From: jwinstea@jarthur.claremont.edu (Jim Winstead Jr.) Subject: Re: X - What's the Use? Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1992 02:37:37 GMT
In article <1992Jul13.203851.5483@nntp.hut.fi> sakaria@vipunen.hut.fi (Sakari Aaltonen) writes:
>
>It appears that, for many people, a working X environment is very important
>(necessary?).
Nice to have, in my case.
>Having gained my modest Unix and Linux experience in a VT100 environment,
>I have little idea of the advantages X brings. The hardware requirements
>are steepish. Apart from the HD space, a new video card and a new display
>would be needed for an EGA-based machine. Also, judging from posts here,
>installing X takes a major effort. Then again, there seem to be state-of-
>the-art video cards that defy all efforts...
Installing X does not have to be a major effort - it took me longer to
download it than install, by far. (Then again, I downloaded at 2400
bps. :)
The hardware requirements really aren't all that steep, compared with
the current state of the PC industry. The 386 is pretty much the
'basic', usually have 4 megs of ram and 80 megs of diskspace (in my
experience), and all of this comes in at about $1500. The only
relatively non-standard aspect is the specific video controllers used,
but I've found that almost every dealer has Diamond SpeedStars
available, sometimes as an 'upgrade' to the usual controller.
>So I wonder: what gives with X? Why is it so important?
X is an industry-standard graphical windowing environment. What gives
with MicroSoft Windows? Why is it so important? Same thing,
different environment.
--
+ Jim Winstead Jr. (CSci '95)
| Harvey Mudd College
| jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
+ This is all my words. Honest!