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From: Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au>
To: Paul Ruizendaal <pnr@planet.nl>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Early GUI on Linux
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2023 12:08:53 +1100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <Y/1UJbZnBYt61sSB@largo.jsg.id.au> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <A3308FD9-F130-48BA-903A-4F7AA6CF2CC3@planet.nl>

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 06:22:09PM +0100, Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS wrote:
> 
> 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. It seems that the pattern persists till the present day (and yes, it matches with my own dev setup/needs). I wonder to what extent this is a generational thing though. Maybe today’s twenty-somethings spend their days in front of Xcode, VStudio, Eclipse, etc. more than using multiple terminals.
> 
> This ties in with another observation on early window systems. The earliest Unix window system that I could find (i.e. documented) was NUnix from 1981/82. 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 where this serves the needs of core user group, such makes sense.
> 
> ===
> 
> It is in stark contrast with developments at the lower/consumer end of the market. The original Mac, GEM and Windows all placed much more emphasis on being a graphical user interface, with standard widgets and UI design elements. On Unix and X it remained a mess. It seems that this was both for technical reasons (X not imposing a standard) and for economic reasons (the Unix wars). Linux then inherited the mess and the core user/developer demographic had no need/wish/time to fix it.
> 
> 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?

When did Interleaf and Framemaker have X based versions?

"Framemaker was the main application everybody would run to prove that
their X box actually worked"
Andrew McRae - Sun, Surf and X in California
AUUGN, Volume 10, Number 4, August 1989
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V10.4.pdf

  parent reply	other threads:[~2023-02-28  1:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 57+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-02-25 21:31 [TUHS] " Paul Ruizendaal
2023-02-25 22:49 ` [TUHS] " Dan Cross
2023-02-26  1:27   ` Larry McVoy
2023-02-26  0:39 ` Warner Losh
2023-02-26  1:14   ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-02-26 15:50   ` Leah Neukirchen
2023-02-26 16:13     ` Larry McVoy
2023-02-26 16:23       ` Leah Neukirchen
2023-02-26 16:32         ` Warner Losh
2023-02-26 16:39         ` Will Senn
2023-02-26 19:58       ` Dave Horsfall
2023-02-27  0:16         ` Adam Thornton
2023-02-27 10:09       ` Ralph Corderoy
2023-02-26  2:21 ` Jonathan Gray
2023-02-27 17:22   ` Paul Ruizendaal
2023-02-27 18:32     ` Warner Losh
2023-02-26  2:27 ` Will Senn
2023-02-26  2:30 ` Will Senn
2023-02-26  2:40 ` Theodore Ts'o
2023-02-26  3:28   ` Dan Cross
2023-02-26  3:45     ` Warner Losh
2023-02-26  5:24   ` John Cowan
2023-02-26  5:36     ` Steve Nickolas
2023-02-28  3:35     ` Dave Horsfall
2023-02-27 17:22   ` Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
2023-02-27 17:59     ` Arno Griffioen via TUHS
2023-02-27 18:07     ` Warner Losh
2023-02-27 20:04     ` [TUHS] Generational development [was Re: Re: Early GUI on Linux] arnold
2023-02-27 20:08       ` [TUHS] " Chet Ramey
2023-02-27 20:22         ` arnold
2023-02-27 20:46           ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-02-27 21:04             ` Dan Cross
2023-02-28  7:59             ` arnold
2023-02-28 15:28               ` Clem Cole
     [not found]                 ` <CAP2nic1STmWn5YTrnvFbexwwfYWT=pD28gXpVS1CVSfOOwxx7g@mail.gmail.com>
2023-02-28 15:50                   ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Adam Thornton
2023-02-27 20:50           ` [TUHS] " Chet Ramey
2023-02-27 20:55             ` Bakul Shah
2023-02-27 21:01               ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-02-27 21:15                 ` Chet Ramey
2023-02-27 21:22                   ` Dan Cross
2023-02-27 20:30     ` [TUHS] Re: Early GUI on Linux Dan Cross
2023-02-28  1:10       ` Alexis
2023-02-28  1:27         ` Dan Cross
2023-03-01 16:39       ` Paul Ruizendaal
2023-03-01 16:54         ` Larry McVoy
2023-03-01 17:22           ` Paul Ruizendaal
2023-03-01 17:52             ` Larry McVoy
2023-03-02  1:17               ` Jonathan Gray
2023-03-02  4:28               ` Larry McVoy
2023-03-02  6:46                 ` [TUHS] X timeline Lars Brinkhoff
2023-03-01 18:59         ` [TUHS] Re: Early GUI on Linux Theodore Ts'o
2023-03-02  7:27         ` arnold
2023-02-28  1:08     ` Jonathan Gray [this message]
2023-02-28  1:15       ` Clem Cole
2023-02-27 20:56 ` Will Senn
2023-02-27 22:14   ` Andru Luvisi
2023-02-27 22:31   ` David Arnold

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