pedantic/misled/confused/passive-aggressive (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

pedantic/misled/confused/passive-aggressive (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Christopher Faylor]

I apologize for sidetracking the MinTTY thread.  It was bugging me too
much to see the same argument repeated a couple of days after they were
already discussed.

(I blame the choklat stout: http://www.southerntierbrewing.com/beers.html)

As I've said, I think MinTTY is a nice program, getting better all of
the time.  It likely can't replace the current default cygwin shell and
that's a pity.  We could use something that was actively maintained with
more of a linux look and feel.

Just to contribute something useful: Chuck Wilson, if you are reading
this, am I correct in assuming that you don't enjoy maintaining the
Windows version of rxvt?  If so, should we consider deprecating rxvt in
favor of MinTTY when MinTTY becomes a real package?

If not, there is no harm in keeping two packages in the distribution.  I
was just trying to lighten your load if you were interested.

The other thing that I've always wanted was some way for the user to
choose what they want to run without running cygwin.bat by hand.  I
think that would mean setup.exe modification though.

cgf

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Re: pedantic/misled/confused/passive-aggressive (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Yaakov (Cygwin/X)]

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Christopher Faylor wrote:
 > Just to contribute something useful: Chuck Wilson, if you are reading
> this, am I correct in assuming that you don't enjoy maintaining the
> Windows version of rxvt?  If so, should we consider deprecating rxvt in
> favor of MinTTY when MinTTY becomes a real package?

Or just switch rxvt to the regular X11 version w/o all the libW11 hackery?


Yaakov
Cygwin/X
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MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Charles Wilson]

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> Just to contribute something useful: Chuck Wilson, if you are reading
> this, am I correct in assuming that you don't enjoy maintaining the
> Windows version of rxvt?

Well, it's my main terminal. I tried MinTTY and I'm not sure yet whether
it will supplant rxvt for my personal use, but it shows promise.

> If so, should we consider deprecating rxvt in
> favor of MinTTY when MinTTY becomes a real package?
> 
> If not, there is no harm in keeping two packages in the distribution.  I
> was just trying to lighten your load if you were interested.

I'd lean toward keeping both in the distro (mainly because I'd hate to
see a never-ending flood of "where'd rxvt go?" queries. That'd be more
of a pain than the relatively infrequent updates that rxvt gets).

I'd certainly be one of the first encouraging new (and old) cygwin users
to try MinTTY if they dislike the standard cmd console, don't want to
use X, and are aware of the pty issue.

> The other thing that I've always wanted was some way for the user to
> choose what they want to run without running cygwin.bat by hand.  I
> think that would mean setup.exe modification though.

You mean like another setup.exe pane (or option in an existing pane) to
select the terminal that should be started by the "default" Cygwin link
in the Start Menu?  That's an interesting idea...

Consolidated reply to Yaakov:
> Or just switch rxvt to the regular X11 version w/o all the libW11 hackery?

At one time, I toyed with the idea of creating two different rxvt
packages (rxvt-W and rxvt-X), where neither was "split personality" but
only operated in the specified windowing environment. Further, rxvt-W
would be relatively stripped down (to only what libW11 supports, as
currently), but rxvt-X would have all the bells and whistles turned on.
 The transparent "use X or Windows GDI" switching would be handled by
the checkX program.

Part of the reason for this 'diabolical plan':
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2006-03/msg00119.html
"IMO the split personality is a bad idea: the worst of both worlds. rxvt
is configured to support only the least common denominator options,
those that BOTH modes can each support. So, no xft support ever.
InheritPixmap is, err, at-your-own-risk. Plus, the underlying [builtin]
W11 library is just as moribund as rxvt -- and the wrapper system means
ALL library calls in EITHER mode must be handled by dlsym()."


A wrinkle: the 'all singing all dancing' version of rxvt-X might
require/support certain .Xdefaults options that the -W version doesn't,
or a user might want them to be different. To support this, the -W
version (or the -X version) would need a different XAPPRES name. But
making this change would break existing setups.  I never figured out how
to handle this issue cleanly, which is part of why the idea died out.
(The other was the complete lack of interest I got regarding a
standalone, limited-functionality libW11).

http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2006-03/msg00122.html
http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2006-03/msg00121.html
http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2006-03/msg00120.html

One way to side step all of that is to partially implement it:

new package: rxvt-X, all singing, all dancing
rxvt becomes a wrapper package, using checkX. When X is detected, it
launches rxvt-X. However, if X is not detected, it launches MinTTY.

