Author Topic: XFree86-OS/2  (Read 21255 times)

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4713
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2019, 07:46:25 pm »
Thanks Dave

I will keep experimenting with XFree86-OS2. Since I already told you that it is the first time that I had made it run after all this time using OS/2.

Any tips are welcome, for example how to take screenshots, or if there is a way to have icons or somekind of launcher there.


To start programs, IIRC
Code: [Select]
start /n program
In an xterm or on the OS/2 desktop
Code: [Select]
start /n program -display 0:0

I didn't get that? Do you mean I can run a XFree86 program directly from the OS/2 Command line? (without launching x first?)

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

ivan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1558
  • Karma: +17/-0
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2019, 10:58:17 pm »
If you are running the XFree86 as a window on the OS/2 desktop then I would recommend Gotcha (on hobbes) to take screenshots.

I do that if I need a screenshot when I am using HobX11 - like you I never got XFree86 to work reliably so I boughr Hobx11 and never looked back.

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4787
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2019, 02:28:08 am »
Thanks Dave

I will keep experimenting with XFree86-OS2. Since I already told you that it is the first time that I had made it run after all this time using OS/2.

Any tips are welcome, for example how to take screenshots, or if there is a way to have icons or somekind of launcher there.

Screenshots are done with xwd. For testing, "xwd | xwud" and click the window you want to shoot, desktop for all. To save, something like "xwd -out /tmp/window.xwd" and to convert to something useful like png, "ffmpeg -i window.xwd window.png"

There used to be quite a few window managers floating around, they handle icons, launchers, window frames etc. You're probably using twm which is a really basic window manager. See my screenshot with fvwm.

Quote
To start programs, IIRC
Code: [Select]
start /n program
In an xterm or on the OS/2 desktop
Code: [Select]
start /n program -display 0:0

I didn't get that? Do you mean I can run a XFree86 program directly from the OS/2 Command line? (without launching x first?)
You need an Xserver to connect to. In theory you could launch a program and have it run it on my system with the right permissions. You could also have a Linux box and run the Linux programs on the OS/2 Xserver.


Doug Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 307
  • Karma: +7/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2019, 04:36:53 am »
Martin, Sean,

You could also try pmx as the x windows server on OS/2.  Each x window it creates is a seamless window on the desktop - actually a PM window. So you can resize the window to whatever size you want. I took the screen shot of the Gimp  windows on eComStation 2.0 (running SNAP dual head) with PMview, but pmx appears to run ok on AOS also.

The only x windows application I know of that runs on OS/2 is Gimp. Which makes an OS/2 x windows server useful mainly for running applications on another machine - most probably another machine running Linux. Conceptually sort of like VNC or Remote Desktop - but for unix applications, or applications ported from unix.

I stopped using Linux years ago so Dave Yeo is a better authority on this - but it seems to me the Linux world has moved away from x windows to other graphical APIs for its applications

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4787
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2019, 06:44:03 am »
Where is PMX available?
As for Linux, most distributions are still using X though they're trying to get away from it. It's hard to make another graphics layer that everyone agrees to and most programs are written for X.
I will note that X, or rather the session managers and window managers are a lot more familiar to people now, as in working more like Windows then traditional X where copy and pasting is done by highlighting something and middle clicking to paste and scroll bars scroll in different directions based on which mouse button you click. Even on OS/2, X has its own clipboard.
As for programs, at one point we had quite a few. QT, GTK etc were all ported. Mozilla first ran on X, just fired up Warpzilla 0.98. About the only page it would load was Hobbes :)
Sadly most of the old programs seem to be lost, especially the source code.

Doug Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 307
  • Karma: +7/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #20 on: March 19, 2019, 12:24:27 pm »
Martin,
I didn't get that? Do you mean I can run a XFree86 program directly from the OS/2 Command line? (without launching x first?)

If you are using pmx you can start the pmx x windows server in your startup folder. It then sits in the upper right corner of your desktop waiting for a "connection" You can then start any x windows program from the command line.

Dave,

From the great cornucopia of all things OS/2: Hobbes. Search for pmx_204gu.zip.

It appears the default configuration for pmx is to unify the x windows and pm clipboard: there is  a setting to "turn off cut/paste X Windows and PM"

It is interesting that so many applications on Linux are still x windows.

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4787
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #21 on: March 20, 2019, 07:46:45 am »


Dave,

From the great cornucopia of all things OS/2: Hobbes. Search for pmx_204gu.zip.

It appears the default configuration for pmx is to unify the x windows and pm clipboard: there is  a setting to "turn off cut/paste X Windows and PM"

It is interesting that so many applications on Linux are still x windows.

I tried installing pmx, it errored out with not being able to stat pmxe1.zip and failed to install only creating a directory containing an empty TMP directory.

ivan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1558
  • Karma: +17/-0
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #22 on: March 20, 2019, 10:01:37 am »
Dave,  I think the problem is that the zip file on hobbes is only a Corrective Service offering and not the complete PMX package. I tried to check the other PMX files on hobbes but hobbes is down at the moment.

Doug Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 307
  • Karma: +7/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #23 on: March 20, 2019, 04:34:15 pm »
Oops - you also need pmx204_guP2.zip.  It contains the missing PMXE*.ZIP files. Unzip both to the same temporary directory and then run the install. The two together comprise the entire package.

Note this is beta software.

Doug Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 307
  • Karma: +7/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #24 on: March 21, 2019, 07:17:20 pm »
Update - I don't have any Linux boxes anymore but I do have a number of MacBooks - which run (or can run) X Windows and run Apple's version of Unix under the covers.

The attached screen shot shows three X Windows applets running on a MacBook  and displayed "seamlessly" on an OS/2 desktop - in this case ArcaOS. To do this I had to (or think I had to) install openSSH on OS/2 in order to connect to the MacBook.  The MacBook required some editing of the sshd_config file to enable X11 forwarding, and the turning on of Remote login in Sharing in System Preferences.

Sean Casey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 122
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #25 on: March 21, 2019, 08:53:19 pm »
Very nice.  Getting this installed will be my weekend project.   

When I attempted an install of the OpenSSH client on my ArcaOS via YUM in Nov. I received an error that the rpm package was corrupt.  I understand this has now be corrected.

I see you are also using UDB, which I also plan to install on my Warp Server in the near future.

Thank you!

Doug Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 307
  • Karma: +7/-1
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #26 on: March 21, 2019, 09:46:44 pm »
I actually installed OpenSSH from Alex Taylor's distribution - www.altsan.org/os2/utils/


Sean Casey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 122
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #27 on: March 25, 2019, 05:15:45 pm »
Installed PMX and Alex Taylor's OpenSSH.  Screen updates are extremely slow and menus aren't very legible   I'll need to tinker to see if this can be improved.

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4713
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #28 on: March 27, 2019, 03:13:32 am »
Hi

I'm kind of frustrated that I don't have time to go faster on this subject. I received a 200MB WPI file with an XFree86 installer that is very promising, I got a partial success trying it on a VM. I really hope that the author can make it public some day.

For the moment I can only launch the X11 full screen session, but I don't understand how to run X11 apps on windowed mode, like Doug and Sean are showing on their screenshots.

I'm sorry, but I'm lagging behind the group on this subject.

Regards

Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Sean Casey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 122
  • Karma: +2/-0
    • View Profile
Re: XFree86-OS/2
« Reply #29 on: March 27, 2019, 03:29:58 am »
Hi Martin,

Doug and I were successful using PMX.  There wasn't anything unusual about my installation/configuration.  Have you considered giving this a try?   
« Last Edit: March 27, 2019, 04:28:12 am by Sean Casey »