From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 21471 invoked from network); 26 Feb 2023 03:29:10 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 26 Feb 2023 03:29:10 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BE9A4328B; Sun, 26 Feb 2023 13:29:06 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-x234.google.com (mail-lj1-x234.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4864:20::234]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id BD3AB43287 for ; Sun, 26 Feb 2023 13:28:59 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-x234.google.com with SMTP id h3so3021387lja.12 for ; Sat, 25 Feb 2023 19:28:59 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=4/LmWYEWEei/vktBtb00i+KfKicq0c6x3IK0Na2rz50=; b=lkuIyGu7YchYdxa6O2bweeti4O/o666vNQgJa0HPRXy1z5RKbPcjZYRuvtneuIQhWK JELSyabGNDcIIJF+RH/mnRaiGlGih0BB6WYeIAcXVpPbEu/5fAN1bBq6RoaiVmpIkPzw iMihVY9gggugFnvUYPFPUfgZgkmFwUPMysiyp7+b3mTj2V5lSYoFG0A5xR9bxtBi335F THjrQ5kwEcG+xxe9hsND3PAfwF+OHFZb1CcDA87L89bY9ZhYTP7lIyLUe0OKZ0cI3Nhv uqxib21biRVVGjFYM6s6+/p8DC5lXCsnW3HpGpEemFZQOb+EutHGL27YR7AKJkDavrr2 V5Pg== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id :reply-to; bh=4/LmWYEWEei/vktBtb00i+KfKicq0c6x3IK0Na2rz50=; b=qiuy68TK9jMpwWytJLEURQmJy8IHozGBPfU3PXkvHCi//ldOB5QY20oLzVVzrXU+I7 vbcUwx8OGpIhRrW4yJlySBkjGlMoOs2GzLplHWMReXXh64CLzZxK1ayLBSEoauOzTdmn mBuiupS+tJYcyjdPxHYH1fMUKXojHHiwebbPbg7uCSI+LOSd7mJbji2UmxWVwHsXo859 Pk22rvmbPn0ejUKWMv+4hcQUCOnxOnL2V01RwAaZ1hD9gQI6iaebcZxOO4qg4Rr6ZlY0 /rYJPCx56eAC9WaN1LII1lMen45ra55mJ0kOQfUN6wJTf4SIwRylar/ryUCFFmWNjVRw y2pw== X-Gm-Message-State: AO0yUKUiA7b1JANGovCSMBChaKXuoxpAKvgtwrnW/l8q0ZHPHl34FMQw Vhg/1EJ9Ol5JKap+JCWjLLxXgBi36fuB3mjzbzM= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AK7set9GLf+1jhT2Vpi9s7nxoiLZiwgo3xHIls3SXh6yqRS51QfJttBuLKQ4tyVxfxqLfVG4UyALGP9h3Ee18HkLvFY= X-Received: by 2002:a05:651c:2003:b0:293:4e54:433f with SMTP id s3-20020a05651c200300b002934e54433fmr6169398ljo.1.1677382136868; Sat, 25 Feb 2023 19:28:56 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <58626A0B-EF9C-4920-8E20-CE0C4210BA6A@planet.nl> In-Reply-To: From: Dan Cross Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2023 22:28:20 -0500 Message-ID: To: "Theodore Ts'o" Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Message-ID-Hash: TE4FCKXQZ4273W5IUBYZMH3OFEUBXJLH X-Message-ID-Hash: TE4FCKXQZ4273W5IUBYZMH3OFEUBXJLH X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: Paul Ruizendaal , "tuhs@tuhs.org" X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Early GUI on Linux List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 9:40 PM Theodore Ts'o wrote: > I think it's fair to say that in the very early days of Linux, most of > the people who were using it were people who kernel hackers; and so we > didn't have all that many people who were interested in developing new > windowing systems. We just wanted to be able to have multiple xterms > and Emacs windows. This is another important thing to bear in mind: this predates the explosion of the world wide web; most people back then paradoxically ran a lot more local software on their machines (applications weren't de facto mediated by a web browser), but a lot of that software was simpler. xterm and a text editor and a lot of folks were good to go. > In fact, support for X Windows predated the development of a > networking stack; we had Unix domain sockets, so that was enough for > X, but we didn't have a working networking stack at that point! I > would be running X, and then running C-Kermit to download files from > MIT over a dialup modem. !! > At that point, X windows wasn't *flaky* per se, but remember that back > then monitors were very persnicky about exactly what resolutions and > frequences they would accept. And this was before monitors supported > EDID (Extended Display Identification Data), which allowed the X > server to figure out what the parameters were of the monitor. So that > meant that configuring the X server with the correct resolution, > frequencies, etc., was tricky. There were long and complex documents > explaining how to do it, and it was a very manual process. If you got > the calculations wrong, the image might not be stable, but that wasn't > a software bug so much as it was a configuration error. Yeah, this: once you got something configured and working it wasn't like it crashed all the time or anything like that. But getting it working in the first place was challenging; it was a _far_ cry from today, where it seems like most of the time, X "just works" out of the box. Or even from most workstations of the era, which largely worked with little or no tedious configuration (because the vendor had done the hard work to bring X up on their hardware already). But on x86, I recall that even slight perturbations in a system could keep X from running. For example, one might have the right model of xfree86-supported video card, but from a manufacturing run of cards that did not work (because they used rev B of an internal component instead of A, perhaps). Or the card might not work on a different motherboard, etc. Getting it working could be a real exercise in frustration. > There were programs (for example, the most famous was the graphical > game "Tuxracer") which wrote directly to the frame buffer, but there > wasn't anyone who was interested in developing their own compositor. > We just wanted xterms and (later) Firefox to work! Firefox? Wow, talk about a Johnny Come Lately. :-) I can still remember compiling NCSA Mosaic on a SPARCstation 2. Those were the days...very painful days.... - Dan C. > As far as discussion about what should and shouldn't go into the > kernel, most people agreed that as much as possible, especially in > graphics land, should be out of the kernel. The fact that we didn't > have a lot of graphics specialists in the kernel development > community, and that in those early days the vast majority of Linux > boxen where single user machines just sealed the deal.