Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!ucsd!usc!samsung!rex!uflorida!haven!adm!smoke!brl.mil!moss From: moss@brl.mil (Gary S. Moss (VLD/VMB) ) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: SGI's migration to X Message-ID: <13717@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 31 Aug 90 14:39:39 GMT References: <208@voodoo.UUCP> Sender: news@smoke.BRL.MIL Reply-To: moss@brl.mil Organization: Ballistic Research Laboratory Lines: 29 In article , slehar@bucasd.bu.edu (Steve Lehar) writes: |> Now I know that X is designed to run on any hardware, which is why it |> is so complicated, while the SGI stuff only runs on SGI, and that is |> why it is so simple and elegant. Nevertheless, I think SGI did an |> EXCEPTIONAL job in their graphics software, and I would not hurry on |> over to X unless I were absolutely FORCED to do so! X is messy, |> inordinately complicated, atrociously documented and unreliable. (My X |> image windows are prone to suddenly disappearing if they've been |> around for a while) My advice is to stick with SGI! I think that the perfect mix would be using a real X window manager like TWM, and to be able to run GL applications in an X window. X has a way to go to replace the GL for real graphics, but for the desktop environment, the availability and economy of using X is tough to beat. It sure would be nice to be able to run TWM on the SGI instead of customizing yet another window manager. Programming in X is not all that bad, PostScript is much more foreign to someone used to C programming. The accellerated development time provided by Xt toolkits is invaluable, and the volume of quality PD software is remarkable. The unreliability of X is a symptom of the server on the SGI (or wherever). I have never had windows disappear on my Sun (unless the process was killed, the network connection failed, etc.) and I find it very robust, but on the SGI, X just plain doesn't work worth a darn under 3.2.x. Hopefully 3.3 is much better. -Gary