Subj : Re: X-programs
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Steve Ackman
Date : Thu Sep 02 2004 05:22 pm

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:43:51 +0200, Sybren Stuvel wrote:
> 
> Steve Ackman enlightened us with:
>>   Seems easier to just do
>>
>> TTY1: xinit $(which xterm)
> 
> Yep, a lot easier. Didn't know that one, thanx!

  I used to use 'xinit $(which <app-name>)' all the 
time running X apps (especially Netscape 3.01) on an 
AMD K-75 with 8 MB RAM.  Once I upped it to 12 MB RAM, 
I threw fvwm2/anotherlevel/lesstif into the mix without 
much of a performance hit... a very useful wm with the
clean look reminiscent of GEOS on the C64.  ;-)

  I also used xinit from a text menu on my wife's old 
200 Mhz 64MB RAM laptop to run everything she wanted.  
She's not much for multitasking, so one-at-a-time, as long
as she didn't have to remember any commands, was great
with her.  Boot up, hit one of A through H and she was in 
business.  All she cared about was browsing, word processing 
and a game or two, and she didn't want to twiddle her
thumbs waiting for a DE to come up.
(We actually tried running KDE on that machine, but it
took about 7 minutes from power on to first mouse click)

  When I was tweaking things on her machine, I might
want to run more than one X app at a time, so I'd do
something like run first app from TTY1:
$ xinit $(which netscape)
and say download a pdf file, then run 2nd app from TTY2:
$ xinit $(which acroread) -- :1

  Switch back and forth from netscape to acroread with
ALT-CTRL-F8 and ALT-CTRL-F7.  
  No window manager required and you could still 
potentially run up to 6 X apps at the same time.  
(On most distros that'd be TTY1-6 and F7-F12).

  Anyway, just a bit of reminiscing for the OP 
interested in running X stuff without WM or DE.

-- 
Steve Ackman
http://twoloonscoffee.com	(Need beans?)
http://twovoyagers.com		(glass, linux & other stuff)

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