Hey,

On Sunday, September 19, 2004, at 04:07 PM, Toad wrote:

> Hi all!!
>
> I'm running NetBSD 1.6.2 on my Quadra 610, 700MB Hard Disk, 23MB RAM. It
> works really fine!!
Nice to hear that.

> Recently I installed a X server, now I have running "twm" and works
> great (in 2-bit color mode but great!)
sure, 2-bit is quite fast :)

> I have taked a look at NetBSD mac68k ports and I saw KDE and GNOME ( ie
> ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD-1.6.1/mac68k/kde ) ...
>
> Hmmm... how runs KDE or GNOME on mac68k machines? What about speed? :-S
SLOW, KDE and GNOME are terrible BLOAT, why do you want to use such 
crap ?
your problems would be mainly
- limited color number
- limited screen resolution
- quite flakey color server
- extremely limited ram.

You should try of course to disable all possible eye candy, effects, 
tools...

additionally take in account that GTK2 is a really poorly designed 
toolkit that is slow, that uses the X server quite badly (try to export 
it over ethernet and look at the net usage) and works even worse with 
256 colors.

Instead of GNOME you could use XFCE, which gives you quite a good 
advantage, a better interface and less screen usage, but still, the GTK 
problem wouldn't be solved.

I think you should have a look at applications written for fltk or 
motif/lesstif.

I have motif happily running on a 20MHz ibm box and lesstif on a 66mhz 
powermac. They work fine, are fast, work in 256 color or greys and 
export over the net quite well. Of course it is a bit more complicated 
to write applications in it.

I even can run Mosaic (an old browser written in motif) on a 12Mhz 
computer... and yes, it is usable.

Assumed that, I'd like to revive (that is look around for existing, 
bitrotting apps) or write from scratch or port (from alien toolkits like 
GTK) motif applications. It would be useful for old boxes but also for 
those who already have a unix with the toolkit installed who could then 
enjoy a "native" and "superior" interface.

If someone has the knowledge to help and contribute (mine is indeed 
quite limited) please contact me. I already identified some interesting 
areas and applications.

-Riccardo