X11 Alternatives? 28
James Skarzinskas asks: "X has been, in general, the most widely used and acknowledged to many as the 'graphics of Linux'. During the last few years, projects like the Linux Framebuffer have really taken off and related projects have shown real potential. I'm just wondering if the Slashdot community knows of any less-public alternative to X; perhaps even using the Linux framebuffer?" Aside from SVGALib, what other graphical infrastructures exist for Unix-based systems?
Fuck, Damn. Bollocks. (Score:2, Funny)
DirectFB of course (Score:3, Informative)
Old timers will remember... (Score:2, Interesting)
There were endless discussions of Berlin [berlin-consortium.org], and how it was going to sweep Linux and the BSD's into the graphical future, from the chains of a graphical past.
X is still here in 2002, and its progeny will be in place 15 years from now. It will be worked on by CS students who got their MS working on various "Berlin's".
BTW: Who remembers Sun's NeWS - a DPS-based windowing system with network transparency? Why doesn't Apple license the old sources for a model at extending Aqua on the wire? They will just re-invent this stuff again on the Quartz layer of 2005. Oh, well....
Re:Old timers will remember... (Score:2)
This fantastic ability was lost in the transition from DPS to Quartz, which is Display PDF. They didn't want to keep having to pay up to Adobe for those PS rights. They just didn't bother porting -NXHost to PDF from PostScript, I suppose. Damn shame though.
Re:Old timers will remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, from what I read it was a design decision - keeping all the layers necessary to do that was a real performance hit, so they cheated and cut through some layers of abstraction. And, given the performance of Aqua, I can't say I blame them.
Re:Old timers will remember... (Score:2)
I worked like a dog on an old slab in the early 'nineties, but it had no NeXT peer in the SFSU media lab for this kind of stuff...
To think, I had no opportunity to send bit-mapped roaches scurrying on the lab-techs mega-pixel displays! (That's what the SS2's with color were for)
Re:Old timers will remember... (Score:1)
That said, I agree with the earlier poster; network transparency is one of the reasons that X11 is still (imho) superior to all the actually available alternatives...
Re:Old timers will remember... (Score:2)
One unfortunate fact of NeWS is that too many people thought it's purpose was to preview PostScript before printing it, which is all DPS is useful for. That, and Sun's stupidity at not giving it away for the same price as X11, killed it.
Obvious Answers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obvious Answers (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Obvious Answers (Score:2)
From Berlin's [berlin-consortium.org] home page:
Berlin is a windowing system derived from Fresco, a powerful structured graphics toolkit originally based on InterViews. Berlin extends Fresco to the status of a full windowing system, in command of the video hardware (via GGI, SDL, DirectFB or GLUT) and processing user input directly rather than peering with a host windowing system. Additionally, Berlin's extensions include a rich drawing interface with multiple backends, an upgrade to modern CORBA standards, a new Unicode-capable text system, dynamic module loading, and many communication abstractions for connecting other processes to the server. It is developed entirely by volunteers on the internet, using free software, and released under the GNU Library General Public License.
Re:Obvious Answers (Score:2)
Our project has been renamed Fresco from the old "Berlin", and most if not all references to Berlin now refer to the Fresco project.
X11 is okay (Score:1)
I agree: Need free X Server for Windows (Score:1)
I don't mean like Cygwin which is too bloated, and is basically all of Unix running on Windows. I mean a lightweight well integrated client like eXceed or Reflection X. This would enable developers to write intranet apps as X clients without forcing users of Dumb Windows Terminals to stop using Windows.
When 90% of the programs people use are X Clients and they are still running Windows, the case for switching to Linux as a desktop OS becomes much stronger.
I would do this myself, if I didn't think it was completely beyond my abilities. ( I don't know much about either X or Windows programming, so I don't think I could port it - heck I doubt I could even install it from scratch without weeks of tinkering )
check it out... (Score:1)
Re:check it out... (Score:1)
Then I looked at directfd - damn! Screens look great! It appears that gnome and blackbox run on directfb. I like the network aspects of X11 (even if I only use it once ina while) but I wouldn't mind seeing more speed... I'm going to download and play with this.
Lots of links (Score:4, Informative)
Squeak [squeak.org] Smalltalk: A cool Smalltalk environment. Based on Smalltalk-80, for which first modern WIMP was invented. Has a bunch of little apps, simple web browser, vt100 client, few email clients, web servers, a couple different GUI toolkits and programming paradigms to choose from. Personally, what I use mostly as my OS. I like having my entire environment available to me, to be changed as I like, in a very straightforward way. Rather like Emacs users, I suppose. Except Squeak is more customizable, and has full windowing system. Also can run as the OS, no Linux or X11. DirectFB, SDL, X11, Mac (9/X), Windows, Acorn, WinCE, BeOS and lots of other ports that all run the same binaries.
ETH Oberon [oberon.ethz.ch]: Implementation of the Oberon language - derived from Pascal and Modula, by Nick Wirth. Has it's own entire GUI system, like Squeak does. Can run as an OS, without Linux or X11. Also has a VNC client, so you could still run the X11 app or two that you still needed in a window.
PicoGUI [sf.net]: A really cool GUI system especially for PDAs and other embedded applications. Super fast. Bindings for C, Perl, and Python (I think). Linux FB and SDL ports, runs wherever they can. Not much in the way of apps thus far, but it's definitely alive and under pretty active development.
QT/Embedded [trolltech.com]: You know, like runs on the Zaurus.
GTK+ on Direct FB [directfb.org]: Can't say I've used this, but I imagine bindings for regular GTK+ work in this port, which makes for a lot of development options.
MicroWindows/Nano-X [microwindows.org]: Yet enother embedded GUI option. It's developer [censoft.com] seems to be pushing for PDA, set-tops and such. Not many apps, but could be useful especially for custom apps.
Are there any worthwhile just-Java windowing systems out there? There are al ot of Java-OS projects, but none of them seem to have gotten past linking Kaffee with OSKit...
Probably others out there, but this is a good look at some options.
X11? I Hate Their Popups (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... X11 are the hidden camera people right?
Oops, my mistake...
Re:X11? I Hate Their Popups (Score:5, Funny)
What is wrong with X? (Score:1)
XFree86 isn't the greatest impelmentation of X (don't get me wrong, they've done a fantastic job for the mess that x86 is). Try a real X server and see if you still want an alternative. Many people who dislike X have only used XFree and think it is the be all and end all of X. That's simply not the case.
Like I said, you may be just curious about what else is out there, and if that is the case then you can ignore what I have said.
Re:What is wrong with X? (Score:1)
OpenGL without X? an alternative to GLX? (Score:1)
Broadcast CL (Score:1)
http://www.broadcastcl.org