Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!ogicse!oregon!jmeissen
From: jmeissen@oregon.oacis.org ( Staff OACIS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Where should X concentrate its CPU cycles?
Message-ID: <47@oregon.oacis.org>
Date: 25 Oct 90 17:07:14 GMT
References: <2382@trlluna.trl.oz> <6877@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1990Oct24.221622.3575@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Organization: Oregon Advanced Computing Institute (OACIS)
Lines: 37

In article <1990Oct24.221622.3575@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
->peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
->> every  program  is  responsible  for  scheduling)  or  X  (where  the
->> application is responsible for maintaining display integrity) it seems
->> to  me  a  waste  of  time  to  duplicate  functions  needlessly.
->
->To the contrary, this is exactly in line with the move  from  mainframes
->to microcomputers. Remember the horrid bottleneck when 20  students  all
->logged  onto  a  VAX  11/750?
->
->The common (server) device  is  going  to  be  the  bottleneck,  so  the
->appropriate thing to do is to offload as many cpu cycles as possible  to
->the client machine. Anything else would lead to _dreadful_  performance.
->
->You pay for this  with  huge  executables  on  the  client,  but  that's
->perfectly fine when memory is cheap and cpu  cycles  (especially  shared
->ones), as well as network bandwidth  on  a  common  ethernet  are  dear.


But that's EXACTLY the problem with X. Instead of having the device which
actually performs the display function (the server) handle clip regions
and window refreshing, the application is responsible for these things,\
which puts the burden back on the central system running multitudinous
X applications for users at distributed locations. PLUS it has to push
all this data back and forth over the local net, adding to the net load.

Don't confuse window manager with server. In most cases, the X user has
a box configured as a server, tied in to a central system. This distributes
the SERVER's function, while centralizing CLIENT activity. Obviously you
want to off-load as much as possible onto the server!


-- 
John Meissen .............................. Oregon Advanced Computing Institute
jmeissen@oacis.org        (Internet) | "That's the remarkable thing about life;
..!sequent!oacis!jmeissen (UUCP)     |  things are never so bad that they can't
jmeissen                  (BIX)      |  get worse." - Calvin & Hobbes