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  • From: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [BL] Using X
  • Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:50:10 +0000

X provides 5 valuable services for the ordinary user/sysadmin:

1. An integrated graphical windowing system (it uses only 1
tty per user) that allows cutting&pasting images and text
between windows. The windows can be created at boottime in
any rectangular shape and size and placement, and with any
applications running in them. You can switch between windows in a
blink, creating and killing them at will.

There are window managers that are less than 10KB in size
(failsafewm is one).

2. The ability to log into a remote box directly and run or join
an X session on that box, using it as if it was the one sitting
in front of you.

3. Viewing images.

4. Editing images.

[Creating images is a specialized skill requiring specialized
software that is of no concern to most people. We are not all
graphic artists and a computer cannot make us one. If you can't
do well with ordinary artists tools you won't do well with the
digital ones.

Ordinary users obtain images from the Web or with digital cameras
or scanners and mix and match and modify them to suit their
purposes. If they are interested in creating 'original' art at
all. Most people are not.]

5. Running graphical applications. Like web browsers.

There are xservers available for almost any box that are less
than 1MB in size. These are called "kdrive servers" or "tinyX
xervers". They make all of the above services available.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The most important application an x-window can run is an
xterm (x-terminal-emulator; it would be capitalized if it
was a reference to the x-terminal-emulator that has bears
that name).

This provides direct access to the shell. A command prompt.

Whenever possible, it is best to run non-graphical applications.
They are usually far more versatile and consume far less system
resources than graphical applications.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Instead of X you _could_ use svgalib (sort of), but it will never
provide the integrated functionality of X as described above. And
you'll spend a lot of time trying to even get close. That attempt
will also require more system resources than X does.

Using screen you can have a windowing system and run remote
screen sessions, but screen isn't graphical. So you wouldn't
be able to use the svgalib graphical tools either locally or
remotely within screen. It also requires libncurses, a very large
library.

Keep in mind that almost no one writes for svgalib because almost
no one uses it.

The only application I've ever used that crashed my Debian OS is
an image viewer called "zgv" running off svgalib. Many others
have had the same grim experience.

Debian is proabably the most stable OS in the world.

I've seen a lot of people really try to make svgalib work
because they have a bias against X based on ignorance.

I was one of them. We all eventually gave it up as a bad job And.
all of us had X to fall back on while we were trying.

Mostly, I think the problem was that we confused
graphical-integrated-desktop-environments like KDE and Gnome and
those used by Windows and Mac with X. And they aren't the same
thing at all. Those desktop environements are built on _top_ of
X.

Neither X nor Linux need them. They use incredible amounts of
system resources and are very limited when compared to direct
control from the commandline.

Use X, don't let it use you.

Lee

--
"...the e-mail system (everywhere!) was not intended for
file transfer."
http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?tutorials/filetransfer





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