Re: will it eventually run X
On Wed, 14 Apr 1999, Eric J. Korpela wrote: [snip] I don't suppose you ever used X on an 8 MHz 68010 (like early Sun machines). I have :-) I wonder if it's still possible to get X10 or X11R3 source code anywhere. X wasn't always as bloated as it is now. [snip] ftp.x.org andru
Re: will it eventually run X
I have seen X Run on a 386DX/33 w/ 8mb RAM and it was acceptable. No speed demon, but certianly useable. I could see an XT/286 possibly running X, if the server, even, were running on another machine. This would require some sort of networked X server... Where EVERYTHING is kept in RAM on a BigLinux box, and ONLY the info being displayed to the screen is transmitted over the network to an ELKS machine. The ELKS machine would be a truely dumb X Terminal--not keeping any fonts, window parameters, etc, in memory at all. Display only what it's given over the network. I've been wondering about this also. Any x terminal has limits on how many resources it can handle, so what is the minimum amount that is required? If an x command references a resource which has been dropped can't it just re-request it? So in the limit couldn't it re-request it every time it needs it? What if a "shim" could be written on the client-side to pre-chew the x protocol and slim it down somehow - represent more complex graphics in terms of plain old line segments, replace all fonts with one of 2 or 3 choices guaranteed to be on the server, convert images to the number of colors supported by the server, that sort of thing? I mean what else is there besides vector graphics, raster graphics, text, and event traffic? My context (and main reason for lurking on this list) is that I have some 386 touchscreens with 2 megs RAM each that I want to eventually make useful. VNC would do, actually, and is much lighter-weight, as soon as I can figure out how to boot Linux and run SVNC in 2 megs. :-) I'm also thinking of doing an OS-less version of VNC, in which case a small TCP/IP implementation would be very useful. A web browser would also do, but I have tried arachne and it is too slow. A BBS graphics protocol like RIP might also work but that is a strange crowd to deal with. I guess there were once simpler Unix graphics standards like Tektronics, and mwm(?) or something like that but these are fading into obscurity. I've never seen clients for these but I have seen terminal programs that had Tek graphics support so it must be pretty simple. -- ___ KB7PWD @ KC7Y.AZ.US.NOAM [EMAIL PROTECTED] (_ | |_) Shawn T. Rutledgeon the web: http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud __) | | \__
Re: will it eventually run X
Perhaps something like W could be written to work on machines with 8mb RAM And then an X Server for W could be written, with the BigLinux-server converting the X protocol into W for display on the LittleLinux box. Again, it won't be me doing it. :-) My context (and main reason for lurking on this list) is that I have some 386 touchscreens with 2 megs RAM each that I want to eventually make useful. VNC would do, actually, and is much lighter-weight, as soon as I can figure out how to boot Linux and run SVNC in 2 megs. :-) I'm also thinking of doing an OS-less version of VNC, in which case a small TCP/IP implementation would be very useful. A web browser would also do, but I have tried arachne and it is too slow. A BBS graphics protocol like RIP might also work but that is a strange crowd to deal with. I guess there were once simpler Unix graphics standards like Tektronics, and mwm(?) or something like that but these are fading into obscurity. I've never seen clients for these but I have seen terminal programs that had Tek graphics support so it must be pretty simple. -- ___ KB7PWD @ KC7Y.AZ.US.NOAM [EMAIL PROTECTED] (_ | |_) Shawn T. Rutledgeon the web: http://www.bigfoot.com/~ecloud __) | | \__ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Jonathan Hall * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * PGP public key available Systems Admin, Future Internet Services; Goessel, KS * (316) 367-2487 http://www.futureks.net * PGP Key ID: FE 00 FD 51 -= Running Debian GNU/Linux 2.0, kernel 2.0.36 =- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Re: will it eventually run X
About the lowest platform I would consider X on is a 386-DX-25 or so with at least 16 MB of memory running a tiny mono X server or something like that. I don't suppose you ever used X on an 8 MHz 68010 (like early Sun machines). I wonder if it's still possible to get X10 or X11R3 source code anywhere. X wasn't always as bloated as it is now. Many years ago, I had a grayscale "dickless" Sun (3? I don't remember for sure...) as my desktop terminal. It ran just fine as I recall. (Not that I had anything better to compare it to, it was 1987 and we were doing UNIX development so existing PC hardware just didn't cut the mustard.) Later on, I worked porting X11R3/4 servers using a 386DX20 (8MB) as my development machine. This box ran X just fine under ISC UNIX, although it was a bit slower running SCO. - phil
