Baslinux mailing list

[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

On Sun, Mar 11, 2007 at 05:11:19PM +0000,
Sindi wrote:

> 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 

I believe I have read that X will work with 8MB of RAM. If you
don't have that, how are you going to do _anything_?

> or hard disk space (in a loop filesystem),

That's a learning tool, not a fully-functional OS. Newbies
_shouldn't_ use X. Start simple and clean and learn the basics of
the shell and develop their typing skills.

I'm concerned here with fully-functional OSes.

> or Xvesa won't support the video chip, and the SVGA server
> needs changed modelines or also won't support the chip.

Whenever one is dealing with older computers, there are going to
be challenges along these lines. The solution here is to acquire
a video card that has a chip that one of those servers will work
with. They are not expensive.

And (see below)...

>
> Please remind us whether the TinyX servers are available for
> libc5 precompiled. 

The two you mention above. And there are several people on the
list who would be happy to create a statically-compiled version
of any of the TinyX servers (Xvesa is statically-compiled) upon
request.

> I think you had to change to glibc to get your serial card
> working.

To _a_ libc6. 

I didn't really have to change. Used statically-compiled (uclibc)
apps for a while. The combination of the unusual (for BL) serial card
and my i810 chip made me decide to switch over to glibc.

I am not using an old computer...

I _could_ have acquired, as you suggested in a previous thread,
a video card (the i810 is onboard) or used a statically-compiled
TinyX and a USB serial port (also your suggestion).

> 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.

With you there. I don't use a mouse for anything but cutting and
pasting, as a rule. 

Even without X you are going to need GPM mouse support for that,
unless you use screen.

Screen has the best cutting and pasting functionality in the
world. No other application compares. I really miss that. I'd
love it if someone would make screen graphical. It _is_ if you
run it in an xterm :-\

> 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.

Been there. It's a pain.

The graphics exist in what is effectively a different world than
your ordinary working environment.

> If I ever need to paste images I will use X.

That's only a small part of what X provides. The main thing
is an environment that integrates graphics and text.

> 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.

That's what he told me several years ago when I was trying to
get it to work without crashing my box!

> 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?

Not to my knowledge. Nothing to prevent you from transferring
files with graphical data, of course, but that isn't the same
thing at all.

> 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.

X will certainly run on pentiums.

I do it when I am away from home. Using your own box is far
superior to any other solution. 

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

I'll repeat what I said above: You can run X with 8MB RAM and
swap. These old laptops don't have that?

I can't imagine that they would be able to do graphics with
Svgalib either, then. (But I've never tried.)

>
> > 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.

So you _do_ use X.

I have not encountered a single Svgalib user who _doesn't_ use
X to date, so there is a redundancy of functionality going on.

(I'm talking about a real OS, not a play box.)

> > 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.

It can be done, but it's very clumsy. Drove me nuts.

> > 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.

I'm not talking about isolated applications, I am talking about
an integrated user interface to a fully-functional OS.

Why make a big point of calling the X approach a "GUI"? You'll
use a mouse with most Svgalib applications, so that's not unique
to X. And many, if not most, non-X OSes include GPM so that one
can cut and paste with a mouse (etc.). Zgv has mouse support
enabled by default.

And they are both involve graphical applications or don't.
An xterm isn't graphical. And you don't use a mouse with it.
I don't use a mouse to switch between windows...

> > 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.

My window manager is only 7K...

> > 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.

No thanks. I gave non-X graphically-capable Linux a very good
try. The fact that Zgv crashed my box every now and again was
only _one_ of the reasons I moved to a  _minimal_ X.

> 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.

I'm using 2.3.1 but the same Xi810 probably works for those.

> > 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).

We have  differing concepts of "working well".

I'm talking about an integrated, graphically-capable user
interface, not isolated applications.

(Believe me, I _really_ wanted to avoid X too!)

> > 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.

The bottom line is that you can use anything you want to use!

> > 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.

Not when you take into account the _entire_ user interface to a
fully-functional OS.

Once again, that's what _I_ am talking about. Not isolated
applications.

Thanks for the great feedback,

Lee

-- 
BasicLinux: Small is Beautiful
http://www.basiclinux.com.ru