aren't going to find any complete operating system, including X11, that you can install from scratch in 5 minutes. The closest you could get is a pre-configured disk image that you could dd across the network onto the local disk. With 100 Mbit Ethernet this could potentially work in 5 minutes, but it would take quite a bit of work to set it up in the first place. You'd have to boot some little installation system on the local desktop machine that knows how to find the installation image server on the network and copy the image directly to the local disk. How long it takes to do the installation depends mainly on network bandwidth. But you didn't want to hear about all that, did you? If the users already have MS-Windows on their desks they're going to be reluctant to give it up, or to add a second computer, keyboard, mouse, and monitor just to run your program. If I'm guessing right about your problem, then Exceed is the best solution I know of. > So here's my question: is there a minimal, already-compiled, and > trivially-configured (*) XFree86 environment just sitting somewhere, > waiting to be used. > > It would be a good thing, I think, if we could give people a free > environment under which they could run it. > > thanks, > k > > (*) Trivial does not mean it would take a person who is very > familiar with the product 5 minutes to set up. Trivial means that > that we can send maybe a one paragraph help sheet to an > intelligent, albeit Unix-deprived, user who can install it and get > it working in 5 minutes. > > ____________________________________________________ > Keith Green, Research Staff Member > Room 105W, Simulation Center, Institute for Defense Analyses > 1801 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311-1772 > Wk: (703) 845-6815 Fax: (703) 845-6809 > > _______________________________________________ > Newbie mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > *** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie -- Remember, more computing power was thrown away last week than existed in the world in 1982. -- http://www.tom.womack.net/computing/prices.html _______________________________________________ Newbie mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** To unsubscribe , or change message options, see: http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/newbie
