On Sun, 24 Sep 2006, Chad Kline wrote:
QUESTIONS:
1. how can i find out what options/modules/extensions
are of benefit?
That's a question only the applications you use can answer.
2. is there a practical way, or a XFree86 plan to
decrease the amount of memory XFree86 uses? (62MB!)
This figure likely includes mmap'ed areas that are actually not memory, but
apertures through which the X server communicates with devices. This
misconception about memory utilisation already peppers the archives of this
mailing list.
Also, this figure will grow and shrink depending on application demands.
there should be a good description of
modules/extensions for XFree86.
every module/extension should be
listed somewhere #1, and #2, each
option/module/extension should describe
what it is useful for, and when,
if ever, it is critical. and it
should be explanatory enough for
the average non-Xwindow techie
to comprehend and find useful.
There is already a whole slew of man pages for all of this.
the man pages just say to look in
/usr/X11R6/lib/... but that isn't
very helpful. it shouldn't be
so difficult to figure out what
to include and what to exclude.
it should be made very clear so
anyone with half a brain can
figure out what they need or
don't need.
Again, an application-related issue.
i've been using UNIX type systems for
a dozen years or more, and to this day,
i still find that all the good of UNIX
type systems is dragged down by days/weeks
of trial-and-error type hacking to figure
out things that should take an hour or
two of reading. i mean, sure, hacking
things out is fun, but so is being
efficient and productive :)
They are both the same from my perspective.
for example, what do these things mean?
how do i know if they are useful to me or not?
do i have to search out each thing for hours
in Google to get a vague notion of each thing?
this isn't a complete list of all options/extensions/modules,
but the point is, these things should be described well enough
for someone to know if they are necessary by a user.
otherwise, having options/extensions/modules is
semi-pointless.
`man man` should be your starting point.
Option "omit BIG-REQUESTS
Option "omit DPMS
Option "omit Extended-Visual-Information
Option "omit FontCache
# Option "omit MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
Option "omit MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD
Option "omit SYNC
Option "omit TOG-CUP
Option "omit X-Resource
Option "omit XC-MISC
Option "omit XFree86-DGA
Option "omit XFree86-Misc
# Option "omit XFree86-VidModeExtension
# Option "omit XVideo
# Option "omit XVideo-MotionCompensation
Be careful with these. You might end up disabling a function your apps need,
or cause yourself potentially severe performance problems. There's also the
fact that many of these extensions have quite small memory footprints.
If you are truly concerned about memory utilisation, you might want to look
at the included TinyX servers (should there be one for your hardware), and
forgo support for quite a few extensions.
Marc.
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