Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!shelby!apple!claris!szebra!tin From: tin@szebra.uucp (Tin Le) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,ba.windows.x Subject: Re: Running X windows on a 16MHz 386sx Keywords: X11R4 386sx Message-ID: <1990Oct18.054648.2283@szebra.uucp> Date: 18 Oct 90 05:46:48 GMT References: <1990Oct16.060422.17071@shawn.uucp> <1990Oct16.155020.1252@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> <1990Oct16.201137.18397@nstar.uucp> Sender: Tin Le Reply-To: tin@wciu.edu (Tin Le) Followup-To: ba.windows.x Organization: Station Zebra Consulting Lines: 89 > In article <1990Oct16.201137.18397@nstar.uucp> larry@nstar.uucp (Larry Snyder) writes: >kaleb@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov (Kaleb Keithley ) writes: > >>real bottleneck tho' is the VGA display on the 8mhz AT bus. After a year of >>living with the SX, I just upgraded to a 486 and, while all around faster, >>the display is still the weak link (it is a 16bit VGA.) What intrigues me >>the most is that the display performance for OS/2 is orders of magnitude >>better; the X server writers need to get a lot smarter about handling the >>VGA, especially bit blitting. > >I've also heard that X11R4 is faster writing than X11R3 with regular >16 bit VGA boards as well.. Yes. X11R4 is faster in many aspects. The server has been optimized in a number of areas. It is well worth upgrading to it if you are running R3 now. On an SX, the minimum requirements are (in order): >=8MB RAM, high speed graphics card (VGA 800x600 or better), X11R4. I use a 386/20 and X11R4 performance is adequate for my need. I only need to keep an eye on szebra (a Pub *NIX node with full news feed). Several x clients, a TB+ line, news feed, a couple windows all works just fine. I do have the system params tuned so that there is no paging/swapping. No, I only have 8MB (nothing fancy). Folks, it is possible to have a usable X system without spending a lot of money. Yes, you are right. I wouldn't want to also develop software on it. If I were to do that, then I'd get more memory (at least 16MB total) and a faster hard disk. The key point here is not the speed of the processor, but rather the I/O subsystem throughput. A 386sx is perfectly adequate to run X11R4. The bottleneck that people are complaining about here is the graphics (EGA/VGA isn't exactly a speed demon, even a 16bit card), paging and swapping problems (more memory and faster hard disk/controller helps), and probably also bad serial I/O throughput (the default 8250 or even 14450 UART is a piece of garbage folks, upgrade to 16550 immediately!). With the proper system tuning and I/O subsystems, I can make a lowly 386 seems as fast as a SPARC (NOTE: I said "seems") in terms of responsive user interface. I am sure everyone would love to own a 486/33 with 16MB RAM or more. Yeah, me too :).... But I sure as hell can't justify spending so much money when it's not really needed. In Summary: Here is my opinion, it's free so take it with a grain of salt. A 386sx is fine to run *nix and X Windows BUT, it must be at least of the following configuration: - 8MB RAM (or more) - 16bit VGA (get a fast one) must support at least 800x600 16 colors (SVGA of 1024x768 is great) Or (if you can afford it) - 8514/A with a graphic co-proc (TI 32XXX) - 14" monitor (16" would be much better); color would be nice but monochrome is fine - high speed HD system (ESDI or SCSI) it's your personal bias here (I prefer SCSI, but 15Mb ESDI is fine). - fast HD (of course, fast ctrlr with slow HD is useless) Cost: 386sx/16 Motherboard (0K) $300 8MB RAM (100ns or 120ns) $400-$450 16bit VGA (256KB VRAM or more) $180-$280 14" monochrome (NEC) $200+ Adaptec 1542B SCSI $300+ 80MB SCSI (16ms) $400+ case/power/floppy/keybrd $300 -------- $2080-$2380 Unix S5 R3.2 Full package (ESIX?) $800+ Thomas Roelle X11R4 Xvga Free Gnu gcc/g++/bash/files/etc Free -- Tin Le -- +----------------------------------------------------------------- |Tin Le | tin@smsc.sony.com or tin@szebra.uucp |Station Zebra |....!{claris,zorch}!szebra!tin |Sunnyvale, CA | (408) 739-1520 24hrs Telebit+ 300-19200bps