In article <uvtvhs$31urj$1@dont-email.me>,
Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 4/19/2024 6:15 AM, motk wrote:
>> On 19/4/24 13:09, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>> PuTTY, X11, XTerm, OpenVMS, yes they are all still actively maintained
>>> and still work well.
>>
>> X11 is literally abandoned, apart from the X11 wayland bits. Please be
>> real.
>
>I guess it depends on what you really mean by abandoned.
>
>Is the X11 software still being maintained? Yes it is.

This is factually accurate, but the pace of maintenance
is glacial. I'd say it's on life support, but not much
more than that. The assertion was that X11 maintenance
is active; that's only true in so far that some modicum
of it exists.

- Dan C.

On 4/19/2024 11:57 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <uvtvhs$31urj$1@dont-email.me>,
> Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 4/19/2024 6:15 AM, motk wrote:
>>> On 19/4/24 13:09, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>>> PuTTY, X11, XTerm, OpenVMS, yes they are all still actively maintained
>>>> and still work well.
>>>
>>> X11 is literally abandoned, apart from the X11 wayland bits. Please be
>>> real.
>>
>> I guess it depends on what you really mean by abandoned.
>>
>> Is the X11 software still being maintained? Yes it is.
>
> This is factually accurate, but the pace of maintenance
> is glacial. I'd say it's on life support, but not much
> more than that. The assertion was that X11 maintenance
> is active; that's only true in so far that some modicum
> of it exists.

People can take a look:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libx11/-/commits/master

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/commits/master

Arne

In article <uvu7ra$33rl6$1@dont-email.me>,
Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 4/19/2024 11:57 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <uvtvhs$31urj$1@dont-email.me>,
>> Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 4/19/2024 6:15 AM, motk wrote:
>>>> On 19/4/24 13:09, Grant Taylor wrote:
>>>>> PuTTY, X11, XTerm, OpenVMS, yes they are all still actively maintained
>>>>> and still work well.
>>>>
>>>> X11 is literally abandoned, apart from the X11 wayland bits. Please be
>>>> real.
>>>
>>> I guess it depends on what you really mean by abandoned.
>>>
>>> Is the X11 software still being maintained? Yes it is.
>>
>> This is factually accurate, but the pace of maintenance
>> is glacial. I'd say it's on life support, but not much
>> more than that. The assertion was that X11 maintenance
>> is active; that's only true in so far that some modicum
>> of it exists.
>
>People can take a look:
>
>https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libx11/-/commits/master
>
>https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/commits/master

They can also look at the number of outstanding bugs that
are not getting fixed.

- Dan C.

On 4/19/2024 10:17 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 4/19/24 05:10, motk wrote:
>> ... what?
>
> Just because something is not new doesn't mean that it's bad.

Yep! And the wheel is still doing well ...

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

In article <uvumvt$3718t$1@dont-email.me>,
Dave Froble <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>On 4/19/2024 10:17 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> On 4/19/24 05:10, motk wrote:
>>> ... what?
>>
>> Just because something is not new doesn't mean that it's bad.
>
>Yep! And the wheel is still doing well ...

And yet, I don't think I'd try to put a wheel manufactured
200 years ago for a wagon on my truck, let alone on my
motorcycle. :-)

- Dan C.

In article <uvtjbq$2ujbg$3@dont-email.me>, yep@yep.yep (motk) wrote:

> > If it ain't broke, why fix it ?...
> Because it's _broken_. ssh x11 forwarding has been deliberately
> broken by _design_ for a _decade_, if you're found using X11 in a
> corporate environemt you will get an earnest conversation with
> people with no sense of humour, the world is real and here and now.

That's an extremely sweeping statement. I'm working for a very large and
paranoid corporation. I wouldn't try using X11 across the internet, but
for working with a lot of different Linuxes, macOS and Solaris in a
secured development lab, it is truly excellent, and nobody is trying to
stop me.

