Re: Fwd: RE: [FEATURE REQUEST] LBX

[Alexander Gottwald <alexander dot gottwald at informatik dot tu-chemnitz dot de>]

As long as LBX does not cause any problems, we should leave it in the server.

On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, Brian Genisio wrote:

> It may be true that LBX is not necessarily the best extension to include in an X
> server.  It removes the dynamics of an application to use an extension, since it
> talks to a proxy as a server.  The proxy then may or may not be able to connect
> to the real server, making it much harder for the app to determine if it should
> use LBX or not.
> 
> Still, LBX does speed up X communication through slower connections.  Also, over
> a LAN, if there are a lot of images, it speeds things up.  I have done some
> comparisons by with a bandwith/latency limiting router with an X app in the
> following circumstances :
> 1. No compression
> 2. LBX compression
> 3. DXPC compression (similar to LBX, but is not a server extension, and requires
> 2 proxys)
> 
> I found that compression definately made a difference.  LBX was overall, a better
> solution as for speed.  DXPC did much better at crunching large images (XPutImage
> calls), but was slower with normal operation.
> 
> With the nature of what a Cygwin XFree Server is commonly used for, I believe LBX
> is more helpful than in other servers.  Many people use the X server in windows
> to display remote applications, thus making LBX useful to have.  Plus, the
> current state of cygwin and the XFree server is pretty slow, so it can use any
> help it can get....
> 
> Unless, of course, LBX does not speed things up under the XFree server in
> Cygwin.  My tests were only done with Linux XFree, and Hummingbird eXceed for
> Windows.  I assume the same results are true with cygwin, and my assumption may
> be false.
> 
> Ok, I have done enough rambling on.  Have a good one !!!
> Brian
> 
> 
> >
> > >I found the article that gave me the impression that getting rid of LBX
> > >would be a good thing, it is the article that Keith Packard and Jim Gettys
> > >wrote about the RandR extension:
> > >http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/talks/randr/randr/randr.html#tex2html1
> > >
> > >"more importantly, the extension framework has isolated ``bad'' ideas from
> > >the core X functionality allowing their eventual atrophy into irrelevance."
> > >
> > >The footnote for that statement says:
> > >http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/talks/randr/randr/randr.html#foot74
> > >"E.g. PEX, XIE, LBX, along with wide lines and arcs in the core protocol ...
> > >"
> > >
> > >Now, Jim Gettys (original writer of the X Window System) and Keith Packard
> > >(RandR, Shadow, FB, XFree86) are arguably the two primary heavyweights in
> > >the X world today.  When they talk, I march.  They said LBX sucks, so I
> > >removed LBX.
> > >
> > >Of course, LBX is back in now, but I didn't want anyone to think that I was
> > >making a rash decision in disabling LBX.  On a side note, Keith Packard had
> > >recently turned off building PEX and XIE for XFree86 and encouraged other
> > >developers to do the same thing for other platforms, so it seemed perfectly
> > >reasonable to disable LBX as well.
> > >
> > >Harold
> 
> 

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