dsill@RELAY.NSWC.NAVY.MIL (04/22/89)
I liked your "diplomacy" signature quote. Do you have an attribution for it? -Dave
tom@pravda (Thomas R. Hinrichs) (04/25/89)
I'm posting this for a friend:
"Has anyone out there implemented a faster version of the color X
server for Sun-3s? If so, can one get a copy of it?"
Thanks for your help!
tom@gatech.edu
Thomas R. Hinrichs
School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,rutgers,seismo}!gatech!tommlandau@bbn.com (Matt Landau) (04/25/89)
In comp.windows.x (<18523@gatech.edu>), tom@pravda (Thomas R. Hinrichs) writes: >"Has anyone out there implemented a faster version of the color X >server for Sun-3s? If so, can one get a copy of it?" Yeah, Sun :-) Seriously, from the prereleases I've seen, the NeWS/X server should be pretty speedy even on relatively minimal machines. Last I heard, it was to be released in July. Catalyst vendors are being offered SparcStation development kits that claim to include the OpenWindows package (merged server, XView toolkit, Open Look window manager), so they must be getting close to a real release. -- Matt Landau mlandau@bbn.com Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
mongo@helios (Mongo Package) (04/26/89)
I am anxiously awaiting the release of X11/NeWS from Sun along with everybody else who has a Sun and wants a faster server. Unfortunately, I am sitting in front of a 4 Megabyte Sun. At the announcement party for the new Sun Sparcstations 2 weekes ago, Sun confirmed that they do not recommend running X11/NeWS on a 4 Megabyte Sun unless you use it *only* as a window onto other machines. I asked if Sun was planning to release a version of vanilla X11 without NeWS which was optimized for Sun machines. The answer was, "No." It was a qualified `No', but still a `no'. It would seem that we who have 4 Megabyte machines will have to rely on MIT and Purdue, or go to a third party vendor. Steve Allen =============================================================================== See your Sun sales representative for the real story. These are my opinions only and do not reflect the opinions of any portion of the University of Calif.
spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) (04/27/89)
I have a bunch of "Purdue" improvements for the color portion of the
server all set to go, but I need to find the time to put them in and
test them. Unfortunately, that has to be a low priority for now -- I
have projects I'm being paid to do that take precedence. Now if
someone wanted to fund some of my summer salary...:-) Alternatively, I
hope I can convince a grad student to take an independent study course
with me and do the work under my direction.
Speedups will be available. It just may take a while. Sorry.
--
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spafdshr@SUN.COM (David Rosenthal) (04/28/89)
Steve Allen from UC Santa Cruz writes: > I am anxiously awaiting the release of X11/NeWS from Sun along with everybody > else who has a Sun and wants a faster server. Unfortunately, I am sitting > in front of a 4 Megabyte Sun. X11/NeWS is faster than the MIT sample server, but the difference is not overwhelming for monochrome machines. A 4M color Sun has performance problems irrespective of the window system it is running. > At the announcement party for the new Sun > Sparcstations 2 weekes ago, Sun confirmed that they do not recommend running > X11/NeWS on a 4 Megabyte Sun unless you use it *only* as a window onto other > machines. I asked if Sun was planning to release a version of vanilla > X11 without NeWS which was optimized for Sun machines. The answer was, "No." > It was a qualified `No', but still a `no'. X11/NeWS uses more memory than the MIT server (like most commercial X servers) but it does so largely to improve rendering performance, not to implement the NeWS interpreter. As Robin Schaufler explained in her Usenix paper, X11/NeWS is not implemented by adding a PostScript interpreter to a basic X server, but by implementing an integrated window server capable of supporting multiple interpreters and both X and PostScript imaging models. "Configuring out" NeWS (or X) would result in only a small space saving - basically just the protocol interpreter loop - and isn't really practical. This should be contrasted with the approach taken by vendors adding Display PostScript to X servers - since there is little integration between the interpreters and imaging systems configuring out DPS will save a lot of space. Further, I think you have mis-represented Sun's position somewhat. I believe that what was said was that Sun does not recommend running OpenWindows(TM) with both the server and clients on a 4M machine. This restriction is due more to the resource requirements of the OpenWindows clients (the replacements for the familiar shelltool, cmdtool, and so on implemented using the XView toolkit) than to the resource requirements of the X11/NeWS server itself. If all you run are vanilla X clients like xterm, the resource requirements will be significantly less. > It would seem that we who have > 4 Megabyte machines will have to rely on MIT and Purdue, or go to a third > party vendor. > I have a 4M monochrome 3/75 and run NeWS, MIT X and X11/NeWS on it (not all at once :-). For vanilla X applications, the overall system performance is currently slightly better with the MIT sample server than with X11/NeWS. I would strongly urge anyone with a 4M color system to add memory without regard to the window system they run. If they do, they will find that X11/NeWS is substantially faster than the MIT sample server. The performance of an X server is largely determined by the performance of the DDX imaging layer. It is greatly to the credit of the server implementation team at DEC that the "mfb" code, while highly portable, provides good performance. Although optimizations are certainly possible, it is unlikely that anyone (Sun, MIT, or a third party) would be able to provide a version of "mfb" that would provide radically better performance in a monochrome 4M machine. Everything I can think of to improve mfb's performance costs memory, which is where we came in.... David.
colas@mirsa.inria.fr (Colas NAHABOO) (05/02/89)
From article <8904281800.AA00273@devnull.sun.com>, by dshr@SUN.COM (David Rosenthal): > it is unlikely that anyone (Sun, MIT, or a third party) would be able to > provide a version of "mfb" that would provide radically better performance > in a monochrome 4M machine. Just for the record, the BULL DPX1000 Workstation X server, made by GIPSI S.A. IS really faster than the MIT implementation. Just ask Bob Scheifler, he quoted it as "the fastest 68K-based X server" when he saw it at the OSF UEC RFT in September. (and my server takes up less than 1meg, says "ps -l"). Of course, it was written by a truly outstanding programmer, Pieter Van Der Linden, with such techniques as on-the fly generation of 68020 code, clever use of the processor cache, etc... it really flies! Colas NAHABOO BULL Research FRANCE -- Koala Project (GWM X11 Window Manager) Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr Surface Mail: Colas NAHABOO, INRIA - Sophia Antipolis, 2004, route des Lucioles, 06565 Valbonne Cedex -- FRANCE Voice phone: (33) 93.65.77.71, Fax: (33) 93 65 77 66, Telex: 97 00 50 F
paul@torch.UUCP (Paul Andrews) (05/08/89)
tom@pravda (Thomas R. Hinrichs) writes: >I'm posting this for a friend: >"Has anyone out there implemented a faster version of the color X >server for Sun-3s? If so, can one get a copy of it?" Sure, some op's up to 20 times as fast as MIT version (and faster than the monochrome version). Price? 295.00 pounds sterling. Address? Torch Technology Abberley House Great Shelford Cambridge CB2 5LQ UK 'phone: +44 223 841000 (Intl.) (0223) 841000 (UK)