Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> After you have exported DISPLAY, execute the window
> manager's executable.  That will send the wm to the
> Xterminal and you will then be able to launch the
> apps from the Xterminal (using the wm menu).

Well, that was simple enough.  This is interesting.  ion3 is a good wm for
doing this, and gives just what I would need: I'd like this to be a sort
of internet station for my wife.  But I think performance is just not
going to be suitable.  I tried at all the resolutions and color depths
Xvesa provides in BL3, and the "speed" (should probably say "slowness")
was unacceptable in all of them.  Maybe there was a slight decrease in
speed at 800x600, but it was not very noticeable.  There is no swapping
that I can hear--except maybe when I kill Xvesa.  It just takes forever
for apps to open, and drop-down menus paint slowly down the
screen--actually first the frame appears, then the contents of the menu
gradually fill in.  Cursor motion lags noticeably behind mouse device
movement.  And the color is off: it's certainly not real 12-bit color.  It
looks like 4-bit, everything being fuzzy and extremely bleached.  I don't
have any high-powered 1MB ISA video cards around here or I might throw one
in just to see what effect upping video RAM might have.  And it does seem
that physical memory is not a problem: I hear no swapping, so everything
does seem to run fine within the physical RAM I have.  So really the
remaining culprits are: 1) slow processor speed; 2) absence of copro; 3)
paltry video memory; 4) low network speed.  I guess the combination of all
those leads to a machine that can barely act as an xterminal.  3 is the
only one I could really do anything about, though adding copro might be
what would make the most difference in reducing the latency problems.
Further suggestions, or shall I call the experiment complete?

James