From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Dec 16 23:38:43 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id XAA03419 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 16 Dec 1995 23:38:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from news1.gtn.com (news1.gtn.com [192.109.159.3]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA03414 for ; Sat, 16 Dec 1995 23:38:40 -0800 (PST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by news1.gtn.com (8.7.2/8.7.2) id IAA14979; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:30:03 +0100 (MET) Received: from knobel.gun.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by knobel.gun.de (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA00591; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:24:52 +0100 Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:24:51 +0100 (MET) From: Andreas Klemm To: Jake Hamby cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , hackers@freebsd.org, jdc@crab.xinside.com, velte@cdrom.com Subject: Re: Interested in CDE, anyone? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk 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 -- andreas@knobel.gun.de /\/\___ Wiechers & Partner Datentechnik GmbH Andreas Klemm ___/\/\/ - Support Unix - aklemm@wup.de - \/ ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Printing/aps-491.tgz apsfilter - magic print filter 4lpd >>> knobel is powered by FreeBSD <<<