I've copied mr. digiacomo on this (sun's "mr. kernel pixrect") to see
if he has anything clever to say. It'd be nice to have this if only
because dave's 'orgtool' has never been ported out of suntools - and
it's such an amusing silicon valley conceit that it should be
enshrined forever.



On Sat, 1 Aug 1998, Brad Walker wrote:

> 
> > From greywolf@starwolf.starwolf.com Sat Aug  1 01:08:48 1998
> > From: greywolf@starwolf.starwolf.com (James Graham - Systems Mangler)
> > Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 00:11:00 -0700
> > To: port-sparc@netbsd.org
> > Subject: suntools/win* devices, pixrect stuff...
> > Delivered-To: port-sparc@NetBSD.ORG
> > 
> > Hiya,
> > 
> > I realise that the majority of users out there think that suntools is quite
> > possibly the worst UI this side of NT, but one thing I discovered that it
> > has over BrokenWindows, and even X, is speed.  Suntools comes up blindingly
> > fast, especially on something like a Sparc 10 or Sparc 20.  I don't use it
> > as a user, but I used to like to run it as super-user when all I needed was
> > some quick windows.
> > 
> > The problem, as you might well imagine, is that the pixrect stuff is not
> > supported, and neither are the win* devices.  I had all the libraries and
> > had all the device nodes present, but it failed with either ENOSYS or
> > ENODEV, both of which indicate a lack of a driver to deal with the calls.
> > 
> > I know the cgsix driver is WOEfully short on its capabilities; according
> > to the manual page, there is just enough of an implementation in our kernel
> > to make X go.  What would it take to complete the implementation?
> > (as a kernel compile-time option, of _course_, and disabled by default --
> > not everyone wants to run this cruft).
> > 
> > 
> 
> suntools was an application that had a tremendous ammount of code
> support in the kernel. as a result, it ran fast. but it was highly
> non-portable as you are now finding out. pixrect is the fundamental
> object of suntools and it would be a real bitch to support this.
> 
> i would put this on the list of will never support. after all, remember
> suntools was created around 1984 timeframe.
> 
> -brad w.
>