From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 2 19:03:58 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E413516A4CE; Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:03:58 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail21.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail21.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.133.158]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E86643D41; Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:03:58 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (c211-30-75-229.belrs2.nsw.optusnet.com.au [211.30.75.229]) iB2J3fCC030796 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:03:46 +1100 Received: from cirb503493.alcatel.com.au (localhost.alcatel.com.au [127.0.0.1])iB2J3fxP065808; Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:03:41 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from pjeremy@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au) Received: (from pjeremy@localhost)iB2J3cQY065807; Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:03:38 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from pjeremy) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 06:03:38 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: Miguel Mendez Message-ID: <20041202190337.GY79646@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> References: <41AE3F80.1000506@freebsd.org> <98CE9C0241F1FC59BB8F0547@[192.168.1.16]> <41AE55D7.8020709@freebsd.org> <41AEA4B8.6080508@acm.org> <20041202075530.3b33db1b.flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20041202075530.3b33db1b.flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2i cc: jcw@highperformance.net cc: hackers@freebsd.org cc: scottl@freebsd.org cc: "Kamal R. Prasad" cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: My project wish-list for the next 12 months X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 19:03:59 -0000 On Thu, 2004-Dec-02 07:55:30 +0100, Miguel Mendez wrote: >On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:44:32 +0530 >"Kamal R. Prasad" wrote: >> I find X windows to be a bit too compute intensive. Maybe something >> like apple's interface would be a good alternative [for those who >> don't need X-windows' powerful graphic features]. > >What makes you think so? X was originally desgined for systems with >little memory and processing power, certainly a lot less than today's >AMD and Intel space heaters. Agreed. But I don't think performance is the issue with X. As I see it, there are several major problems with building an X installer: 1) It quite common in the server arena for machines not to have any graphics head and X is incompatible with serial terminals. 2) You need to configure the X server to support your video adapter, mouse, keyboard and screen. Remember, the "standard" basic VGA interface doesn't necessarily exist outside the PC world. There are enough problems with keyboards (see one of Scott's other wishes) without wanting to add mice, screens and video adapters. 3) /stand is ~2.7M on i386. A minimal X environment is going to be 50-70MB. This means 50-70MB less packages on CD1. 4) X is a RAM hog by sysinstall standards. The minimum RAM requirements will go up significantly. Whilst this shouldn't worry current generation hardware, it will make installing FreeBSD on older hardware (486 and P1) very difficult. Yes, X is network aware but this doesn't really help for system installation. You might solve points 1 and 2 but you replace them with the issue of how to bring up the network and arrange appropriate client/server communication and authentication. -- Peter Jeremy