Motif on Linux & slackware vs Linux FT

Motif on Linux & slackware vs Linux FT

Post by Dave Fenwic » Thu, 05 Oct 1995 04:00:00




>Hi,

>At work I have used Motif with both Solaris 2.3 and AIX. I have just bought
>a Dell P120c and would like UNIX and Motif available at home on it. Hence
>I have a couple of questions.

>As a developer I consider the people in this group more likely to give
>me sensible answers than in the other Linux groups so sorry for posting
>a newbie (to Linux, not Unix!) question here.

>1) Does anyone have any thoughts on the various Slackware releases
>   vs Linux FT distributed by Lasermoon in the UK?

>   Linux FT is now POSIX compliant & has been updated to XFree 3.1.2 so
>   seems as up to date as the latest Wallnut Creek Slackware.

I originally installed Slackware on my linux server, but have since updated just about
ever app on my system.  I think you'll find that if you have a reasonably good
communication pipe, you'll continuously evolve your system away from CD-ROM
distributions.  They are nice for an initial install, but lose their value when you
keep a machine up and running for a while.

Quote:

>2) What about Motif?
>   Lasarmoon sell Swim 1.2.4 and Swim 2.0. Which would you recommend for
>   someone used to Motif 1.1 and 1.2. is 2.0 backward compatible?

>   Are there any alternatives to Swim. I have just spent quite a lot on
>   the machine and another 150 or so UKP (about $225) seems like one chunk
>   of cash too much! This is approximately what Lasarmoon want for Linux FT
>   plus Swim. If it is a high quality product though I would consider it
>   money well spent. After all Motif 2.0 (Swim 2.0 is based on this) has
>   no known memory leaks and many bug fixes over 1.2.

I've got Yggdrasil's Motif for my machine.  It cost me about $150.00, but I believe it
was worth it simply because I build Motif applications.  Motif 2.0 hasn't really had
that much developed for it outside commercial ventures.  The 1.x version has a lot of
software available for it, and has lots of books describing how to build applications
using it (O'Reilly Vol 6).

The latest version of fvwm proportedly has full Motif compatibility, both in the user
interface and in the API.  I haven't tested this, so I can't say for sure.  This
window manager is free.

Quote:

>3) Is it best to have Linux on a completely separate disk to Windows 95?
>   I DO NOT have DOS or Windows 3.1. (with a bit of luck I will
>=04=04   get through my career without ever having used Windows 3.1!)

I have Linux, OS/2, NT, WFW 3.11 and Win 95 located in different partitions on my
machine, using LILO as my boot loader.  All work great.  I also have a partition I
built with a regular DOS FAT type so I can have a shared area between all of the OSs.

BTW:  Many people have made it this far without Windows.  However, if you are a
private developer and wish to build an application for the mainstream that will get
high visibility, you simply can't ignore the installed Windows base as a user
platform.  There are development platforms that can take your source code and build a
cross-platform application, but these are out of the scope of what I'm talking about
here.

Quote:

>Any opinions?

>I would appreciate email as well as reply postings as I don't always get a
>chance to read this group.

>Ta

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