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 29155 invoked from network); 27 Feb 2023 20:31:01 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 27 Feb 2023 20:31:01 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4512E43177; Tue, 28 Feb 2023 06:30:58 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-x22f.google.com (mail-lj1-x22f.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4864:20::22f]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id F0C034222B for ; Tue, 28 Feb 2023 06:30:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-x22f.google.com with SMTP id f16so7793868ljq.10 for ; Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:30:53 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=dldYb5GGv1FRXdu4DIPqaXdg85PjNxYV+Rj65HbxlQ0=; b=BbMHSEbKxtwY5YDC+iOzAX/nw2ZXcPymtFcA/h8VsXEMwB1oM37Goy4aqe4LzqOwf6 7Dj7WOm8EN6ZtX9eHqNI10MNRgBqYYbJbkm47qXXh5DyG1FjlnRYZZVDSeTI6MAkg5Lm bVKiZG+anJKQfEf6aFggSuRQ5RzTDQA/wWQUGBmsd4JpxBC7j9KaQKS4D9wboE6n7klj kwmjE0bmiMDqMCOdOO4tCP78fT75q3gFjLj2NNBlYtpq66aRVW+sh64JxrPOGLrUMcgP 0bUnichEJiQR2eOKGP/Mzzifc72MGvlrW+modfiqTSOsFcVby6qpGRYVydCFP4pf21Ew QNPA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=content-transfer-encoding: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=dldYb5GGv1FRXdu4DIPqaXdg85PjNxYV+Rj65HbxlQ0=; b=kSvOTuJbniRXENyFZGqBZRF2llNhUVzU5l7tX8FY3qpuJoUW+YkFo+ZWIldIw6e1TM Z0EVAkLpzr3xBmSwD98omyGXwrcQWzH/AZ6zSmCd3XQt+sOx5JvLQZIe/6e7uo/TselZ LZXv4JyDB/p1Q7L9qHlJint7vd/xW1srq+8re2YUnFIQhPlW9Dfg8M1lQ83IYi9TgMH2 ZplOX6QqKdR1UIjjvQpNVMpAOBoa7HgTHeTyyVKkU3GbdGwJuUg7MPqbp5BUqxTeHhEI vi1HZzN3ks/4w+OOHyCju48l5N1JLaa20TZX+T62b6KMl1EESkOmqWs8USvcAYT0u+FI ZEVA== X-Gm-Message-State: AO0yUKWpxXT10mjm+ibVYJAQJ0qCEKM8y28g0Q+5JAs1lwqvwY+lTckp njQFrcA1QDUMX22I/VTV+7KxlVGq41Du8sYoQT1zNX8U X-Google-Smtp-Source: AK7set+zZtK484guUejyoVE41pvEMSQHcw1//CIHIsEvxkHPpkp0209v68xglEP1qWBoX3APacpf91YTIQC0p3CRz1E= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:a4b7:0:b0:295:897c:6f7d with SMTP id g23-20020a2ea4b7000000b00295897c6f7dmr12997ljm.1.1677529851355; Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:30:51 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <58626A0B-EF9C-4920-8E20-CE0C4210BA6A@planet.nl> In-Reply-To: From: Dan Cross Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 15:30:14 -0500 Message-ID: To: Paul Ruizendaal Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: ZBQD6EF7NCZQDEXBPTQOCJVARCEMXEQP X-Message-ID-Hash: ZBQD6EF7NCZQDEXBPTQOCJVARCEMXEQP 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: "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 Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 12:22 PM Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS w= rote: > Thanks all for the insights. Let me attempt a summary. > > What it boils down to is that X arrived on Linux very early, because what= the Linux hackers needed/wanted was a familiar terminal multiplexer. While that was literally true, I think it was a little more nuanced. I'd perhaps put it that people wanted their familiar environments. Many people were used to running a lot of xterms on their workstations, of course, but there were other X applications people used regularly. Some I remember where `gv` to look at PostScript documents, `xv` to view image files, `gnuplot` could generate plots in a window, `xdvi` to look at TeX/LaTeX output, and text editors like `emacs` had X front-ends that offered syntax highlighting and the like; some folks I knew liked `nedit`. `exmh` was my preferred email client for a while, and things like `xman` (was there a `tkman`, too?) was nice. Some system monitoring tools `xload` were considered essentials; `xbiff` could be useful (I could have sworn there was a `tkbiff`, too). A clock like `xclock` or `oclock` or something was also nice. Some folks liked graphical newsreaders, chat programs (I guess IRC was a thing back then, and I believe some `talk` client had an X front-end). There was a fractal viewer that I thought was fun, but I don't remember it much anymore (even the name...). Oh, and lots of games; I had a nice Solitaire version that I can no longer recall the name of. `xeyes` was cute, and running `xroach` was a popular (?) prank for an unsuspecting (but amenable) colleague. A lot of us spent a lot of time customizing our environments, and many eschewed the vendor-standard environment. For instance, a lot of people I knew used `twm` and derivatives (`ctwm` and `tvtwm` were