[comp.sys.amiga.tech] X on Amiga help sought

jmarvin@oracle.com (01/04/91)

  I need some sage wisdom and advice.  I want to run X windows
on my amiga, and need to know how (if possible).

  The facts:

1. I have an Amiga 1000 w/ 1.5MB and a 30MB hard drive.
2. I have a 19.2k lease line from work (Oracle) to home.
3. I want to run software on my Sparc 1+ at work, and have the
   display on my Amiga at home (Saber-C, my own X code, gnu emacs).

  The questions:

1. Anyone know the email address for the people who do X on
   Amigas?  (Dale Luck? Gfxworks?)  Or phone #?
2. Is this possible?
3. Do I need SLIP?  Or can Amiga-X run on a serial line?
   Where can I get SLIP or whatever else I need?
4. Do I need a 3 button mouse?  I don't use the middle button
   when I'm running Saber or my code.
5. Can I run olwm?

  Right now I'm running A-talk III (great program!) over the
lease line, but I'm doing some X development, and it's kinda
hard to debug graphics that you don't see!


  Thanks in advance,

*******************************************************************
* John W. S. Marvin             * There are times when the wolves *
* Oracle Multimedia Development * are silent, and the moon is     *
* jmarvin@oracle.com            * howling...                      *
*******************************************************************
*******************************************************************
* John W. S. Marvin             * There are times when the wolves *
* Oracle Multimedia Development * are silent, and the moon is     *
* jmarvin@oracle.com            * howling...                      *

dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (01/04/91)

In article <1991Jan3.191932.25611@oracle.com> jmarvin@oracle.com () writes:
>
> I want to run X windows on my amiga, and need to know how (if possible).
>
>1. I have an Amiga 1000 w/ 1.5MB and a 30MB hard drive.
>2. I have a 19.2k lease line from work (Oracle) to home.
>3. I want to run software on my Sparc 1+ at work, and have the
>   display on my Amiga at home (Saber-C, my own X code, gnu emacs).
>
>  The questions:
>
>1. Anyone know the email address for the people who do X on
>   Amigas?  (Dale Luck? Gfxworks?)  Or phone #?
We are at boing.com!dale If that does not work try amiga!boing!dale
or uunet!cbmvax!amiga!boing!dale or even oliveb!amiga!boing!dale
408-262-1469

>2. Is this possible?
Minimum requirements are 1m ram and a floppy. But this is for the
Xterminal version that runs with DECnet/serial. Typical systems
are about 2-3megs of memory and 7megs of hard disk space.

>3. Do I need SLIP?  Or can Amiga-X run on a serial line?
>   Where can I get SLIP or whatever else I need?

19.2K baud will tire out a plain 68000 very quickly depending on
what else is going on in the system. Response is acceptable, even
at 9600 baud using DDCMP. I've heard that X using slip is not
very good. Maybe because the protocol has more overhead than DDCMP
and therefore less real bandwidth compared to DDCMP. At present
we do not support slip however we hope that one of the network
software vendors will add slip to their supported protocols and
then we can use via an already supported interfacd to their software.

>4. Do I need a 3 button mouse?  I don't use the middle button
>   when I'm running Saber or my code.

You do not need a three button mouse. Although it is very handy when
trying to get xterm menu's.

>5. Can I run olwm?
olwm is one of the standard window managers that run under AmigaDOS
now. With 1.5 megs of memory you should be able to run the server
and a window manager and many connections to a remote host for the
other applications.

Another possibility: Depending on the how much you depend on
the sparc for your development environment, you could just send
the X source code to your Amiga, compile it under Lattice and
link it with the X Programmers Toolkit for the Amiga. All the
standard MIT libraries are provided (Xlib,Xt,Xmu,Xaw, etc.)
There is also an optional XView 2.0 system available. You don't need
the 19.2k leased line anymore then.

>
>* John W. S. Marvin             * There are times when the wolves *
>* Oracle Multimedia Development * are silent, and the moon is     *
>* jmarvin@oracle.com            * howling...                      *


-- 
Dale Luck     GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale