Description

This article is from the Amiga Networking FAQ, by Richard Norman with numerous contributions by others.

29 xwindows

X-windows allows you have a graphical user interface similar to workbench where
you can run programs (clients) both locally and remotely.
A breif description of how X-windows works:
X-windows involves two cooperating programs. One program acts as a server, and the
other as a client. The client programs need not be on your machine, but the server
program must be on your local machine. For remote clients to talk to your server
you must be running a networking protocol either TCP-IP or DecNet. Of course if
your clients are local, no network is required.
The first step to starting X-windows is run the x-server program which isn't very
exciting by itself. The server just opens a plain root window and starts listening
for clients to give it commands. One of the first clients you will want to run is
a window-manager. As the name implies it helps you manage the windows that your
clients will open. Similar to running workbench, but it is much more limited.
Once the server and a window manager are running you can begin running other
clients which can be local or on a remote machine. You can even cut and paste data
between clients.
The benefit of x-windows is that the client programmer does not have to write a
special user interface for each type of machine on the market. Any machine with an
x-server should be able to accept the display from the x-client regardless of what
kind of machine the client is running on. This also means that the client does not
have to written to run on your machine. For example, you can use a word processor
written for a cray from your amiga as long as the word processor supports
x-windows and you have a cray to run the client on ;-)
The downside of x-windows is that it requires a lot of bandwidth to operate. You
can get it to work over a 14.4 baud modem, but it is slow. Even over ethernet
graphic intensive clients can be sluggish. Also, more than one flavor of x-windows
emerged so that the main benefit is somewhat negated. Motif is one of the main
flavors of x-windows, but others exist.
Also check out the   X11 FAQ   for help with X specific questions.

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