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 15135 invoked from network); 26 Feb 2023 02:40:57 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 26 Feb 2023 02:40:57 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1FFAB43288; Sun, 26 Feb 2023 12:40:53 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4C45F43287 for ; Sun, 26 Feb 2023 12:40:42 +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 31Q2eYvF004495 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Sat, 25 Feb 2023 21:40:35 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1677379235; bh=Kd4sfeROxGO4CkYOctbasPfEdqneCjUr3qaoiF4z8sU=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=cTFshm0lJDvz1Y0tWyzt6KPEU45R+pPQe8wvMpCcTlUR4ztvwgAaIEmI55tXrCGdz bmh2gz2yGZe3PfHYpYV+1kq6HF3nrpY/8kUZKjS0+3IqsTfAi8M7IbBrgCIPsaGfr+ dpEJgN4rGjRnFyh5nyNZOTPY3+A+yFTaJsdCc/9XWqqzVCclfGqesFwsUQ4nGy8KoB P+pJLiSQ25ckDU/GImJ1HBqpyF/b7GKjyNTSxywn6OzwX4d2yJP6nKzBmViLrMpn2U sr7KPmo9Ju8fDCEVFrr3KKDl9kp1OsJikQetzBS/jOHKkxHaKB8nFOO8KMDEm3YJsM md5h1MG+Pmf0Q== Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 8282F15C5823; Sat, 25 Feb 2023 21:40:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2023 21:40:34 -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: <58626A0B-EF9C-4920-8E20-CE0C4210BA6A@planet.nl> Message-ID-Hash: 5CHVTBIOXQDYX6SHNAPIZR6BVASYPVVR X-Message-ID-Hash: 5CHVTBIOXQDYX6SHNAPIZR6BVASYPVVR 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: 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. 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. 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! 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. - Ted