chain@paul.rutgers.edu (Chain Lee) (12/20/90)
--- X11R4 for Xenix 386 ---
It's NEW! It's FAST!
I have ported complete X11R4 window system to SCO Xenix SysV 386. The
port for Xenix
* Supports standard VGA 640x480; Trident VGA 800x600, 1024x600, 1024x768
resolution;
* Uses BSD socket emulation device for server-client connection, therefore
does not require TCP/IP or STREAM package if clients are to run locally;
* Does not put a lot of requirements on hardware - minimal configuration:
16MHz 386SX with 2Meg memory, VGA and a mouse, 20 Meg disk space for
runtime 60 Meg to build.
* Provides instant access to a large number of windowing software
(most of them free).
The patches will be posted in alt.sources (around or short after the
holidays) so that you will be able to build your own complete X11R4 server
and clients for Xenix.
I apologise for not being able to answer all the mails that were
sent to me regarding my port of X to Xenix, partly due to the large
volume that was received. So here is a summery of the port.
A complete X11R4 system has been built for Xenix 2.3.2, using source
patch level 18. The port uses as much as possible of the original
source so it is not drifted apart from the super continent. Everything
under mit directory has been built and is running, with the exception
of client 'xauth', 'xdviview' and 'xload'. The Xxenix server has been
working for a few months and never experienced a crash. It is quite
stable and it is FAST! I have also compiled and installed a large number
of other user contributed software including XFIG, DVI previewer for
TeX/LaTeX, postscript previwer Ghostscript2.0, and many games. Plans
are being made to write an MGR terminal 'mgrterm' to let you run all
the MGR window goodies under X (so you can run graphics programs over
a phone line again).
The entire porting was done on a 16MHz 386SX w/ 2Meg memory. (Don't
laugh, therefore you are assured that it will work under such systems.)
Usually I start Xxenix using xinit with a couple of xterms, twm and an
xclock with second-hand enabled. Under the mininal configuration,
although there are lot of swapping, it runs probably more responsively
than R3 on a SUN3/50. When runs on 33MHz machine with 8Meg memory, you
really get the feeling of having a SPARC station.
The server currently supports standarded VGA 640x480 monochrome mode.
It also supports 800x600, 1024x600, and 1024x768 interlaced mode for
Trident VGA card (You can get the card with 512K RAM for about $140).
The 640x480 256 color mode is being worked on. The port to Xenix was
not done with network support in mind. More specifically, I use BSD
socket emulator device driver to handle all network related stuff on
a local machine only. This means you do not have to have networking
facilities such as TCP/IP or STREAM to run X programs. Everything can
be run on your machine locally if you have the driver. This presents
no problem in most cases. However, if you do want to run clients
remotely, and you have TCP/IP, you will need some changes (should be
minimal) of your own under the original mit/os/4.2bsd directory; if
you are using STREAM, a lot more work will be needed if you want to
write your own code, but most likely you will be able to use STREAM
connection code found in port of X11R4 to some other systems such as
SCO UNIX, or ESIX, etc..
---- Procedures for Building the System ----
1. Prepare 80Meg free disk space - 60Meg for source, 20Meg for runtime
under /usr/local/X11.
2. Get X11R4 source tape, or ftp from MIT or uunet.uu.net, install
X11R4/mit directory on your system.
3. Get official patches 1-18 from uunet.uu.net, apply the patches.
4. At the directory where directory mit resides (assuming .../X11R4),
apply my patches (to be posted). You can run
cat patch_file_part?? | patch -p
5. Read file README.XENIX. Procedures are continued there.
Note that you need GCC to compile the source. It is available from some
ftp sites. Server compiled with CC runs slower so I dropped any changes
made for CC. You also need 'ranlib' that was posted in comp.unix.xenix
some time ago to handle libraries that have symbols longer than 24
characters.
It's coming soon!
Have fun Xxenix!
Chain Lee
chain@paul.rutgers.edu