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Date:      Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:24:51 +0100 (MET)
From:      Andreas Klemm <andreas@knobel.gun.de>
To:        Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com>
Cc:        "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, hackers@freebsd.org, jdc@crab.xinside.com, velte@cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: Interested in CDE, anyone?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.91.951217073706.405A-100000@knobel.gun.de>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.951216000951.237A-100000@localhost>

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On Sat, 16 Dec 1995, Jake Hamby wrote:
> 
> I've tried out CDE on a SPARCstation 20 running Solaris 2.4 and 
> (recently) Solaris 2.5.  I have VERY mixed feelings about it.  On the one 
> hand it looks pretty enough, and it has the advantage of being a 
> "standard" across platforms.  Also, it has a pretty toolbar on the 
> bottom, a number of Motif-based tools (similar to the Openwindows 
> "Deskset" stuff), and virtual consoles.

Really, it looks very nice ! But...

> Those are the pros.  But the disadvanatges are so big, that I doubt it 
> will be a big seller on FreeBSD (or Linux for that matter).  First of 
> all, Motif is big, and so are the CDE programs.  Even with 48MB of RAM, 
> and the fastest (single-CPU) superSPARC 75MHz, most programs take a 
> noticeable five seconds or so to start. 

Last week I installed it in the company on a SS 10/40. The machine
is equipped with 64 MB RAM, CG6 (GX) graphic accelerator and a 
2.1 GB Harddisk (5400 U/min).
The machine currently runs a Netscape communication and proxy
server and serves about 10 WWW users. But not all the time.

My experience is, that my machine is a bit slow now under CDE.
The mouse cursor doesn't respond as quickly as I was used to
under Solaris 2.4 without CDE. 

> Am I totally wrong, or is there a fundamental flaw in the idea of porting 
> CDE to a "tight" platform like FreeBSD?  If you want it, you're just as 
> well off to run Solaris for x86, IMHO, and upgrade your system to 32MB of 
> RAM...  :-(

Only 32 MB ? ;-)

I'd question myself the following...

My ,Top Ten'(tm) not to buy CDE for FreeBSD:

	- costs money (ok, same as for Motif)
	- would make my machine slow
	- would possibly need to upgrade to 64 MB RAM (costs money as well)
	- CDE menue bar configuration looks complicated, like fvwm/mwm
	  configuration style
	- buying motif license would be more useful, since
	  there are currently more Motif related programs 
	  available as C source
	- can I compile and run Motif programs under CDE 
	  without having to fiddle around in sources... ?
	- the deskset tools are still a bit lame ...
	  mailtool comes without pgp support or such
	- Possibly to few CDE desktop tools. What would come
	  with CDE on a FreeBSD machine ?
	Missing fvwm's functionality of
	- changing virtual screen by simply moving the cursor to the
	  border of the screen
	- seeing the actually opened windows in the swallowed pager
		

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