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_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 20167 invoked from network); 1 Mar 2023 18:59:32 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 1 Mar 2023 18:59:32 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0B2943346; Thu, 2 Mar 2023 04:59:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8C0924333F for ; Thu, 2 Mar 2023 04:59:24 +1000 (AEST) Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-173-48-120-46.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.120.46]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 321IxAXX009633 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 1 Mar 2023 13:59:11 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1677697153; bh=Ar345K42pirtpUF6dLeyi4MGoF05+Lf/jq4qRT7Zlho=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=i/PH9980zloI0Z57zb6j/YhQ0CSC0YKQtvE1BY2FBDDwK8dZdD+AJte1lAGekLNe2 9jaQQTSKXBcym8G76OAtNWCvKQ2YuBzbO+71TSIdv18rkTtZgYrAd33opybCXnmmlt KZZhmpMkFfHqNVFC8fTeO1E4+1srEMak0uJv98zFp9vfNCF0/uZZtFCumykdEXL3fu ND7WQAUha1iIth+6TTFs22a6wwjMlhDi/GlDXKtJosBKs+Ozbx+BWscJw3Y7LceMbM +B6+7s2n4UYNzpYM6BPkJGyeS9iaCyEp2+Q02UK+AEd3Dn6+vserDcT4Z+eYXvBQ8E lX7k3LSzwJOgQ== Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 9D3CF15C3593; Wed, 1 Mar 2023 13:59:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2023 13:59:10 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Paul Ruizendaal Message-ID: References: <58626A0B-EF9C-4920-8E20-CE0C4210BA6A@planet.nl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Message-ID-Hash: EPXOLVZRYBGTA7AI43RFJ4VRJJI2WFLV X-Message-ID-Hash: EPXOLVZRYBGTA7AI43RFJ4VRJJI2WFLV X-MailFrom: tytso@mit.edu 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 Wed, Mar 01, 2023 at 05:39:48PM +0100, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > This also explains that MGR on Linux was so short-lived: although it > provided the terminal multiplexing that was the key use case, it did > not have the application ecosystem that was apparently already > important enough to motivate people to make X run on Linux very > early in its existence. I had always thought of those early X > applications as little more than gimmicks, but apparently they were > more appreciated than I thought. One of the critical applications that a lot of us needed were being able to view postscript and dvi files. Sure, in the Unix days you could take a 'roff file and typeset it using either troff/ditroff or nroff, but if you are downloading a paper which was published as a postscript file, or you are authoring your problem set for a MIT math class (where the recitation instructor was too lazy to create their own answer sheet, so students competed to have their problem sets to be reproduced as the official answer sheet for that problem set, so some of us took to typesetting our weekly problem sets using TeX or LaTeX), you really want a graphical windowing system. > > 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? I was typesetting problem sets using xdvi as early as 1987-1988; using the IBM PC/RT as well as VAXstations as an undergraduate. So if it was just xterm and emacs, maybe you could use alternatives like screen, tmux, mgr, etc. But as Larry and Dan have said, what folks wanted was a home Unix "workstation", and by the late 80's, X Windows had clearly won, having dominated alternatives like Sun's NeWS and NeXTSTEP. - Ted