Re: W - I like it

["Chris Herborth" <chrish@qnx.com>]

What you wrote:
> 
> I finally tried W last night.  It uses more memory than vconsoles and is
> not as fast (obviously) so I won't be using it much.

Hmm, let's see...  vconsoles == text screens, W == bitmapped windowing
system.

Of _course_ it uses more memory!  But, it's a nicer environment, IMHO. 
Pity I can't run gcc with W going.  Not enough RAM free.  :-(

> However, I noticed in the docs that a few references were made to the
> speed overhead of the sockets.  How much of a slowdown is the socket
> interface causing?  I mean, I thought it would be pretty quick.  Why
> slow?   Also, some sort of bitblt and pattern blitting routines would
> be nice (or if they exist, they need to be improved, using the hardware
> blitter maybe).  

That, and a way to graft a blitter into my ST...

Operations that move large bitmaps from the client to the server are
slower than they should be, due to the socket overhead; this might be
improved by using shared memory in the future.  "Normal" operations are
pretty quick going through the socket...

> Other than that, and the lack of software, I kinda liked it.

Well, W's already got almost everything I use under X (a terminal, a
clock, a load indicator; missing a web browser an image viewer, and
xjewel), in a fraction of the memory... and it's much nicer to run GNU
EMACS in an 80x33 window instead of 80x25 on a vconsole...

-- 
----------========================================================----------
Chris Herborth, R&D Technical Writer       Arcane  Dragon     chrish@qnx.com
QNX Software Systems, Ltd.                  -==(UDIC)==-         |||  JAGUAR
http://www.qnx.com/~chrish/    DNRC Holder of Past Knowledge    / | \ 64-bit