whm@sunquest.UUCP (Bill Mitchell) (09/17/88)
Does anybody know if X11R2 will work on an IBM RT running AIX 2.2? (Anybody
tried it?)
I am aware of 4.3 BSD for the RT, but that's not an option for us at the
moment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Mitchell whm@sunquest.com
Sunquest Information Systems sunquest!whm@arizona.edu
Tucson, AZ {arizona,uunet}!sunquest!whm
602-885-7700dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Heller) (09/18/88)
In article <148@sunquest.UUCP> whm@sunquest.UUCP (Bill Mitchell) writes: >Does anybody know if X11R2 will work on an IBM RT running AIX 2.2? (Anybody >tried it?) > >I am aware of 4.3 BSD for the RT, but that's not an option for us at the >moment. I've had the extreme displeasure of using an IBM RT running AIX and X11R2. Ironically, the server is "fast" (in comparison to my sun3-110's color server), but that's about all I can say that's good about it. The screen (hardware) hurts my eyes so much that I had to rlogin to the workstation from another window to do most editing and stuff... That editorialzed comment, which had nothing to do with X11, can be ignored. Many things don't work -- clipping, for one. (details left out) The termcap entry for xterm is really bad -- you always have reverse video blocks hanging around and you can never see the where the cursor is because it's an underscore and doesn't blink (I like solid black cursors that don't blink). There is lots of screen dust from backspacing etc... Programs I've written (including some on expo: xwatch, qix, dclock) all compile fine, but "dclock" seems to hang X -- you have to kill the server and restart. I have no idea why it's hanging, but I've had reports that dclock works fine for IBM-RT's running non-AIX and non-IBM version of X -- note: I was told that IBM did this particular version of X11R2; I have no idea about the validity of that statement. Xwatch and qix both work (altho qix doesn't run in color correctly, but that's due to my inexperience in dealing with color and X). I've taken some other programs from the net and some work ok, but I haven't investigated why others don't -- I don't have the time to look into the ones that don't work. There doesn't appear to be any "default" toolkit, so you have to bring one over yourself. I compiled the athena widgets, but things had to change some things. I didn't find the changes to be bothersome, but someone who doesn't know much about unix or makefiles will have problems. The real reason I'm using this machine is to test out the toolkit that I'm writing for a particular client (who shall remain nameless). My particular toolkit is similar to the athena toolkit, but has different bells and whistles. Anyway, it compiles ok, but there seems to be a problem with accessing fonts correctly. That is to say, if I have a widget which uses a font and tries to do a simple command like XTextWidth() of a string in a particular font, I get a segfault in that function whereas the same code works on other machines. I use that function as an example, but I've had problems with other font-based functions. What confuses me is that the athena widgets (of which I've only tested a handful) which use text seem to work ok. I don't particularly like system-v systems and find their environment very difficult to use ("whaddya mean I can't move a directory to '..'!?") so if the original question was intended to determine whether or not to get the IBM-RT, I advise looking into the 4.3 stuff first -- if that's "not an option" for you, I strongly urge you to make it an option. If your requirement is to use system V, then I urge you to choose another hardware vendor. If anyone has comments or questions about anything I've said here, please contact me at island!argv@sun.com Dan Heller <island!argv@sun.com>
jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (09/18/88)
In article <148@sunquest.UUCP> whm@sunquest.UUCP (Bill Mitchell) writes: >Does anybody know if X11R2 will work on an IBM RT running AIX 2.2? (Anybody >tried it?) The servers for the RT on the MIT distribution tape are supposed to be for 4.3 (although I've seen reports that there are problems with them). They definitely don't work with AIX. The IBM group that works on 4.3 for the RT was at Xhibition, and I talked to a guy there for a while. He said that it wouldn't be too hard to convert those servers to AIX, since the displays are the same. The major difference is getting the keyboard and mouse input. I don't have time to look at this right now, though, so I can't say any more about it. IBM has announced what they call X release 2.1, which is based on V11 (their X release 1.1 was V10 based). I've had preliminary copies of this for about 6 weeks, and it is getting pretty good, although they still have a way to go, specifically in the are of event handling for all the events that were added in V11. This is especially noticeable when trying to use the more sophisticated of the V11 window managers. I'm currently using twm, but I had to make one minor change to it in for the RT. I've tried Siemens RTL, and actually got it to compile and run but no other clients will run with it, which sort of reduces the usefulness of the system... I also tried awm, and couldn't even get it to start up, but I suspect that was more my falut that awm's, and I didn't have the time to figure out all the setup configuration options. The announced release date for AIX X release 2.1 is this month, and so far IBM has done quite well in meeting their announced dates - unlike most of the other workstation vendors. So by the end of the month it should be possible to get V11 for AIX from IBM, at least in America. Here in Europe we generally have to wait 6 weeks or so from the rellease date before it finally shows up. Oh, the price is right, too - a couple of hundred dollars or so. jw
ajdenner@athena.mit.edu (Alexander J Denner) (09/19/88)
I saw a rather extensive demo of the IBM RT with AIX and X11. The IBM salespeople were impressive in that they knew how to use the system. During their demo, everything worked quickly and flawlessly. However, when I asked to play with the system, I hungup the system with an xterm command! They said that I entered it wrong, but it still should not lockup. The RT is a really nice machine to use, but they have not worked the bugs out of the software yet. Maybe someday....... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alexander J. Denner ajdenner@athena.mit.edu 234 Baker House mit-eddie!mit-athena!ajdenner 342 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02139 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (09/21/88)
