the disabled backing store was indeed the problem. Although strictly speaking, the failure to refresh itself is an application error, but it would have been too much effort to fix it, so I had to figure out how to bring GNOME (the WM I am using), and more specifically gdm to start up X with backing-store enabled (of course, the startx command only works if there is no X running on the same display).
It turns out one needs to modify the file /etc/X11/XF86Config by adding the line
Option "backingstore"
as last line of Section "Device" (just before line EndSection )
Regarding colours: the problem was that the code is so old that it tested for a PseudoColor visual, and then not finding any, assumed it is running on a B&W display, whereas of course TrueColor visuals are available. I fixed this in the source code, so the code looks for all kinds of colour visuals.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction regarding the backing store.
Frederik
Mark Vojkovich wrote:
On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Frederik Tilmann wrote:
I am using some older applications that use xlib to open up and write into windows. They work fine on other X systems (e.g. on SUNs und CDE), and older versions of
Linux but for new version of XFree 86, the following two problems occur:
- There is no buffering of the window content, ie. when I put another window on top, and
then remove it again, I just get a blank area where the other window used to be
(the window is openend with options that request that the X does the backing - attribute
CWBackingStore is set)
Backing store is disabled in XFree86 by default. You can enable it with the +bs commandline option (eg. "startx -- +bs"). Even with backing store, you are not guaranteed that you won't get expose events. It is an application error to assume otherwise. XFree86 backing store is disabled by default because it is usually faster for the app to just redraw than it is for the server to use backing store. This is due to some inefficiencies in the backing store implementation.
- There is no colour. Line drawings which are meant to be in colour come out as black and white.
This is an 8 bit app? Perhaps you've just run out of colors. The render extension ate up alot of colors in XFree86 4.2. It shouldn't in 4.3. Even in 4.3, PCs may just have fewer colors than the Suns have so you might still have a smaller palette than you are used to. If you are using the default colormap and have alot of other apps and window manager using the same colormap, it's not surprising that there wouldn't be much colormap left.
Mark.
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