[Rule-list] Tiny X thoughts

[Richard Kweskin]

Hello All

Searching with google's group search for tinyx I came across this thread 
dated June 2001. Any use?

Richard
address@hidden
=====================================================
From: Wayne Throop (address@hidden)
Subject: Re: TinyX with a nested full X 
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.x

> address@hidden (Thierry Barusta)
> I would like to use TinyX and, when an application needs the full X,
> to run it in an xnest with full X capabilities. 
> Is that possible?  How could I do that? 

My reading of the Xnest man page (ie, didn't "use the source, Luke")
seems to indicate that Xnest presumes the server will have the same
capabilities that it offers to its own clients.  There's a section on
how Xnest behaves as a client (ie, how it would talk to TinyX in your
case) in the Xnest man page.  So it might not work to offer a capability
the underlying server does not. 

Seems to me, you'd be better off using VNC (ie, Xvnc and vncviewer),
since the vncviewer (afaik) demands less of its server than Xnest
seems to.  See http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/

Another possibility is to run two X servers and switch between them with
control-alt-F[N].  That is, start the full X server only when you have a
app that needs it, but you need not terminate the more resource-stingy
server to do so.  Two Xfree86 servers can be done in this way (ie, one
with 24 bits per pixel, and one with 8bpp, so you can have a choice of
more resolution with less colors, or more colors with less resolution,
if your hardware can handle one or the other but not both),
and I suppose it's likely that TinyX on linux can also? 

Wayne Throop   address@hidden   http://sheol.org/throopw
============================================================
From: Juliusz Chroboczek (address@hidden)
Subject: Re: TinyX with a nested full X 
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.x

Tiny X (kdrive) is a full implementation of X11. 
www.xfree86.org/current/Xkdrive.1.html

I have been using kdrive (the Xvesa server) as the only X server on my
laptop for two years now.  I have never had a problem.
www.xfree86.org/current/Xvesa.1.html
www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/kdrive.html

By default, Tiny X doesn't support certain font formats, but you can
compile them in if you need them -- my copy has Type 1 and TrueType
compiled in.  Tiny X also doesn't support certain extensions to X11
(notably XKB and GLX).  Again, there should be no problems compiling
them in if you need them.

If you tell us what you're trying to achieve, we might be able to help
you.

Regards,
                                        Juliusz
=======================================================


I would also start thinking about a small window manager too, look at 
'ion' (http://www.students.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/) and 'ude/uwm' 
(http://udeproject.sourceforge.net).  I actually use uwm on my 300Mhz 64Mb 
laptop however its really small and fast as it only uses Xlib for screen 
drawing, no need for add on bulky libraries or anything (aka GTK).

ion is a nice window manager, I only recently found it but it is a tiling 
window manager, one window on the screen at a time (sort of) and you use 
mainly the keyboard for window handling.  It actually looks good and the 
execuable is only about 26k (nothing else needed).

uwm is about 81k (nothing else needed).
=============================================================


I don't think that this is what we were talking about --- have a look
at http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/smallX/tinyX01.html for
comparison...