Re: X-Terminals (was: [seul-edu] It's quiet--_too_ quiet.)

[Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com>]

At 03:25 PM 10/14/99 -0400, you (Doug) wrote [in part]:
>...those of you who are
>setting up X-terminal systems on older hardware.  How about posting a
>note letting us know how you're doing and what problems you may have
>encountered?  Heck, we might be able to help you out!

I've pretty much abandoned working on this, but I don't think I mentioned
the last experiment I tried. 

As a result of a suggestion from Jose Lacal, I installed DR-DOS, some free
(or trial-period-free) DOS-based apps, and Monkey Linux (a loadlin-based
Linux) on a '485-40. Had some problems with the DOS apps (in particular, I
never could get the DOS-based Web browser arachne to run), but Monkey Linux
proved to be a very nice mini-Linux distribution. it included enough X
support to let me run X in 8-bit mode, using an old video card and the SVGA
server. 

As a standalone system, it performed as badly as standalone X '486 systems
usually do. But with a few minutes of reconfiguring (really just modifying
xhost to permit remote apps to display on this host), it turned into a very
good XTerminal, providing smooth operation of a Netscape client running on
an applications server (I've always found Netscape sufficiently demanding to
be a good test).

In an environment where desktop clients needed to continue to run DOS or
Windows for other purposes, Monkey Linux is a definite candidate for
providing desktop access to Linux, particularly for providing inexpensive
XTerminal access to Linux applications servers. It's a Slackware-style
system that installs from a half-dozen floppies, and can be found in the
distributions directory at metalab. I'm not in a position to test it in an
actual school setting, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who does do
so (and to the extent that I can do so remotely, I'd be glad to help set up
a test).



------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray@comarre.com        
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