benhalzm@uhura.aston.ac.uk (ZM BEN-HALIM) (01/29/91)
The biggest problems with porting X11 are size, Size, and then SIZE. The X server alone would be > 600KB, add to that your window manager and the other bits and pieces and your looking at more than a 1MB. On top you have all the library code link with your programs, XLIB, Xt, Xaw, or motif = 200K per program. If you on a network you could do with just the server and the window manager (remote window managers are extremely slow). In addition to all of that, X windows is built on top of TCP/IP. So to port X11 to IBM minix you need : 386 upgrade (to be able to run large processes) 2MB of memory (1MB may be possible if you like watching paint dry and you have some sort of swapping) Implementation of TCP/IP sockets; and a lot of spare time!!! If you do try, good luck. Zeyd M. Ben-Halim benhalzm%uhura.aston.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu
lunnon@qut.edu.au (01/29/91)
In article <6540@munnari.oz.au>, bevan@ecr.mu.oz.au (Bevan the Aviator.) writes: > > G'Day all. > > Can anyone explain to me the difficulties in porting X Windows to MINIX (IBM) > > I am thinking of starting this effort, and any advice before I start would > be greatly appreciated. > > (All flames to /dev/null) > > See ya all... Other than 386 Minix I think the biggest problem will be fitting it into 64k+64K. I dont know an implementation of X that runs this small. As for the 68K machines or Bruces 386 version. I think kernel support for graphics would be needed. ST Minix 1.1 once had a /dev/screen device which gave access to the video memory which is probably all thats needed for graphics in that environment but PC's have a whole plethora of video cards all of which need access to I/O ports as well. I think a kernel graphics process would be in order. Not that I would know mind you ! I wish you luck in your endeavours BOB > > Bevan Anderson > bevan@ecr.mu.oz.au >