Re: [iPAQ] FLTK, NanoX and Microwindows?

On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Jim Gettys wrote:
> FLTK is available on the iPAQ.
Don't know about the X11 version but the nano-X version compiles alomost out of
the box using the skiff cross utils.

> I believe the Microwindows folks may have done a port.
Nope, as it compiles cleanly. I don't know of any ready to go binary
distribution. Only thing there is is an older version of viewml for ARM which
supposedly has the nano-X and ftlk stuff statically linked in.
Wasn't there some public diskspace planned for handhelds.org so that people can
upload stuff for public download?
If yes I would contribute iPaq ready FLNX and microwindows (nano-X) binaries!

> Much of the reason for Microwindows don't exist on the iPAQ, both
> due to relatively generous memory size available on the iPAQ and the fact
> that the X server we use is much smaller than "conventional" X servers,
> being around 700KB right now (including Keith Packard's new rendering
> extension, which provides antialiased text and graphics).
> This makes it really easy to get applications up and running on the iPAQ.
Yes, you are of course right.
But is this really the way to go for Linux on PDAs?
I would prefer a Linux PDA approach that alomost any PDA could use and X11 is
for sure not suited for, for example, the Helio. With just 8MB RAM and 2MB Flash
it will not fit. Nano-X would.
You and many others put a lot of work into the X11 version which only a very
limited number of PDAs can make use of. This will result in at least two Linux
PDA trees, one for small scale PDAs and one for the bigger ones. Applications
for typical PDA use are rare enough for Linux, why force this work to be done
twice?
Nano-X is at least one magnitude smaller than X11 when you take all needed
libraries into account. With FLTK (or better FLNX) we have a working toolkit
for it and can start right away.
Nearly none existing X11 application can be used 1:1 on the iPaq or any other
Linux PDA. You will have to tailor them to the new screen dimensions (much
smaller than nowadays screens) or even rewrite them to some extent. So the easy
porting argument is not fully valid. The network transparancy is IMHO not that
important for a PDA. So what reasons are there left for using X11?
OK, Nano-X is not really mature right now but has gained pace during the last
about half a year. Assuming the same development speed I suppose that it will
be X11 almost equivalent by the beginning of next year.

Just my $0.02 ;)

> - Jim
CU
  nils faerber

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