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[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

Thanks for this summary of the advantages of X.

Nobody is claiming that X is not useful, only that X sometimes won't work 
on certain systems in BL3.  Either there is not enough RAM or hard disk 
space (in a loop filesystem), or Xvesa won't support the video chip, and 
the SVGA server needs changed modelines or also won't support the chip.

Please remind us whether the TinyX servers are available for libc5 
precompiled.  I think you had to change to glibc to get your serial card 
working.

The main drawback of X for me is that I don't like GUIs, and X programs 
are usually designed around a mouse and onscreen menus and buttons.

I would much rather learn the keyboard commands.

Thanks for pointing out that screen won't work with graphics.  I could 
only run the first screen session and had to exit zgv to access a second 
screen.  If I ever need to paste images I will use X.

svgalib is admittedly still buggy at times but the latest version has not 
crashed for me.  I probably need to change one setting to fix a problem 
with text mode for my  matrox card.  The author welcomes bug reports and 
is trying to support all recent video chips in his 2007 version.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> 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.

Yes, you need X to use X.  I have not tried running graphical programs 
with svgalib on a remote box - can it be done?  I don't really have any 
reason to run programs on one computer from another one.  We had 24 
working desktop pentiums at last count.


The rest of this can be done without X, in less space and RAM, which means 
you can do it on old laptops.

> 3. Viewing images.
>
> 4. Editing images.

...............

> 5. Running graphical applications. Like web browsers.

Opera requires X, and is all I have been using X for recently other than 
obtaining figures on memory usage.  It works well in icewm with keyboard 
navigation.  I am setting it up for friends who like GUIs.

> 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.

So does a console, using less RAM.  But you can't run text and graphical 
programs on the same terminal in console mode.  I don't mind switching 
between terminals if I need to do that.

> 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.

It is not designed to do that.  It is designed for graphics programs that 
don't need a GUI.

> 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.

250K
I use it for other things anyway, such as kermit.

> 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.

Try a later version of svgalib and let us know if it still crashes. I 
really am interested, because we have three or more i810 boards and I got 
the sound part working and would not mind trying them with the TinyX 
server for glibc2.  1.4.3 is in SW8.1, or download 1.9.25.

> 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.

Or don't like GUIs.  Svgalib is working well for me (except on one matrox 
card that needs something adjusted).


> 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.

I use both, for different reasons.

> 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.

So does X compared to non-GUI programs.  Probably a few orders of 
magnitude less than KDE, but still more than console/svgalib.

> 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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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org