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picoGUI: An X Alternative?

Posted by michael on from the chi-power dept.

bockman writes "While started as a PDA-oriented project, the picoGUI people seem to be implementing many ideas which I think would be good also for a desktop graphics server ( high-level client/server protocol, presentation layer in the server _but_ modular, application management also modular,...). So I wonder: what would it take (apart porting tons of applications) to make it a suitable alternative to X+[your toolkit of choice]+[your window manager of choice]?"

4 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. I like innovations but by i_luv_linux · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Where is the innovation in picoGui? It looks like Aqua of Mac Os X. I appreciate the work for this, but please do something on your own, come up with some new nice ideas, think, innovate, bring some excitement to open source community! Why do we have to see Mac OS X like, Windows like interfaces in the open source all the time? Why don't these people come with nice new interface features?

  2. Re:A good alternative! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The entrenched X API is the biggest roadblock to projects like these. It's almost easier to put picoGUI into a new OS rather than trying to make it replace X in Linux/BSD/UNIX.


    The major toolkits (GTK+, Qt, etc.) have backend abstraction layers, so they can run in multiple environments (for example, GDK has been ported to DirectFB, Qt runs on embedded platforms and Windows, etc.). For other apps, implementing a tiny X server over the system is *that* hard (relatively speaking); this is what DirectFB have done.

    So far as porting... DirectFB may actually be a better idea (not sure on its portability, tho). The only thing it's missing atm is 3D acceleration (which would involve porting the XFree86 Mesa drivers, and/or getting support from the people who make actually useful 3D drivers, i.e., ATi and nVidia).

    ...I'll stick with XFree86, which is getting faster and smaller with each release...


    And no less unstable. Speed is pretty useless when my desktop crashes at least twice a day (on any number of chipsets, I might add; especially on my laptop).
  3. Re:For the SI prefix challenged by milquetoast · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    i don't think you know what a pun is.

  4. Pico?? by CakerX · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    is that pico as in everyone's favorite emacs derived text editor that comes bundled with pine, or pico as in Pico's school shooting