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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!yama.mcc.ac.uk!news.salford.ac.uk!aber!not-for-mail From: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Sometimes you need X server source (Was: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium) Date: 31 Mar 1996 23:40:10 +0100 Organization: Prifysgol Cymru, Aberystwyth Lines: 55 Sender: pcg@osfb.aber.ac.uk Message-ID: <vwjenq86g51.fsf@osfb.aber.ac.uk> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> <4ja099$r8k@ceylon.gte.com> Reply-To: pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) NNTP-Posting-Host: osfb.aber.ac.uk In-reply-to: mbr@poitin.gte.com's message of 26 Mar 1996 23:57:28 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.0.15 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:13844 comp.os.linux.development.system:20275 comp.os.linux.x:28000 comp.os.linux.hardware:34813 comp.os.linux.setup:47953 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:363 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2867 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2645 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16265 >>> On 26 Mar 1996 23:57:28 GMT, mbr@poitin.gte.com (Mark Rosenthal) said: mbr> In article <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE>, mbr> Thomas Weihrich <Thomas.Weihrich@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> wrote: Thomas> Matrox did point at a source of information - X Inside. mbr> I sometimes run my X connection over a modem, and it's slower than mbr> I'd like. What does this have to do with whether or not to buy a mbr> Matrox Millennium card? Someday soon, I plan on rebuilding my X mbr> server to include the LBX (low bandwidth X) extension. This is not necessarily necessary. LBX has in fact been dropped in X11R6.1, for several reasons; among them I suppose is that there are quite a few *incompatible* experimental versions of the protocol, which reduces quite a bit its usefulness. There are alternatives that require no changes to either the X server or clients, for example 'sxpc' and 'dxpc', a more recent incarnation of the concept, and they are demonstrably effective. mbr> Can I do this without source code to the server? I don't think so. mbr> Even if I didn't have this immediate need, you never know what mbr> extensions you might want to add to the server in the future. mbr> So I think buying any graphics card which restricts me to a mbr> binary-only X server is a BAD PLAN! No, it's yet another option: it is may be a bad plan for you, but OK for somebody else. You have the option of rolling your own with XFree86, or paying somebody to provide you with a less flexible but perhaps more polished alternative, X-Inside. The good thing about Linux is that, thanks to its free nature and the work of many, one has *more choice*, between several non-proprietary solutions and several proprietary ones for most categories of software. Users of other systems have often little choice, and only properitary ones typically. Too bad for them. X-Inside is proprietary -- useful to those that choose that sort of product. XFree86 is freeware -- useful to those that prefer it that way. I personally prefer like you freeware, for I value highly the ability to roll my own -- but I am happy that other people can choose differently, and that the people at X-Inside can supply them with their product. Also, I remember that one of the principals (Thomas Roell) at X-Inside actually started the freeware-X ball rolling by doing the first freeware server for Intel based Unixes, X386; he then decided to selling commercially supported product (I had actually suggested him that he could swithc into that :->), and that's cool too. More choice is what Linux is perhap all about; and proprietary alternatives are more choice.