It lets me have editors and terminal windows on lots of different Linuxes
without needing to deal with their different GUIs and desktop
environments. As far as I can see, Wayland doesn't offer that unless you
slap on a remote desktop protocol. I actively don't want remote desktop:
it is not useful to me, it will suck bandwidth, and it gives me much,
much more setup to do.

I produce closed-source commercial shared libraries that have to work on
as many Linuxes as possible. The list of ones I have running in the lab
isn't ludicrous, but nor is it short:

x86-64: CentOS 7.9, RHEL 8.9, Rocky 8.9, Alma 8.9, Alma 9.3, SLES12sp5,
SLES15sp5, Ubuntu LTS 20.04 and 22.04. I need to add Ubuntu LTS 24.04
soon, of course, and I'm getting extended support on the CentOS 7.9s so
that products released on them can serve out their maintenance lives.

Aarch64: Ubuntu 20.04, Amazon Linux 2, and RHEL 8.9. I need to add Amazon
Linux 2023, Ubuntu LTS 22.04 and 24.04.

Would you want to set up desktops for all those different Linuxes?

John

On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 20:10:30 +1000, motk wrote:

> On 19/4/24 13:12, Grant Taylor wrote:
>
>> N.B. 802.11 WiFi is effectively Ethernet.
>
> I am aware of 802.foo, yes.

Worth clarifying that “Ethernet” is actually covered under 802.3, not
802.11. The parts they share in common (MAC addresses and the “frame”
concept) are defined in 802.2. These parts are also shared with the other
802.x specs.

On 4/19/24 17:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> Worth clarifying that “Ethernet” is actually covered under 802.3,
> not 802.11. The parts they share in common (MAC addresses and the
> “frame” concept) are defined in 802.2. These parts are also shared
> with the other 802.x specs.

My understanding is that 802.11 is heavily influenced by Ethernet 802.3.
Something akin to generational evolution.

--
Grant. . . .

On 4/19/24 22:44, John Dallman wrote:
> In article <uvtjbq$2ujbg$3@dont-email.me>, yep@yep.yep (motk) wrote:
>
>>> If it ain't broke, why fix it ?...
>> Because it's _broken_. ssh x11 forwarding has been deliberately
>> broken by _design_ for a _decade_, if you're found using X11 in a
>> corporate environemt you will get an earnest conversation with
>> people with no sense of humour, the world is real and here and now.
>
> That's an extremely sweeping statement. I'm working for a very large and
> paranoid corporation. I wouldn't try using X11 across the internet, but
> for working with a lot of different Linuxes, macOS and Solaris in a
> secured development lab, it is truly excellent, and nobody is trying to
> stop me.
>
> It lets me have editors and terminal windows on lots of different Linuxes
> without needing to deal with their different GUIs and desktop
> environments. As far as I can see, Wayland doesn't offer that unless you
> slap on a remote desktop protocol. I actively don't want remote desktop:
> it is not useful to me, it will suck bandwidth, and it gives me much,
> much more setup to do.
>
> I produce closed-source commercial shared libraries that have to work on
> as many Linuxes as possible. The list of ones I have running in the lab
> isn't ludicrous, but nor is it short:
>
> x86-64: CentOS 7.9, RHEL 8.9, Rocky 8.9, Alma 8.9, Alma 9.3, SLES12sp5,
> SLES15sp5, Ubuntu LTS 20.04 and 22.04. I need to add Ubuntu LTS 24.04
> soon, of course, and I'm getting extended support on the CentOS 7.9s so
> that products released on them can serve out their maintenance lives.
>
> Aarch64: Ubuntu 20.04, Amazon Linux 2, and RHEL 8.9. I need to add Amazon
> Linux 2023, Ubuntu LTS 22.04 and 24.04.
>
> Would you want to set up desktops for all those different Linuxes?
>
> John

Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.