Later, if there is enough demand (complaints?) I can look at creating
rxvt-W (with an alternate XAPPRES name) that is windows-only (maybe with
the external libW11, maybe just like at present with the builtin libW11)
-- but no split-personality. Those poor sods that insist on using it can
  (1) change the rxvt (wrapper) configuration to launch rxvt-W in
windows mode instead of MinTTY
  (2) explicitly transfer their windows-compatible .Xdefault settings
from the existing Rxvt: XAPPRES to the new RxvtW: XAPPRES prefix.

However, in the meantime nothing actually *breaks* -- it just looks
different. We might get a flood of "I launched rxvt and got MinTTY
instead" which would be almost as bad as "where'd rxvt go?" but...

cgf: hmm...how's that for "lightening my load"? <g> Actually, this plan
^^^^^^ is a lot of work up front but would probably be extremely
low-maintianence after that.

--
Chuck


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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Andy Koppe]

Charles Wilson wrote:
> Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> If so, should we consider deprecating rxvt in
>> favor of MinTTY when MinTTY becomes a real package?
>>
>> If not, there is no harm in keeping two packages in the distribution.  I
>> was just trying to lighten your load if you were interested.
> 
> I'd lean toward keeping both in the distro

Same here.

> (mainly because I'd hate to
> see a never-ending flood of "where'd rxvt go?" queries. That'd be more
> of a pain than the relatively infrequent updates that rxvt gets).

And I'd be dreading the inevitable demands to implement every single 
feature and option that rxvt provides.

> You mean like another setup.exe pane (or option in an existing pane) to
> select the terminal that should be started by the "default" Cygwin link
> in the Start Menu?  That's an interesting idea...

How about just providing Start Menu shortcuts for all installed 
terminals in a "Cygwin" folder, much like Yaakov has done in MinTTY's 
cygports package? The user could always copy them to more easily 
accessible places as needed, or just rely on the recently-used list.

>> Or just switch rxvt to the regular X11 version w/o all the libW11 hackery?

Bypassing the X protocol by implementing Xlib directly on Win32 does 
seem rather a good idea in principle at least. How come it hasn't been 
used more widely?

Andy

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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Charles Wilson]

Andy Koppe wrote:
> How about just providing Start Menu shortcuts for all installed
> terminals in a "Cygwin" folder, much like Yaakov has done in MinTTY's
> cygports package? The user could always copy them to more easily
> accessible places as needed, or just rely on the recently-used list.

That could work, too -- and wouldn't require setup.exe changes. But it
requires action on the part of the cygwin maintainers of terminals,
like...err. Oh, yeah. me.

>>> Or just switch rxvt to the regular X11 version w/o all the libW11
>>> hackery?
> 
> Bypassing the X protocol by implementing Xlib directly on Win32 does
> seem rather a good idea in principle at least. How come it hasn't been
> used more widely?

There have been several efforts over the years. All have failed AFAICT.
The most widely used version -- the libW11 distributed with rxvt on both
cygwin and msys -- is extremely limited in functionality. It supports
ONLY enough of X to satisfy the very minimal demands of rxvt.

See, the whole reason rxvt was created, on unix, in the first place was
as a replacement for xterm that *didn't* use the Xt toolkit.  rxvt used
Xlib -- and only Xlib -- directly. Thus, it was considered "faster" and
more "lightweight" (whether that is or was actually true is another
question).  It also used only a small subset of the calls in the Xlib
library (maybe 5%) -- so a suitable libW11 was smaller and simpler to
write.  However, that library is mostly useless for anything more
demanding -- which is why only rxvt uses it.

Other, more comprehensive efforts [1], also seemed to die off for one
reason or another: including mine.  It's rather hard to "widely use"
something that is incomplete and broken. <g>

--
Chuck

[1] Here's a copy of some of the documentation I put in the libW11 ITP,
several years ago. The section concerning XCB is new.

Taxonomy of libW11:
============================================================

ntxlib (1992 : unknown)
----------------------------------------------------------
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/UNIX-to-Windows/Ports/Xlib
Very rudimentary.

rxvt's W11 component (1999 : SteveO)
----------------------------------------------------------
This was derived from ntxlib by SteveO and absorbed in modified
form into rxvt-2.7.x. This version is what allows rxvt to work
in "native windowing mode" for both cygwin and MinGW/MSYS.

