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From: ballou@databs.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: window manager under ultrix 4.1
Message-ID: <1991Mar8.171052@databs.enet.dec.com>
Date: 8 Mar 91 22:15:21 GMT
References: <67818@brunix.UUCP>
Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com
Reply-To: ballou@databs.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 36

In article <67818@brunix.UUCP>, da@cs.brown.edu (David Ascher) writes:
|> Setup:  Decstation 5000/200, Ultrix 4.1, mwm, Xtm2d.
|> 
|> When I start up the X server, it has a process size of approx 2.5
|> megs.  After I start and stop a few windowed applications, the process
|> size has grown to 12 Megs.  When it gets to about this size, it
|> thrashes each time i move a window, as I don't have hundreds of megs
|> of real RAM.  Something is seriously wrong in my setup I fear.  Does
|> anyone have any clues?

Sounds very familiar to me :-)   If you disable save-unders, which are turned
on by default in Ultrix 4.1, you will see much better performance when using
mwm.

Here is related information on how to do this:

    Well, on my DS3100, ULTRIX 4.1 and mwm 1.1, mwm _was_ a hog until I
    figured out what was going on.  There's a bug in mwm -- it uses
    save-unders BY DEFAULT (it isn't supposed to unless you ask it to).
    The 4.1 X servers implement save unders, but (alas) not very
    effeciently (plus they aggravate a memory leak).  So, what you should
    do is tell the X server not to use save unders.  This is true for ALL
    the 4.1 X servers (Xcfb, Xtm and whatever the server for the PX board
    is).  In your /etc/ttys file, add the -su option to the line that
    starts the X server.  Mine looks like this:

    :0 "/usr/bin/login -P /usr/bin/Xprompter -C /usr/bin/dxsession -e" none
    on secure window="/usr/bin/Xcfb -bs -su"

|> 
|> Probably unrelated, but when I start a dxterm, I get the "mwm: Invalid
|> icon bitmap, not depth 1" error message on my console.

Unrelated.  I'll let someone else explain this to you - I'm wiped out.

Nat