popular), and spent a lot of time tweaking menus and stuff to set things up the way we liked. A lot of folks also wrote custom tools using `tk` or `expectk`. Giving all of that up to run on Linux was a bitter pill to swallow, so there was a real impetus to get X running quickly. Personally, I kept my `tvtwm`-based environment going until I switched to plan9 and then to the Mac as a daily driver. I'm not sure I miss it, but at the time it was head-and-shoulders above anything you could get on Windows or (classic) MacOS. So it wasn't just that people wanted a "familiar terminal multiplexor" as that people wanted the environments they had put a lot of time and energy into building up for themselves, and again, that often meant X. > It seems that the pattern persists till the present day (and yes, it matc= hes with my own dev setup/needs). I wonder to what extent this is a generat= ional thing though. Maybe today=E2=80=99s twenty-somethings spend their day= s in front of Xcode, VStudio, Eclipse, etc. more than using multiple termin= als. I think it probably depends on what people are doing. I more or less switched to using VS Code for my editor, and I'm using a Mac Studio to write this, but my desktop is still littered with terminal windows, I've got a `drawterm` session open to my local Plan 9 network, and am logged into a bunch of old systems (Multics, TOPS-20, VMS, an IBM mainframe, CDC Cyber, RSTS/E, PR1ME), etc. But the way we write software has changed pretty dramatically in the last 3 or so decades. I used to start with an empty C file and write my stuff. Things like linked-lists? Mostly implemented by hand. These days, there are other languages and vast collections of libraries for almost anything imaginable; much of what "programming" is today is glueing together different libraries and making them interact in sophisticated, often quite complex ways. I don't know that it's better, nor that it's always worse, but it is qualitatively different. So almost necessarily the toolsets and environment have changed accordingly. > This ties in with another observation on early window systems. The earlie= st Unix window system that I could find (i.e. documented) was NUnix from 19= 81/82. Its desktop was designed around the idea of a dozen or so top level = windows, each one being either a shell window or a graphics canvas, with no= real concept of a widget set, dialogs, etc., or even of sub-windows. This = paradigm seems to have been more or less the same in the Blit terminal, and= carried through in MGR, Mux and even as late as 8 1/2. In the context wher= e this serves the needs of core user group, such makes sense. It may be instructive to look at the early X window managers in this regard. One I remember was `uwm` (I think); I recall being struck that it reminded me of rio when I saw it. > It is in stark contrast with developments at the lower/consumer end of th= e market. The original Mac, GEM and Windows all placed much more emphasis o= n being a graphical user interface, with standard widgets and UI design ele= ments. On Unix and X it remained a mess. It seems that this was both for te= chnical reasons (X not imposing a standard) and for economic reasons (the U= nix wars). Linux then inherited the mess and the core user/developer demogr= aphic had no need/wish/time to fix it. I remember the X mantra was, "mechanism, not policy." Which was fine, except that there wasn't much of even a default policy, which made X (IMHO) a bit of a bear to program and meant that interfaces were pretty wildly inconsistent across programs. By contrast, writing simple programs to draw lines on the Mac was easy. Interestingly, frustration with this caused an almost cambrian explosion of new windowing environments within a few years of Linux's arrival on the scene. From larger efforts like Gtk (and then GNOME), KDE, GNUStep (which I guess might predate Linux, but not by much...), etc, to less ambitious things components like fvwm and Enlightenment, we kind of went from "OpenWindows or Motif or roll your own stuff around twm or something" to a whole plethora of things. It's still a bit of a mess, though. > It makes me wonder when true graphical applications started to appear for= X / Unix / Linux (other than stuff like terminal, clock, calculator, etc.)= . The graphical browser certainly is one (1993). StarOffice and Applix seem= to have arrived around 1995. Anything broadly used before that? Lots! See above. - Dan C.