21 Jun
2013
21 Jun
'13
4:13 a.m.
On 21 June 2013 11:40, Jason Howe <jason at smbfc.net> wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
On 20 June 2013 12:16, Alexander Schreiber <als at thangorodrim.de> wrote:
I submit, that a majority of Desktop *nix users, also administrate remote
systems with X (*nix, VMS?), at which point firing an Xsession back at
yourself over ssh is a critical piece of functionality.
Though I do hear of a lot of people on this list running X on Windows for
the above. When I got to the point, where I had more PuTTY sessions and
remote X windows on my desktop than native Windows apps, I relaized I was
just using the wrong tool for my job and made the jump to Linux for my
primary workstation.
When I had my Mac, one of the first things I did was install the X11.app.
Indeed, many of my coworkers have jumped ship to using a Mac as their
primary workstation - pretty sure they all have X11 installed as well.
I don't think android (nor iOS) on phones really applies here. I don't
expect, nor need, the same type on windowing environment on a toy as I do
on a machine I use to get work done.
Yes, I acknowledge that different user populations have different needs,
however, to declare networkable X to be unneeded because *you've* needed it
or because it doesn't come natively bundled with Mac or handheld devices?
I could declare that Microsoft should stop selling Windows, because I
don't have a need for it -- but that would be ridiculous.
--
Jason Howe
Sent from my DEC 3000 running VMS 8.4
I use remote X on occasion. But I would not mind ever having to do so.
Why? While the concept is great, the implementation (on a
protocol/conceptual basis) is crap. Individual windows managed by the
local display manager? This just invites a mess of different special cases
that need to be handled (eg, widgets, pop-ups, modality, pointer
capture..). Oh, and then there are the issues of security, network
interruptions (or changes, such as if you have a laptop), and audio. These
are not insurmountable problems, but adding fixes to X to deal with these
is akin to adding airbags to a horseless carriage.
Far better - and the common solution nowadays - is to have a virtual
persistent framebuffer if you need network transparency. This is what RDP
and VNC do, and from my perspective, do it pretty well; any issues you may
observe in current systems tend to be due to the implementation.
So I say, thanks X11, but it's time to move on.
Joachim.
--
Joachim Thiemann :: http://jthiem.bitbucket.org ::
http://signalsprocessed.blogspot.com
I use that regularly. It is an incredibly useful detail of the way the
X Window system is designed. So you can, e.g. run the process on the
machine where the big pile of data lives and have it displayed on your
workstation. Or run the process on the workstation inside the corporate
security perimeter, but have the display on your laptop in the hotel,
with the connection piped back through ssh.
I am sure it is very useful /if you need it./ However, I submit that
the majority of personal computer users do not need it.
[...]