Re: Vax vs X11

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 25 December 2014 at 14:01, Björn Johannesson <rherdware%yahoo.com@localhost> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> >I would say if the changes fix VAX keyboards & mice at this point it
> >would probably be worth going ahead and committing them (unless you
> >have the time and inclination and someone would like to ship you a
> >little DECstation to go with your VAXen? :)
> Agreed. And if someone would want to send a suitable DECstation
> to me (Sweden) I would certainly have a look. :)
>

Hmm, I've had good luck finding interesting hardware on some of the
retrocomputing email lists. I'll have a poke to see if anyone has a nice
little  DECstation 2100 spare :)

>If any X11 variation is picked someone will probably need to go
> >through all the recent X11 security announcements and check the old
> >code :)
> And fun will be had all around. >_>
>
> >Another option might be to look at what compile options are available
> >with the current code and see how much could be compiled out and if
> >the rest could be built into a single large binary.
> So I downloaded xsrc.tgz from nyftp but I don't really know where to
> start...
> Just doing a 'sh configure' in /usr/xsrc/external/mit/xorg-server/dist
> errors out with "config.status: error: cannot find input file:
> test/xi1/Makefile.in"
> Anyone got any pointers?
>

The standard way to build xsrc on NetBSD is to extract it (default
/usr/xsrc), then run ./build.sh -m vax -x

If xsrc is somewhere else, then you will need to add -X /path/to/xsrc or
add X11SRCDIR to  /etc/mk.conf

Once you have an initial build you can tweak setup and rerun the generated
nbmake-vax in appropriate directories.

I'm assuming this is being run on a relatively fast modern box, or you have
significant patience :-p