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X Window System

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Self-nomination, went a month on Peer Review. I wrote quite a lot of the text that's there at present and have made most of the recent edits. I nominated this last June and it failed, but I think it's ready now. If there's a gap, it's perfect coverage of XFree86, though I did try. I asked on the X.Org list as well, and a couple of people said they could help with historical stuff ... in weeks or so. So I'll put it forward as is and make it the perfect article in due course ;-) - David Gerard 01:19, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not a FAC regular, but after David's request for help I studied the article a little and I must say I find it very impressive. Support. --fvw* 01:30, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)
  • Support. Phils 11:47, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - seems fine to me! Excellent work. Ta bu shi da yu 13:22, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Fascinating. I am no expert in this (I've used KDE and Gnone twice, that's it) but it looks good. --JuntungWu 15:53, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    If it gives you a better idea of what was actually going on and how it works, and the interesting things you can do on a network, then that's what I'm after! - David Gerard 16:06, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support: Learned a lot from the article, and clarifications by David. Thanks. Comments:
    • 1. Popularity: How many users actually chose to use X? On which platforms is it most popular? Is the user base increasing or decreasing? How about user base growth in other nations? If X is popular, why does X enjoy the type of support that it garners?
      As it says in the intro, it's standard on the open-source Unix-like systems - if you want a graphical interface, it's the only real option. As it says in "Competitors", the competitors are negligible. The user base pretty much matches the growth of the operating systems (largely Linux). I'll see if I can make it clearer why these questions aren't so very applicable.
      The 'Competitors' section now starts "X is the near-universal system for graphics on Unix-like systems." There really aren't any other options unless you're experimenting on new things - David Gerard 00:07, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • 2. "The X client-server model and network transparency" section describes process, but not enough design: the communications protocol should be described in more detail, especially to show how it succeeds in providing network transparency. Are there other design considerations that make X unique? If the design section is well-written, it should be intuitive to guess the type of criticisms/issues that might occur with X, but I can't do that from the way that its written right now.
      This is described more in X Window System protocols and architecture, which I budded off from this one when it hit 30 kilobytes. The sub-article isn't very good at present (I estimate it'll be about the 30KB max length itself when it's complete, with its own nest of subpages), but goes much more into the nuts and bolts than I think this article can in 30KB. I'll see if I can make it a bit clearer.
      From the article: "The communication protocol between server and client runs network-transparently: the client and server may run on the same machine or on different ones, possibly with different architectures and operating systems." It's the same protocol whether on the same machine or different ones. How is this unclear? Rewording suggestions welcomed - David Gerard 17:14, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      Well, I'm clueless about X, but this is the general idea of what I'm thinking about: X provides network-transparency by enforcing a standardized communication protocol between the server and the client: the client and server may run on the same machine or on different ones, possibly with different architectures and operating systems. The (foundation name? X.org?) maintains and updates the standards for X's communication protocol. Since X is a GUI interface (unlike telnet), it needs to know the underlying video hardware to run. This is implemented by (creating a video driver library?).
      You've got it. It's implemented by the server knowing to do something to make video output - it may be an application displaying to a window of another display system (running under Windows or MacOS X), it may be a system program controlling the video card of a PC (XFree86 or Xorg Server on Unix/Linux) or it may be a dedicated piece of hardware (an X Terminal). The client can't tell and doesn't care. I've expanded on the theme - David Gerard 00:07, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      Aside: If X uses a standardized communication protocol, shouldn't it be trivial to implement network-transparency for sound as well? just create the standard and add the necessary drivers?) --Confuzion 18:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      Because that used to be a bit of a load on a network. Now they're talking about media servers, i.e. fast audio and video streaming. It's more a process of create a protocol, write the extension and then get anyone else to use it - that last step is where a lot of X ideas fell down - David Gerard 00:07, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • 3. How closely does current X design follow the design principles described in 1984?--Confuzion 04:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
      Pretty closely, which is why I didn't elaborate further - David Gerard 15:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Support - Congratulations on the research. -- Poli 04:00, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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