Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!SABER.COM!jimf
From: jimf@SABER.COM
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: server?
Message-ID: <9011261748.AA27681@test4>
Date: 26 Nov 90 17:48:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

|Cooperate> 	Is that true that for every client that connects to a
|Cooperate> X server, a child server process will be created? So every client has
|Cooperate> its copy  of server?

No, there's usually just one process although I could see someone
threading the server at some point.  There's no reason why a server
must run in more than one process and most do not.

This design brings about the most significant limitation with most
UNIX-based X servers -- they can only talk to as many clients as they
have available file descriptors.  This is not generally a problem
since newer UNIX's generally have 64 or more file descriptors per
process.

|How about X-terminals and PC-servers, which can only have one
|process, the server itself ?

If you check I believe you'll find that some (most?) X terminals
actually run a stripped-down kernel with a couple of processes,
typically telnet and the X server.  I'm certain that one of the major
X terminal vendors (NCD?) uses or used to use this architecture,
although it's been a long time since I was at that talk so I'm pretty
fuzzy on the details.  It's easier to do this than to modify your
basic server to handle remote logins and loading of fonts via NFS.

Happy hacking,

jim frost
saber software
jimf@saber.com