🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <foisys.872813521@cyclone.ERE.UMontreal.CA>,
Foisy Sylvain <foisys@ERE.UMontreal.CA> wrote:
>Hi there,
>
>I want to use the MI/X server on my Mac under MacOS8 for using the SeqLab 
>module of GCG.  Each time I tried, I telnetted to my machine, started SeqLab 
>after redirecting the display to my display's adress and switch to MI/X open 
>in the background. MI/X would then quit without explanation, my server telling
>me that my X server connection was broken.  I don't think that MI/X is totally
>to blame since xclock and xterm are working.
>
>I know that I sould use something more powerful (like MacX 1.5 or eXodus) 
>but free software is hard to beat...  I'm also new to the world of X.
>
>Any clue...

I have had all manner of problems with MI/X.  It only worked at all on
two out of three Macs I tried it on, and on one of those it did work
on, SeqLab caused the problem you describe.  Eventually I abandoned
it.  It may be free, but if you can't use it, that doesn't help much.
The Windows version of MI/X seems much better (but then there are some
extremely inexpensive X servers for Windows which are streets ahead of
MI/X; XWin32 for example, which is very cheap, especially compared to
the more dominant products like eXceed.  Plus of course, the PC has
Linux, which gives you a 'real' UNIX X server for free.  I don't know
whether the port of Linux to the Mac ever got as far as supporting X.


From my point of view as a sysadmin of the UNIX end of things, I also
do not like it since the server does not support any security options
except for the most rudimentary host-based authentication, which
worries me.  Anyone on my system (and probably on the Internet,
depending on how the user configures the server) could watch
everything they type, snarfing passwords and all sorts.  Yuck.  At
least MI/X does have the option to pop up a query dialog box every
time a client wants to connect to it, which solves the problem, but I
should think most users would switch that off because it's "annoying".

The bottom line is, if you really are serious about using X, either
use a PC to run it and get one of the cheap or free X servers
available for that platform (because in my experience the networking
performance of PCs is a lot better anyway - my 486DX-33 running NT or
Linux transfers data on the same segment of ethernet over 10x faster
than my PowerMac 7100), or buy one of the commercial X servers for the
Macintosh, and a three button mouse for your Mac while you're at it.
My personal preference is for White Pine eXodus; I think it is easier
to use than MacX.

Lastly, you might want to consider the upcoming GCG 9.1, which is
going to have a WWW interface.  If your site is likely to upgrade,
then you might just want to wait and use that, although GCG said to me
that they still expect 'power users' (whoever they might be) to use
SeqLab in preference to the web interface.

Just my $0.02

Tim.