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X11 Alternatives?
James Skarzinskas asks: "X has been, in general, the most widely used and acknowledged to many as the 'graphics of Linux'. During the last few years, projects like the Linux Framebuffer have really taken off and related projects have shown real potential. I'm just wondering if the Slashdot community knows of any less-public alternative to X; perhaps even using the Linux framebuffer?" Aside from SVGALib, what other graphical infrastructures exist for Unix-based systems?
Ie. curses.
Well, of course, there's DirectFB: a system to render directly to the framebuffer, and using hardware acceleration when available. While still in completion for workstation window systems, it offers excellent performance and a well thought out infrastructure. But since it is geared toward embedded systems it will be a while before it has drivers covering the majority of video cards (though it is doing quite well as it is), has multi-application support (working on it) and a complete API. Still, worth a look at --especially since it already has a Gtk port. It is for those who "prefer alpha transparency to network transparency". They get my vote, and development support for the next Unix windowing system. Quartz, eat our dust.
There were endless discussions of Berlin, and how it was going to sweep Linux and the BSD's into the graphical future, from the chains of a graphical past.
X is still here in 2002, and its progeny will be in place 15 years from now. It will be worked on by CS students who got their MS working on various "Berlin's".
BTW: Who remembers Sun's NeWS - a DPS-based windowing system with network transparency? Why doesn't Apple license the old sources for a model at extending Aqua on the wire? They will just re-invent this stuff again on the Quartz layer of 2005. Oh, well....
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It might seem ironic or funny for me to be saying this, but I prefer X11 because it allows me to run NetBSD Mozilla here on my Windows 2000 desktop, from a seperate NetBSD machine on my home network. A framebuffer-bound environment wouldn't make that nearly as possible. I wish that eXceed wasn't as expensive as it is (I bought it bundled with Interix several years ago). I would say the network transparency of X11 apps is a major selling point. I could throw together an KVM to use instead, but it wouldn't be the same.
Read up and test it out!
None of these are X11 alternatives on the level of SVGALIB or DirectFB, but a bit higher level. They require a low-level display medium like DirectFB, SDL, or X11 (but you can ignore that option for now).
:)
Squeak Smalltalk: A cool Smalltalk environment. Based on Smalltalk-80, for which first modern WIMP was invented. Has a bunch of little apps, simple web browser, vt100 client, few email clients, web servers, a couple different GUI toolkits and programming paradigms to choose from. Personally, what I use mostly as my OS. I like having my entire environment available to me, to be changed as I like, in a very straightforward way. Rather like Emacs users, I suppose. Except Squeak is more customizable, and has full windowing system. Also can run as the OS, no Linux or X11. DirectFB, SDL, X11, Mac (9/X), Windows, Acorn, WinCE, BeOS and lots of other ports that all run the same binaries.
ETH Oberon: Implementation of the Oberon language - derived from Pascal and Modula, by Nick Wirth. Has it's own entire GUI system, like Squeak does. Can run as an OS, without Linux or X11. Also has a VNC client, so you could still run the X11 app or two that you still needed in a window.
PicoGUI: A really cool GUI system especially for PDAs and other embedded applications. Super fast. Bindings for C, Perl, and Python (I think). Linux FB and SDL ports, runs wherever they can. Not much in the way of apps thus far, but it's definitely alive and under pretty active development.
QT/Embedded: You know, like runs on the Zaurus.
GTK+ on Direct FB: Can't say I've used this, but I imagine bindings for regular GTK+ work in this port, which makes for a lot of development options.
MicroWindows/Nano-X: Yet enother embedded GUI option. It's developer seems to be pushing for PDA, set-tops and such. Not many apps, but could be useful especially for custom apps.
Are there any worthwhile just-Java windowing systems out there? There are al ot of Java-OS projects, but none of them seem to have gotten past linking Kaffee with OSKit...
Probably others out there, but this is a good look at some options.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Wait... X11 are the hidden camera people right?
Oops, my mistake...
Maybe you are just curious for alternatives, but X does a great job as it currently is.
XFree86 isn't the greatest impelmentation of X (don't get me wrong, they've done a fantastic job for the mess that x86 is). Try a real X server and see if you still want an alternative. Many people who dislike X have only used XFree and think it is the be all and end all of X. That's simply not the case.
Like I said, you may be just curious about what else is out there, and if that is the case then you can ignore what I have said.
AAlib, what else do you need?
Would Cosmoe count?
www.cosmoe.com
I've wanted to kow if I could use OpenGL without X? If there was any implementation that had GLX bound to a more direct graphics system. I could make OpenGL apps run direct from the console, rather than have to boot up X.
Silly programmers and their off-by-one errors.
Check out Broadcast CL:
http://www.broadcastcl.org
Allegro (http://alleg.sourceforge.net/) has gfx acceleration , sound/music, timers, software 3d, OpenGL support, a simple built in GUI, some nice cross-platform networking add ons...and more!
Like I said not a client-server model, but one could certainly be implemented atop it...
So, you don't see these types of "pop-up ads" in windows, right?
I don't mean like Cygwin which is too bloated, and is basically all of Unix running on Windows. I mean a lightweight well integrated client like eXceed or Reflection X. This would enable developers to write intranet apps as X clients without forcing users of Dumb Windows Terminals to stop using Windows.
When 90% of the programs people use are X Clients and they are still running Windows, the case for switching to Linux as a desktop OS becomes much stronger.
I would do this myself, if I didn't think it was completely beyond my abilities. ( I don't know much about either X or Windows programming, so I don't think I could port it - heck I doubt I could even install it from scratch without weeks of tinkering )
Eat at Joe's.