As with systemd, Wayland looks like yet another attempt at power grab,
and even after years, still doesn't work properly, nor is it complete
compared to X functionality. Who cares if X isn't completely secure,
just use it accordingly...

Chris

On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 01:05:41 +0100, chrisq wrote:

> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.

DEC was a key contributor in the development of X11. But that was then.

> As with systemd, Wayland looks like yet another attempt at power
> grab ...

I wonder who you think is “grabbing” this “power”. Both systemd and
Wayland are open-source projects, created by people who see a problem and
are trying to fix it. Those in the community who see value in these
efforts adopt their solutions, others don’t. There is no Monopolistic™
BigCorp® forcing any of these things down our throats. If you don’t want
to use them, don’t use them.

On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 17:23:43 -0500, Grant Taylor wrote:

> On 4/19/24 17:09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Worth clarifying that “Ethernet” is actually covered under 802.3, not
>> 802.11. The parts they share in common (MAC addresses and the “frame”
>> concept) are defined in 802.2. These parts are also shared with the
>> other 802.x specs.
>
> My understanding is that 802.11 is heavily influenced by Ethernet 802.3.
> Something akin to generational evolution.

You really do need to read more actual network specs before offering
opinions on them.

On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:

> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all depend on
> X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.

That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.

Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only option
on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much. Even then, your X11 experience
will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.

--

--- Rob

motk explained on 19/04/2024 :
> On 18/4/24 07:14, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>
>> I believe that VT200/VT300/VT400 and 8bit gives the "best"
>> VMS experience.
>
> Thanks all - it's worth a bit more thought, given that X11 is basically dead,
> and that most people just open a windows or linux default terminal and they
> 'ssh foo@bar'. Windows Terminal does do a lot of work on terminal emulation
> and by default presents as xterm.
>
>
>> Arne

As dead as it looks, it's still what I'm using today... Just a Putty
login to start a good old VMS session manage,r and I'm in business.
Mostly DECterms, but also LSE. I must admit that the lack of support
for the mouse wheel in DECterm sucks. Otherwise it's still the terminal
that best fits my needs. Oh, and on the PC side, still using Excursion
too. Free, works all the time, even on my Windows 10 PC. What I miss is
the VT emulator that DEC made a long time ago. Was that VT320.EXE ? Can
it still be found somewhere ?

--
Marc Van Dyck

On 4/19/2024 9:23 PM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:
>
>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>
> That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
> there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.

I think he was referring to DECWindows which is also X11 based.

>
> Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only
> option
> on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much.  Even then, your X11
> experience will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.
>

Nothing wrong with DECTerm. But there was a lot more you could do with
DECWindows. Worked great back when I had labs of X-terminals to support
both VMS and SunOS for the students (and yes, faculty liked it, too.)

bill

Hi Marc,

Marc Van Dyck schrieb am 20.04.2024 um 11:24:
> [,,,]
>
> As dead as it looks, it's still what I'm using today... Just a Putty
> login to start a good old VMS session manage,r and I'm in business.
> Mostly DECterms, but also LSE. I must admit that the lack of support
> for the mouse wheel in DECterm sucks. Otherwise it's still the terminal
> that best fits my needs. Oh, and on the PC side, still using Excursion
> too. Free, works all the time, even on my Windows 10 PC. What I miss is
> the VT emulator that DEC made a long time ago. Was that VT320.EXE ? Can
> it still be found somewhere ?

Yes, it's on the freeware CD #7:

https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v70/vtstar/

I'm still using it in my internal environment, mainly for VMS nodes and
serial consoles. Excellent VT terminal emulation. It's only drawback is
the missing SSH support, and here PuTTY enters the game...

Hans.

PS: as an X11 server on a PC, I'm using the free version of Xming.