The original version has disappeared from the web, but the wayback
machine has it: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.io.com/~bub/rxvt

(Oldest available source code 03 Jun 2001):
http://web.archive.org/web/20030625063023/http://www.io.com/~bub/dnload/rxvt-2.7.2-6-src.tar.gz

(Matching binary 03 Jun 2001):
http://web.archive.org/web/20030625063023/http://www.io.com/~bub/dnload/rxvt-2.7.2-6.tar.gz

rxvt is part of the official cygwin distribution, so current source
code can be obtained from the cygwin mirrors. Try
http://mirrors.kernel.org/sources.redhat.com/cygwin/release/rxvt/

rxvt's W11 is tightly tied to SteveO's wrapper system which allows
rxvt to use either W11 or X11 depending on the DISPLAY variable. This
is possible because rxvt uses very little of X11's capabililty;
rxvt-W11 provides maybe 5% of the functionality of X11.
The drawback of rxvt-W11 is that the wrapper code must be compiled-in
to the client, and the W11 "x11-ish" header must be used. You can't
compile against 'stock' X11 headers and just link to the rxvt-W11
library, nor simply "drop in" a libW11 DLL in place of the X11 xlib DLL.
That's the goal of the projects below.

NOTE: mrxvt -- a tabbed version of rxvt -- also supports/uses/includes?
this version of libW11.  This guy:
http://www.nabble.com/libW11-enabled-mrxvt-0.5.4-20080913-td19483005.html
who further modifies mrxvt to work with chinese encodings, has also
modified rxvt-W11 to support that. He has not yet published those
changes. Because he distributes this modified libW11.dll -- which is
linked against cygwin -- it falls under the GPL and he needs to do
publish those patches, but I haven't tried to contact him about that.

libW11 [SourceForge version] (2001 : Don Becker "psyon" )
----------------------------------------------------------
This project was derived from rxvt-W11, with the intention of being
a simple drop-in replacement for the Xlib DLL. Development has
stalled, and the most recent version doesn't actually work -- the
primary developer did a CVS dump of his current state when he
abandoned the project. Too bad his 'current state' was broken:
"I haven't gotten everything from the old code into the
new code yet. I'm implementing as needed right now."
But that never happened.

Thus, the most recent official version that actually works dates
back to Dec 2001. Some have had luck with the Jan 2005 version but
I'm not one of them.

http://libw11.sourceforge.net/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libw11/

I don't believe the design decision to "replace" cygX11-6.dll
with a DLL of the same name with libW11 internals was a good one,
because it means your entire X11 installation would be forced to
use libW11 -- even though libW11 is FAR from complete. Thus,
most of your apps will break. Thus, I believe it is better to
compile this library into its own, distinct, DLL and deliberately
link a custom (native-windowing-mode) version of your app to
libW11 instead of libX11. The downside of my approach is you do
not have access to the toolkits, (e.g. cygXt still uses cygX11, and
there is no cygXt-W11). However, as most of those add-on libraries
did NOT, in fact, work properly with W11 under them, this is no
big loss in my opinion.

Architecturally, libW11 is compiled using a custom set of local
header files, that basically contain just those parts of the official
X11 headers necessary to compile libW11 itself. These local headers
are NOT installed. Instead, client apps should use the official
headers, but simply link against libW11.

That is, -I/usr/X11R6/include -L/usr/lib/W11

Unlike the rxvt-W11 version, this library spawns a message handling
thread which intercepts all Windows messages, converts them into
XEvents, and then feeds those XEvents to the client app's message
loop. (The rxvt-W11 version had no separate thread. Instead,
it provided a hook where the client app could insert a handler into
the rxvt-W11 library's message loop. This deviation means that
application code must be modified from its pure-X version to work
properly with rxvt-W11).

libW11 [free.fr version] (2005 : Samuel Vinson "samuelv")
----------------------------------------------------------
This version is a cooperative fork of libW11-sourceforge. One of
the participants added a lot of functionality and re-architected the
the include files. However, Sam's changes were based on the
libW11-sourceforge code BEFORE Don did his CVS dump. So merging is/was
going to be quite tedious -- and few of Sam's changes made it into
the sourceforge CVS before Don abandoned the project. There was also a
difference of opinion in architecture, which caused some friction.

http://libw11.free.fr/
http://libw11.free.fr/downloads/index.html

Sam's version retains the old rxvt-W11 message handling: no extra
threads, but apps must explicitly "hook" in. One interesting change
is the use of "real" X11 headers. Sam's code has pristine copies
of the X11 headers needed to build his libW11 -- but ONLY those
that are actually needed by his code. Thus, rather than cut-n-paste
specific function and type declarations into custom headers, Sam
copies entire headers from the official x.org include files.

Unfortunately, Sam's code does not appear to be complete either.

libW11 [cygwin version] (2006 : Charles Wilson)
----------------------------------------------------------
ALSO not complete. Based on libW11-sourceforge, with mods derived
from libW11.free.fr and rxvt-W11, as well as custom changes.

