Re: 30+ reasons why X-Win32 is Better than Cygwin/X

[Matthew Johnson <mej1960 at yahoo dot com>]

First question: is this _really_ on topic for the
list? I would have thought not.

--- Alexander Gottwald
<alexander.gottwald@s1999.tu-chemnitz.de> wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Joseph Miller wrote:
> 
> Commenting the list:
> 
> 30+ Reasons Why X-Win32 is Better than Cygwin/X     
>            
>                         
> > #       Features        Cygwin/X        X-Win32
> > 1       3-D Hardware Acceleration for OpenGL    No
>      Yes
> 
> It is work in progress but it works for a lot of
> programs.

That is not even relevant to 'reason' #1.
 
> > 2       Graphical Configuration Tool    No     
> Yes
> 
> There are a lot of tools out there but they have not
> been integrated 
> into the distribution because they all depend on
> commercial compilers
> and class libraries.

Then 'reason' #2 stands. For they cannot be
integrated, and so are not part of Cygwin/X.

> 
> > 3       Professional Install Engine     No     
> InstallShield
> > 4       Download & Installation Time    1-3 Hours 
>      5-10 minutes
> 
> This is just plain wrong.

Unfortunately, no, it is not that simple.

> Cygwin/X installs with the
> cygwin setup and this
> is fast too.

Not always. Setup.exe presents a list of mirrors with
no commentary and not even a _hint_ of which is
closest to the user in the Web. I tried 5 or 6
different mirrors in that list before I could find one
that was "fast too".

That is pretty poor performance. RedHat should not
allow them to mirror Cygwin if the mirror will not
provide faster response and better connectivity.



 Xming does match these criterias as
> well.  
> 
> > 5       Stability       Medium  High
> 
> Quite unclear wording. I use Cygwin/X in my daily
> work and this proves it's 
> stability.

You are right, it is unclear. But alas, not every user
can report the same high stability you have
experienced.

 The multiwindow mode still has some
> issues but is very stable too.  
> 
> > 6       Display Number Setting  Manual  Automatic
> > 7       Copy & Paste    Text    Text & Bitmaps
> > 8       Per User Preference Savings     No     
> Yes
> 
> This coresponds to the configuration tool. Any user
> may give different options
> on the commandline. You can create shortcuts with
> these options and can startup
> different configurations with on click. 
> 
> > 9       Multiple XDMCP Sessions Manual  Automatic
> 
> Not sure what they mean with it. X-Win32 does
> connect automaticly to all XDMCP
> servers in the network? *g*
> 
> > 10      Corporate Tech Support  No      Yes
> > 11      Corporate Bug Fix Support       No     
> Yes

[snip]

> Is Cygwin/X worth it's money? Definitly yes *g*

No, NOT 'definitly [sic] yes'. It depends on how much
your _time_ is worth. If your time is worth little to
you, or you already _have_ much expertise with X,
Cygwin and Cygwin/X, then yes, it is worth it. But if
you cannot afford to lose the time grappling with
installations that do different things on different
machines, demanding you rebuild password files but
then refusing to let you do it etc, or with "community
support" that consists of answers so terse (and all
too often rude) they are harder to understand than the
original problem etc, then no, it is not worth it.

But even in that case, it is better than paying money
for software and support and then finding only the
same problems, which has happened all too often also.



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/