Re: OFFTOPIC: GTK and alternative GUIs and windowing systems in Linux

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
26 Jan 1998 03:07:31 GMT

Followup to: <199801251837.KAA00694@icarus.icarus.com>
By author: Stephen Williams <steve@icarus.icarus.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> >
> > For a while, I've been thinking about developing a new GPLd GUI
> > and windowing system for Linux. I have recognized the need for a
> > unified user interface for Linux. I don't like X because the
> > client is the fundamentally wrong place to put the user interface
> > object handling code.
>
> This can be implemented by window managers and some clever libraries
> (thus allowing your idea to coexist with existing X apps) or you can add
> extensions to the X server. display postscript is one such extension.
>
> One can also argue whether the GUI of an application should be internally
> consistent or externally consistent.
>

Yes, doing this would be a major win. The X server is fundamentally a
low-level graphics display entity; it is not concerned with "look and
feel". Doing it this way would let your thing work on pretty much ALL
Unix systems, irregardless of what funky graphics hardware they need,
*plus* they would let you run legacy apps on the same desktop...

This is basically the idea behind GNUStep too..

-hpa

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