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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!umd5!umbc3!alex
From: alex@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Alex S. Crain)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: X Windows on a 3B1 (let's do it)
Message-ID: <782@umbc3.UMD.EDU>
Date: 9 Feb 88 19:49:15 GMT
References: <1686@codas.att.com> <3686@megaron.arizona.edu> <384@pcbox.UUCP> <2777@oxtrap.UUCP>
Reply-To: alex@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Alex S. Crain)
Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Lines: 30


	[much enthusiasm deleted about X on 3b1]

	I tossed this out about a montha ago, and nobody said anything, so
I scored the sources and looked at them.

	Yuk.

	X is a great program, but its really overkill for a 3b1 unless your
networking a batch of 'em, and even then I wonder. It's a huge program that
uses lots of code to do things that most 3b1 users never do, like network
protocalls. Also, requiring all i/o to go through a user program is gonna slow
things down something fierce, and X is a bit unstable to live in MY kernal 
space, thanX.

	A more viable option is to  first rewrite the window driver, and then
add X compatability (to some degree). That wouldn't be harder than X ittself,
and could be done gradually, adding unixpc specific stuff, and retain /dev/w*
compatability, so you wouldn't break the world.

	Note that its the window driver that provides us with the working icon,
the unusable screen area that's reserverd for mouse buttons and smgr, etc.
Also note that /dev/console is NOT the window driver, but is built into the 
kernal. If you uninstall the window driver, you are left with a FULL SCREEN
scrolling display. 

	Just some thing to think about.
-- 
					:alex.

nerwin!alex@umbc3.umd.edu
alex@umbc3.umd.edu