Subject: Re: Colour X-windows on SE/30
To: Rodney M. Hopkins <rhopkins@sunflower.com>
From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@loki.stanford.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 01/17/1998 10:39:41
On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Rodney M. Hopkins wrote:

> At 12:40 PM 1/16/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >As for doing it, why don't you go get some ethernet (on the PB,
> >SCSI-ethernet) and a cheapo hub (or even a 10bT crossover cable to directly
> >hook them up) and then be done with it!
> >
> >I have a Se/30 with 32megs and 1.3alpha here on the schools ethernet, and I
> >use Exceed on my Win95 machine to connect-- it works wonderfully.

Andrew,

A serial connection at 57600 would probably be ok for low-graphics X, but
I'm not sure how well the SE/30 would handle the 57600 baud. I'd really
recomend an ethernet card, if you can find one. If not, be sure to use a
hardware-handshaking cable between the macs (a printer cable is perfect),
and set the "local" flag in /etc/ttys. And turn on both DTR and CTS
handshaking in PPP under MacOS.

> Sorry to butt-in on this discussion, but I've got some X-related questions
> that have been eating at me for a LONG time and this seems like the perfect
> opportunity to bring them up.
> 
> Can you please tell me how you set up the configuration above?  The
> situation you've described above is almost EXACTLY what I want to be able
> to do.  I have a SE/30 and a Windows NT box on the same LAN and I'd like to
> be able to connect to the SE/30 using X from my NT box.  The problem is I
> don't know that much about X and so I've been very reluctant to set up X on
> the SE/30, because the darn thing is slow enough already.  I'm really not
> sure I want an X server running on the SE/30, but I'd sure like for it to
> be able to serve X client applications.  Do you know what I have to do in
> order to set up the SE/30 this way?

Rodney,

If you don't want to look at the SE/30's screen, you don't want an x
server running on it.

To set up the clients, just utar them on the SE/30, into
/usr/X11R6/bin. Basically where the xbin.tgz rile dumps them. Then set
up your paths to include the new bin directory, and add /usr/X11R6/lib to
/etc/ld.so.conf (if the file's not there, make it, and have this one line
be its contents).

Then the clients run fine.

> Secondly, and here again is where my lack of knowledge of X comes in, how
> exactly does the connection you mentioned above work?  Meaning, do the
> X-client programs that I want to "run" off of the SE/30 on my X-server on
> the NT box have to be compiled for x86 architecture, or can (or must) they
> be compiled for 68k architecture or does it even matter?  The point of this
> question is, if I need to have X client programs compiled for x86
> architecture in order to "run" them off of my SE/30 on my NT box then the
> whole setup will be pretty worthless to me since I don't have an available
> x86 BSD box to compile X programs on.  If on the other hand, the X-client
> programs that reside on the SE/30 are compiled for 68k architecture and
> actually run on the SE/30 and the X software just transmits the graphical
> information back and forth between my NT box and the SE/30 then the whole
> situation becomes a lot more interesting to me.

As Mark poined out, you need the programs compiled for whatever computer
THEY run on. The computer with the screen doesn't matter. X just transmits
graphics commands. That's why MacOS machines can display xterms (which
need to run on a command-line interface operating system).

Take care,

Bill