Listen, I think people are really being unfair to the RT/PC in this discussion. I do not disagree with what has been said; in fact, I have seen virtually all of the problems that Dan Heller described in his posting, and I know that Dan is a careful and honest person, so I have no doubt that everything he said was correct. Likewise, the posting from Alexander Denner about xterm; I have never seen an xterm hang the system, but I can crash xterm on my RT anytime I want, with any of several different commands. The problem is that we are all commenting on a *BETA* release of V11 from IBM, and I for one expect to find problems like this in beta software. The important fact, for me, is that IBM is willing to send this beta software out, apparently to quite a few people, and that it appears that they will meet their announced delivery of a real release of V11 this month. The beta version is already very fast, as everyone has commented on, and I think it is pretty good all things considered; if they have worked out these problems over the past 6 weeks or so since the last beta release, then the full release should be a very solid piece of software. In fact, the most significant problems with the beta release are in the area of color support. Dan didn't explicity say so, but I'm sure that the problems he described were on a color display; I use a monochrome display every day, and I don't have any of the problems he described. I taught an X class last week using some systems with color displays, and I would agree that the state of things on those machines was pretty dismal. Our company started looking to buy some new workstations at the first of this year. We talked extensively to DEC, HP, Sun and IBM. One of the things we were careful to ask each one was when they would be delivering X.V11. DEC, Sun and HP all three said either May or June, and IBM said September. Well, it's now September; the last I heard, you could get a beta V11 release from HP, DEC had finally announced their V11 release but no one had seen the tapes yet, and Sun was still trying to figure out how to finish the NeWS/X server. I would think that it would be fair to wait and compare the official releases from all four before engaging in a lot of IBM-bashing. By the way, you can be sure that if the final release from IBM has many (any) of the same bugs as these beta releases, I will be heard screaming as loud as anyone about it. jw
hkbirke@mit-amt (Hal Birkeland) (09/21/88)
In article <478@pan.UUCP> jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) writes: >In article <148@sunquest.UUCP> whm@sunquest.UUCP (Bill Mitchell) writes: >>Does anybody know if X11R2 will work on an IBM RT running AIX 2.2? (Anybody >>tried it?) > >The servers for the RT on the MIT distribution tape are supposed to be >for 4.3 (although I've seen reports that there are problems with them). >They definitely don't work with AIX. The IBM group that works on 4.3 >for the RT was at Xhibition, and I talked to a guy there for a while. >He said that it wouldn't be too hard to convert those servers to AIX, >since the displays are the same. ... >The announced release date for AIX X release 2.1 is this month ... > >jw X11R2 -- I was unable to get it to run under ACIS 4.3. The server would seg fault when trying to stipple the background of my MegaPel. Hopefully, the new ACIS due out at the end of the month will fix this. X and AIX -- The IBM demos held at MIT for two recent weeks of X were on an APC RT running AIX 2.2.0. Unfortunately, it was X10R4 (severly tweaked for performance) and not X11. As it was, the demo was very impressive as the server was fast (nearly as fast as my uVax II/GPX and faster than our uVax II/Parallax). As jw said, X11 is due out for both AIX and ACIS in the immediate future... Happy windowing... -- hal
shaig@humus.huji.ac.il (Shai Guday) (09/30/88)
In article <148@sunquest.UUCP> whm@sunquest.BITNET writes:
%Does anybody know if X11R2 will work on an IBM RT running AIX 2.2? (Anybody
%tried it?)
%
I know of one version running at IBM Tel-Aviv. I am supposed to have it installed next week. Will be happy to let you know the results afterwards.
Shai Guday
Department of Computer Science, Givat Ram
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Bitnet: shaig@hujics.Huji.ac.il ellis@osf.ORG (10/06/88)
I've tried Siemens RTL, and actually got it to compile and run but no other clients will run with it, which sort of reduces the usefulness of the system... What kind of problems did you have with other clients? We've run the usual clients (xterm, xclock, etc.) with no problem. I've seen it run on Suns and Apollos, so I wonder why there should be a problem with the RT. Ellis Cohen ellis@osf.org
jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) (10/11/88)
In article <8810061652.AA02172@grumpf.osf.org> ellis@osf.ORG writes: > > I've tried Siemens RTL, and actually got it to compile > and run but no other clients will run with it, which sort of reduces > the usefulness of the system... > >What kind of problems did you have with other clients? First, let me state very clearly, I am running a beta release of X.V11 from IBM for AIX, and I believe very strongly that the problems I had with RTL are much more likely due to bugs in this server than to bugs in RTL. I didn't intend for my comments to be interpreted as any kind of criticism of RTL, and I hope that no one interpreted them as such. >We've run the usual clients (xterm, xclock, etc.) >with no problem. I've seen it run on Suns and Apollos, So have I; I stopped by the booth at Xhibition for quite a while, and I was very impressed by what I saw actually running on a Sun. In fact, it was this favorable impression that motivated me to even try to bring up RTL on my RT/PC. >so I wonder why there should be a problem with the RT. The beta X11 server from IBM seems to be lacking in a number of areas that are specific to X11. I know that sounds silly, but as I don't have the source, and I don't know anyone who is actually involved in the server implementation for AIX, I can't be more specific. I have also brought up, or attempted to bring up, a number of other programs from various sources for X11, including twm and awm, and there are a lot of problems with both of them as well. The full release of X11 from IBM for AIX is due out about now; I'm hoping it will be a lot better. jw