* * * * *

                                 X11 is dead?

> The X11 Desktop's (what you see to the left) client/server protocol is
> built-in. There's no need to use vnc in most cases!!
>
> I have no idea why it is so hard for people to grasp the power of
> client/server graphic networking. It's simple. Easy. Transparent. And so
> enormously useful that innum erable projects [1] use it to great effect,
> and if only more people would just turn X11's network support on, it would
> be a better world.
>
> I can only imagine it's a conspiracy.
>
> > Legions of PHB (Pointy Haired Boss)s hunched over their laptops in 1989,
> > saying: “THIS X11 CONCEPT IS TOO POWERFUL! Imagine a world where every
> > cell phone, handheld, laptop, desktop, server and supercomputer in the
> > world could run all their applications on each other over a network
> > transparent protocol!
> >
> > “There'd be no need to rewrite every application for every new paradigm.
> > We'd stop having to support all the old ones in the field, too. Every app
> > on your cellphone could run on your desktop! And every app on your
> > desktop could run on your cellphone! Think of all the jobs that would be
> > lost! Think of (my) children and my golf fees!"
> >
>

“X11 is dead, long live X11 [2]”

The X11 Windowing System [3] is something that's hard to explain to someone
who doesn't normally use computers remotely, and thus it's even hard to
explain why using a computer remotely is even desireable.

I was first introduced to X11 in college (Computer Science and Engineering
Department of Florida Atlantic University) [4], most likely by my friend Ken
[5], who regularly came barging into my office with “Hey Sean! You gotta see
this!”

X11 was cool because the Computer Science and Engineering Department would
regularly install neat programs, such as a little program called Mosaic [6]
that allowed one to view information on something called the “World Wide
Web,” that I could use in my office [7] (in the Math Department [8] one floor
below the Computer Science and Engineering Department), without having to go
to the trouble of installing it on my own computer (well, it wasn't my
computer, but I was the administrator of it).

I even learned how to use X11 to get the login screen from my office computer
on the computers in the various Computer Science and Engineering computer
labs if I was stuck upstairs for some reason (and I preferred my office
machine, an SGI Personal IRIS 4D/35 [9] with video-editing capability, over
the run-of-the-mill Sun SPARCstations [10] CSE (Computer Science and
Engineering) used).

I don't use X11 in that way much anymore; I find very little need for remote
running of graphical programs, but when I do [11], it's nice that I can.

Unfortunately, there's a perception that X11 has poor performance [12]. And
yes, compared to NeWS (Network extensible Windowing System) [13], X11 is very
clunky. And the pretty 3D eye-candy of modern windowing systems leads to even
more poor performance across the network.

Besides, Microsoft Windows was never designed with network transparency in
mind, and thus, to get access to Windows programs remotely, you need
something like VNC [14]. The same goes for the Macintosh. And hey, if you
have ported VNC to both Windows and Mac, it's not that much work to port it
to X11.

Sigh.

Another part of Mike Taht's rant [15] skirts around true peer-to-peer
networking, which the Internet was about fifteen years ago, but now, what
with Microsoft's poor record at security [16] and a perceived lack of IP
(Internet Protocol) addresses [17], is no longer the case. IPv6 (Internet
Protocol version 6) [18] will supposedly fix that, with an address space
large enough to give every atom in the universe its own address, but the
change in the Internet infrastructure (at least in the United States) will be
expensive, not to mention time-consuming, so don't expect it to happen any
time soon.

Yet another sigh.

Updated on Tuesday, October 9^th, 2007

Why VNC may be better than X11 [19].


[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-
[2] http://the-/
[3] http://www.x.org/
[4] http://www.cse.fau.edu/
[5] http://www.kenmaier.com/
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
[7] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/03/04.2
[8] http://www.math.fau.edu/
[9] http://www.obsolyte.com/sgi_iris/
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARCstation
[11] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/01/25.1
[12] http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS
[14] http://www.realvnc.com/
[15] http://the-/
[16] http://www.news.com/2009-1001-276735.html
[17] http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3605501
[18] http://www.ipv6.org/
[19] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/10/09.2

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