On 4/20/24 02:23, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:
>
>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>
> That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
> there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.
>
> Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only
> option
> on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much.  Even then, your X11
> experience will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.
>

Sigh,

Perhaps a poor choice of words, but are there any desktop / GUI systems,
other than windows, that do not depend on X11 ?. The point was that it
is a standard, and not optional. Can't remember if the old Motif based
CDE used X11 libs or not, but that's long gone anyway. VWS, ditto...

On 4/20/24 01:37, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Apr 2024 01:05:41 +0100, chrisq wrote:
>
>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>
> DEC was a key contributor in the development of X11. But that was then.
>
>> As with systemd, Wayland looks like yet another attempt at power
>> grab ...
>
> I wonder who you think is “grabbing” this “power”. Both systemd and
> Wayland are open-source projects, created by people who see a problem and
> are trying to fix it. Those in the community who see value in these
> efforts adopt their solutions, others don’t. There is no Monopolistic™
> BigCorp® forcing any of these things down our throats. If you don’t want
> to use them, don’t use them.

systemd originally came from redhat. I rest my case.

A suffocating carbunkle on what was an elegant os that really didn't
need it...

On 20/04/2024 16:00, chrisq wrote:
> On 4/20/24 02:23, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
>> On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:
>>
>>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>>
>> That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
>> there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.
>>
>> Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only
>> option
>> on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much.  Even then, your X11
>> experience will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.
>>
>
> Sigh,
>
> Perhaps a poor choice of words, but are there any desktop / GUI systems,
> other than windows, that do not depend on X11 ?. The point was that it
> is a standard, and not optional. Can't remember if the old Motif based
> CDE used X11 libs or not, but that's long gone anyway. VWS, ditto...

I remember well DR Gem on the Atari ST. It sat on top off the aptly
named TOS

--
Chris

On 4/20/2024 11:00 AM, chrisq wrote:
> On 4/20/24 02:23, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
>> On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:
>>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>>
>> That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
>> there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.
>>
>> Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only
>> option
>> on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much.  Even then, your X11
>> experience will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.

> Perhaps a poor choice of words, but are there any desktop / GUI systems,
> other than windows, that do not depend on X11 ?. The point was that it
> is a standard, and not optional. Can't remember if the old Motif based
> CDE used X11 libs or not, but that's long gone anyway. VWS, ditto...

I don't think macOS use X either (for native macOS
applications - can run X applications).

And even though Android and iOS does not qualify as desktop, then
Windows + macOS + Android + iOS is like 99% of all GUI.

Arne

On 4/20/24 07:32, bill wrote:
> Nothing wrong with DECTerm. But there was a lot more you could do
> with DECWindows. Worked great back when I had labs of X-terminals to
> support both VMS and SunOS for the students (and yes, faculty liked
> it, too.)

I think that X11's ability to work across platforms is something that's
unmet by any other protocol that I'm aware of.

GUI applications could run on their native / optimal platform and
display on whatever platform the user wanted to use.

No, I don't consider web based interfaces to be comparable.

--
Grant. . . .

In article <v00lph$3nik6$2@dont-email.me>, chrisq <devzero@nospam.com> wrote:
>[snip]
>A suffocating carbunkle on what was an elegant os that really didn't
>need it...

Linux is a lot of things: incredibly useful, very powerful, and
arguably the most important software project in the world. But
"elegant" is not something that comes to mind when I think look
closely at it.

- Dan C.

In article <v00lb8$3nik6$1@dont-email.me>, chrisq <devzero@nospam.com> wrote:
>On 4/20/24 02:23, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
>> On 4/19/2024 8:05 PM, chrisq wrote:
>>
>>> Absolutely, Solaris, Linux, Freebsd and even cygwin + X + xfce4, all
>>> depend on X11 at core. VMS as well, though not sure of current status.
>>
>> That's a pretty pliable definition of "depend on" regarding VMS, since
>> there is literally no dependency on X11 within VMS.
>>
>> Yeah, if you want a non-character cell interface, then X11 is the only
>> option
>> on VMS, but to claim a dependency is a bit much.  Even then, your X11
>> experience will be using a lot of DECterm windows most of the time.
>
>Sigh,
>
>Perhaps a poor choice of words, but are there any desktop / GUI systems,
>other than windows, that do not depend on X11 ?