The starting point for this version was the (broken) 20050610
CVS snapshot from sourceforge. Thus, it uses the separate-thread
model for Windows Message conversion. It retains the customized
local header files. However, it incorporates color handling from
free.fr, and pixmap handling from rxvt-W11.

At present, all test code appears to work, including an xlib-only
PNG viewer. Additionally, an xlib-only XPM viewer also appears to
work (not the sxpm provided with the xpm distribution; that requires
Xt).

Finally, a partially working version of rxvt-2.7.10 is possible
using this library. Known failures:
   * no clipboard support
   * 100% CPU usage
What works:
   * colors, text, command I/O
   * background pixmap
   * "inheritPixmap" pseudo-transparentcy [partial: scaling incorrect]

So, at present, rxvt-2.7.10 using libW11 is a step backwards from
rxvt-2.7.10 using its own bundled W11. However, it is my hope that
with assistance, libW11 may eventually surpass that version, and
even provide sufficient support for a native-windowing rxvt-unicode.

XCB windows port
----------------------------------------------------------
Recently, X.org changed the underlying design of the libX11
implementation, so that it now represents a thin API-compliant wrapper
around an underlying XCB (X protocol C Binding) library.  Thus, an
alternative solution to the above libW11 is to instead create an XCB
library that directly targets the Win32 graphics subsystem. Then, link
the (wrapper) libX11 (renamed libW11) against this libXCBw32gdi library.
Presumably this would be easier than a non-XCB-based libW11, because XCB
is smaller and simpler -- and presumably easier to port.

There have been (MAYBE: [*]) two public efforts to to this:
Jeetu Golani
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xcb/2008-May/003538.html
Michael DOUBEZ
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xcb/2008-May/003522.html

But those patches were never accepted upstream, and doubtless need many
changes before working with current XCB.

[*] I haven't look at the patches, at all. It is unclear what either of
these two authors means by "native win32 port":
  (1) a standard port of the library so that it compiles on win32, but
still implements the X protocol and thus requires a running X-server to
actually display the stuff, or
  (2) an library *called* XCB that is API-compliant to the "real"
libXCB, but rather than formatting messages and handling the
communication with a (local? remote?) Xserver, instead directly calls
the Win32 graphics subsystem.
If 1), then this is no big deal IMO: Colin Harrison provides those (for
a fee) over at http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/.  On cygwin,
we already have that, as well: cygxcb-1.dll is a port of the XCB library
that runs on windows, but "needs" an Xserver. If 2), then it's a pretty
big deal -- but as I said above, even then the patches will need work to
operate correctly with current XCB.


IMO, a libW11 port based on a win32-native libXCB in the (2) sense,
above, with as many associated X libraries recompiled and relinked and
verified working as possible -- and RENAMED so as not to conflict with
existing cygX* libs -- would be a nice Google SoC project for someone.
Obviously this would be easier if done in the cygwin arena rather than
truly "native" (e.g. mingw) land.


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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Andrew DeFaria]

Charles Wilson wrote:
> Later, if there is enough demand (complaints?) I can look at creating 
> rxvt-W (with an alternate XAPPRES name) that is windows-only (maybe 
> with the external libW11, maybe just like at present with the builtin 
> libW11) -- but no split-personality. 
How about creating a rxvt-W that uses Window's style console I/O instead 
of a pty? (I have no idea of how difficult or simple that might be).
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.


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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 04:32:40PM -0700, Andrew DeFaria wrote:
> Charles Wilson wrote:
>> Later, if there is enough demand (complaints?) I can look at creating 
>> rxvt-W (with an alternate XAPPRES name) that is windows-only (maybe with 
>> the external libW11, maybe just like at present with the builtin libW11) 
>> -- but no split-personality. 
> How about creating a rxvt-W that uses Window's style console I/O instead of 
> a pty? (I have no idea of how difficult or simple that might be).

If it was even moderately difficult I would have just implemented ptys
using console I/O long ago.  Microsoft doesn't want you to use consoles
for much and it shows.

cgf

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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Christopher Faylor]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 03:22:14PM -0500, Charles Wilson wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> Just to contribute something useful: Chuck Wilson, if you are reading
>> this, am I correct in assuming that you don't enjoy maintaining the
>> Windows version of rxvt?
>
>Well, it's my main terminal. I tried MinTTY and I'm not sure yet whether
>it will supplant rxvt for my personal use, but it shows promise.
>
>> If so, should we consider deprecating rxvt in
>> favor of MinTTY when MinTTY becomes a real package?
>> 
>> If not, there is no harm in keeping two packages in the distribution.  I
>> was just trying to lighten your load if you were interested.
>
>I'd lean toward keeping both in the distro (mainly because I'd hate to
>see a never-ending flood of "where'd rxvt go?" queries. That'd be more
>of a pain than the relatively infrequent updates that rxvt gets).

