LPC: Life after X

Posted Nov 22, 2010 6:31 UTC (Mon) by dododge (guest, #2870)
In reply to: LPC: Life after X by eru
Parent article: LPC: Life after X

There are just too many impedance mismatches with the native window system, and you need add the huge X11 server software.

It's better than it used to be. In my current office the workstations are controlled by corporate IT, and so I'm forced to use a Windows XP desktop to do my Linux development. XMing is a small and free native X server for Windows that is very easy to install and run, and can mix remote X11 clients with native Windows apps on the same desktop. Many current X11 applications use client-side text rendering, which greatly reduces the headaches of getting core fonts working well on the Windows side. Microsoft's own TweakUI will enable X-style pointer focus to work across the entire desktop, which helps to smooth things out. By adjusting a registry setting I even have caps lock mapped to work like a second left-control key across all applications, and since it's part of my profile (rather than a system setting) it doesn't cause trouble for other users of the same machine.

It's certainly not perfect, but my desktop is about 3/4 Linux+X11+ssh applications and aside from the native ones not doing middle-mouse pasting it's very easy to forget that there's any Windows stuff on there at all.