Sure! Tons, both historical and contemporary. The obvious
modern examples are ChromeOS and macOS, both of which are highly
graphical, neither of which uses X11 natively (but support for X
exists for at least macOS, and I believe for ChromeOS as well).

The Plan 9 graphical environment, Rio, does not use X11.

Historical examples abound: the Blit; VGTS and W on the V
microkernel; CMU's WM; MGR; the Xerox Alto, Star, etc; Sun's
SunTools/SunView; SGI's MEX; I would argue Sun's NeWS initially,
etc. Even the initial graphical system on SRI's NTS.

>The point was that it
>is a standard, and not optional. Can't remember if the old Motif based
>CDE used X11 libs or not, but that's long gone anyway. VWS, ditto...

Motif was a user interface toolkit built on top of X and most
Motif applications used the underlying X libraries (Xlib, the
intrinsics toolkit, etc). The main competitor was Sun's
OpenLook toolkit, which was in some ways better, but didn't
quite grab the industry. DECWindows was clearly based on Motif,
but X on VMS always felt a bit like an impedence mismatch. I
guess it worked OK. ost serious Unix people ran a more minimal
window manager (ctwm, tvtwm, twm, uwm, etc).

- Dan C.

On 4/20/2024 11:40 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 4/20/24 07:32, bill wrote:
>> Nothing wrong with DECTerm.  But there was a lot more you could do
>> with DECWindows.  Worked great back when I had labs of X-terminals to
>> support both VMS and SunOS for the students (and yes, faculty liked
>> it, too.)
>
> I think that X11's ability to work across platforms is something that's
> unmet by any other protocol that I'm aware of.
>
> GUI applications could run on their native / optimal platform and
> display on whatever platform the user wanted to use.
>
> No, I don't consider web based interfaces to be comparable.

Cool feature.

But how many does really need it?

Closest equivalent may be the "screen copy" technologies
(RDS, Citrix etc.).

Arne

On 4/20/2024 10:52 AM, Hans Bachner wrote:
> Marc Van Dyck schrieb am 20.04.2024 um 11:24:
>> As dead as it looks, it's still what I'm using today... Just a Putty
>> login to start a good old VMS session manage,r and I'm in business.
>> Mostly DECterms, but also LSE. I must admit that the lack of support
>> for the mouse wheel in DECterm sucks. Otherwise it's still the terminal
>> that best fits my needs. Oh, and on the PC side, still using Excursion
>> too. Free, works all the time, even on my Windows 10 PC. What I miss is
>> the VT emulator that DEC made a long time ago. Was that VT320.EXE ? Can
>> it still be found somewhere ?
>
> Yes, it's on the freeware CD #7:
>
> https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v70/vtstar/
>
> I'm still using it in my internal environment, mainly for VMS nodes and
> serial consoles. Excellent VT terminal emulation.

Indeed.

I just tested if it can handle a VT soft font.

It can.

(it is one of the few things Putty can not do)

Arne

In article <v00rma$3ovg5$1@dont-email.me>, arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajh�j)
wrote:
> On 4/20/2024 11:40 AM, Grant Taylor wrote:
> > I think that X11's ability to work across platforms is something
> > that's unmet by any other protocol that I'm aware of.
> >
> > GUI applications could run on their native / optimal platform and
> > display on whatever platform the user wanted to use.
>
> Cool feature.
>
> But how many does really need it?

Not everyone. But those who need it, really need it. I have done Windows
development on machines that were too noisy to have in an office
environment, before Windows had Remote Desktop. Walking back and forth to
the machine that had my e-mail on it was a ludicrous waste of time. I'm
not interested in repeating the experience.

John