Yeah, that would be annoying.

Does rxvt actually get updated these days?  I visited rxvt.org but that
site obviously hasn't seen any obvious love in a long time.

>I'd certainly be one of the first encouraging new (and old) cygwin users
>to try MinTTY if they dislike the standard cmd console, don't want to
>use X, and are aware of the pty issue.
>
>> The other thing that I've always wanted was some way for the user to
>> choose what they want to run without running cygwin.bat by hand.  I
>> think that would mean setup.exe modification though.
>
>You mean like another setup.exe pane (or option in an existing pane) to
>select the terminal that should be started by the "default" Cygwin link
>in the Start Menu?  That's an interesting idea...

Something like that.  I used the word "running" too many times above but
what I was thinking was that we should use run login.exe on the desktop
and it should pick your startup program of choice.

>cgf: hmm...how's that for "lightening my load"? <g> Actually, this plan
>^^^^^^ is a lot of work up front but would probably be extremely
>low-maintianence after that.

But it sounds like a nice way to go...

cgf

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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Paul McFerrin]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 03:22:14PM -0500, Charles Wilson wrote:
>Christopher Faylor wrote:
>
>Well, it's my main terminal. I tried MinTTY and I'm not sure yet whether
>it will supplant rxvt for my personal use, but it shows promise.
>
I've been using rxvt for years as my main terminal and just tried using 
minTTY and really prefer not to use it.  You see I'm and old man with 
poor eye sight.  The visual attributes of minTTY aren't the same that I 
use with rxvt.  The Lucida Console (white foreground on black) has less 
contrast as the same font on rxvt.  If I make it bold, it approaches 
nearly the same brightness as rxvt but a little more blurry.  These 
featurea don't go with poor vision.

I made the mistake of updating rxvt before and I learned no more 
updates, please.  Maybe it will help someone what options I use to make 
my statements more clearer:
    rxvt --backspacekey ^H -sbt 15 -fg white -bg black -geometry +75+80 -sr
  -title "TTY$tty$label" -tn ansi -sl 3000 -fn 'Lucida Console-12' -e ksh &
My 2 cents worth, no more.
-Paul

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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[Andy Koppe]

Paul McFerrin wrote:
> I've been using rxvt for years as my main terminal and just tried using 
> minTTY and really prefer not to use it.  You see I'm and old man with 
> poor eye sight.  The visual attributes of minTTY aren't the same that I 
> use with rxvt.  The Lucida Console (white foreground on black) has less 
> contrast as the same font on rxvt.  If I make it bold, it approaches 
> nearly the same brightness as rxvt but a little more blurry.  These 
> featurea don't go with poor vision.

The text foreground colour can be changed on the "Looks" page of the
options. The default is a light grey (191,191,191) in order to leave
room for the bright attribute. Setting it to proper white (255,255,255)
might make a difference. Regarding blurriness, it might be worth trying
the different font smoothing methods (none, anti-aliased, "ClearType").

Andy

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Re: MinTTY "vs" rxvt (was Re: MinTTY 0.3.3)

[cgf]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:00:28PM -0500, Paul McFerrin wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 03:22:14PM -0500, Charles Wilson wrote:
>> Christopher Faylor wrote:

Not sure what I'm doing here.

>> Well, it's my main terminal. I tried MinTTY and I'm not sure yet whether
>> it will supplant rxvt for my personal use, but it shows promise.
>>
> I've been using rxvt for years as my main terminal and just tried using 
> minTTY and really prefer not to use it.  You see I'm and old man with poor 
> eye sight.  The visual attributes of minTTY aren't the same that I use with 
> rxvt.  The Lucida Console (white foreground on black) has less contrast as 
> the same font on rxvt.  If I make it bold, it approaches nearly the same 
> brightness as rxvt but a little more blurry.  These featurea don't go with 
> poor vision.
>
> I made the mistake of updating rxvt before and I learned no more updates, 
> please.  Maybe it will help someone what options I use to make my 
> statements more clearer:
>    rxvt --backspacekey ^H -sbt 15 -fg white -bg black -geometry +75+80 -sr
>  -title "TTY$tty$label" -tn ansi -sl 3000 -fn 'Lucida Console-12' -e ksh &
> My 2 cents worth, no more.

You obviously have customized rxvt.  I don't see why MinTTY would be any
different.

And, if you are not going to be updating rxvt it doesn't really matter what
happens with the distribution since you wouldn't see it anyway.

cgf

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