From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: X386 (Was Re: 0.96 out next week) Date: 5 May 1992 06:35:13 GMT
In article <1992May5.00552.26728@ms.uky.edu> randy@ms.uky.edu (Randy Appleton) writes:
>> [ X window system ]
>
>Here's a question. What CGA cards does it support, and at what
>resolutions. Also, what's the realistic RAM requirements?
X definitely won't work with CGA - it won't even work with normal VGA
cards: you need SVGA (and even not just any SVGA card will do). The
supported cards are et[3|4]000 and some others (pvga? tvga?).
Resolutions range from 640x480 to 1192x900 (or something like that), all
at 256 colours, depending on what kind of card/monitor combination you
have.
As to memory: I'm using it in 8MB ram, and no swapping (with a couple of
xterms, xclock and xcalc - nothing major). If I want to recompile the
kernel in an xterm, I'll have to start up swapping (well, actually I've
done it without swapping, but it's tight). I assume it's still useable
in 4MB and a big swap-file, but I'm happy I haven't tested it.
Speed probably depends heavily on the SVGA card: on my 386/33 with a
no-name et4000 card I get totally acceptable performance: scrolling big
windows is slow with other things going on, but not irritatingly so.
You don't want to make opaque moves, but I can live without that.
Harddisk space is totally up to you: minimum about 10MB for just the
minimal clients, maximum probably the sky is the limit.
Linus