minimal CD --> startx

[Liam Proven]

On 16 September 2012 09:20, chris <chevhq at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2012-09-16 at 09:22 +0200, Patrick Asselman wrote:
>> On 2012-09-16 01:53, Oliver Grawert wrote:
>> > hi,
>> > On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:40:02 +0100
>> > Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> And what exactly does one *do* with this, that is the question?
>> >>
>> >> It ain't "X-Windows" if there aren't any windows. ;¬)
>> >>
>> > wow, i love that we have this discussion since it reminds me how far
>> > linux on the desktop has come since people like i started using
>> > it ...
>> >
>> > had you started where i come from then you would have used a desk
>> > calculator to compute the proper modelines for your CRT by hand
>> > (always
>> > being anxious because you know a single wrong number could fry the
>> > thing into an irreparable boulder)
>> >
>> > anyway, back to the topic, after you would have successfully started
>> > your new X the only thing that would show up was an unmanaged xterm
>> > window in the top left of your screen after you ran startx ...
>> >
>> > and guess what, that didnt change til today ;) ... and you can do a
>> > lot
>> > with an unmanaged xterm (compile a window manager and run it for
>> > example)
>> >
>> > its really good to see that only old farts like me seem to remember
>> > this and that its knowledge thats only good for an anecdote in a ML
>> > today because our system got so far ...
>> >
>> > but in any case: sudo apt-get install xorg && startx
>> > gets you actually something to work with, there is exactly one window
>> > and it is unmanaged.
>> >
>> > ciao
>> >     oli
>>
>> Thank you for making me feel like an old fart :-(
>> It's not that long ago, is it? Please? Someone? Anyone? Waaaaah!
>>
>> But yeah, this sort of cr at p was needed back then.
>> I still remember the first graphic terminals at university where you
>> could have a look at the hand-uudecoded-and-merged fractal picture files
>> you downloaded from the news server. Only to find out later that it had
>> cost more cpu seconds than you were allowed to use.
>>
>> Mind you, i'm not that old that I have worked on ye olde VAX/VMS
>> machines, hmkay?
>
> I have.:-(

Why the sad smiley? VAXen were, and are, cool boxes. Unix came of age
on VAXen - BSD 4 was essentially a VAX OS, and Unix System V inherited
a lot from BSD, and they are where Linux took a lot of its, ah,
inspiration.

VAX/VMS was also an interesting, powerful OS to work with, which
inspired Windows NT, and it is in large part competition from Windows
NT that has made Linux grow and develop into the rich, powerful,
flexible GUI OS that it is today.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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