From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 18:00:45 +0100 From: Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org Subject: X11 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 59999574-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Message-ID: <19970502170045.G8a7FC6aKKCdIMwT-uuGxJFIW7V5gQ1EKkiztEt4LhQ@z> > From: Nigel Roles > > Sounds fine, so long as it isn't compulsory to run it..... > >i can't imagine why the x proponents would want to run all those horrible >x programs. plan 9 doesn't have or need x. it's a _feature_. > Well, personally, I am not desperate to make my plan9 screen look like an X terminal. I am more looking to make my 21" 1600x1200 X terminal a plan9 console.... (and not have to sit next to a (YECH) PC with a 14" display and vga resolution..) And there are some X applications which I currently have to reboot with Unix in order to run, which a server on plan9 could allow to run without changeing os. Granted, a rewrite to use the Plan 9 native graphics would be nicer, but not always practical. Perhaps we should distinguish between 1. Providing a filesystem which maps graphics requests to the X network protocol, allowing plan9 apps to be run on an external X display. 2. Providing an Xlib port (and maybe Xaw etc) libraries, allowing X sources to be ported to plan9. This should be straight forward using APE and the berkely sockets libs. (shouldn't it?) Probably not too useful on its own, though. 3. Write a verssion of the Xlib libraries that produces graphics according to the plan9 conventions. This would allow ported X applications to run on native plan9. This might be hard, although if it is possible to write an X server, it should be possible as a worst case to build an image in memory and then write it to a plan9 window periodically. 4. The X server program running in a plan9 window, allowing external X based applications to be run from a plan9 console. With option 2, we also get to run ported X apps on a standalone plan 9. I have to admit, though, that I havn't learnt enough about plan9 graphics to say how feasible all these things are. And yes, I know writing everything from scratch for plan9 would be better. It is just that I don't see that happening in the short term. Regards, DigbyT -- Digby R. S. Tarvin digbyt@acm.org http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~cthulhu/