trend to abandon FLTK or Xvesa in tc32 ?

[nick65go]

The upstream developers are focused on new GUI, like GTK3 (or GTK4), which is OK for integration (library shared) for fast/hungry machines; It is less focus from them on small size programs when x64 machines come with 4/8+ GB RAM.
So I wonder who test/develop new program versions for Xvesa, or based on FLTK?
Of course if you have 1-2 GB RAM then even dinosaurus like libreofice 6.x or firefox 88.x can run on it. I tested this.

Two examples: gnumeric and netsurf. The new versions are gtk3, old versions have gtk2 but with some bugs. I did not see many (if any) new functions in gnumeric from ver 1.10.7 up to 1.12.49. Neither new functions in netsurf from 2.8 to 3.10. And none of them needs graphic acceleration. BTW gnumeric 1.12 (neither abiword 3.0) does not run in Xvesa. I do not expect the new upstream versions to be fltk, or gtk1 or gtk2, even if their interface has just few simple menus/options.

Does these means that FLTK or Xvesa is "dead in water" in the near future, and tinycore will be just like the name-plate says: tiny-core but big-appls? like a human tiny head and a fat body? In the end what does matters is not the individual components (genial them-selfs) but the asambled kernel + programs + libraries.

PS: an asambler-code build Kolibri proved the point of nano kernel + apps. #Joke: even Intel has "linux" in their CPU.

[Juanito]

I wonder if having an fltk wayland backend might help - wayland seems better/faster than Xorg on piCore

[curaga]

The ever-increasing hw power leading to app bloat is a known trend, and not many devs to try buck it. Be the change you want to see

Or to quote Roberts, software does not have an expiration date. If an old version works for your use, why update?

[nick65go]

Right! I arrived to the point where I would not need to update for a very long time.

Except maybe when internet will make "my" software obsolete; like http -> https, no web-site without javascripts, etc. (so dillo 3.1, opera 9 - 12, firefox 13-50, youtube-dl not working anymore). sic transit gloria mundi

PS: could forum-admin adjust the topic title (spell check:  ababndon -> abandon?)

[Rich]

Hi nick65go

... PS: could forum-admin adjust the topic title (spell check:  ababndon -> abandon?)

Done.

[jazzbiker]

youtube-dl not working anymore

Hi, nick65go!

youtube-dl works well...

[CNK]

I just tried both Netsurf and Gnumeric on Xvesa and both run fine. QUALIFIER: The machine running Xvesa is running DSL (bringing back old memories, anyone?), not Tiny Core - Netsurf and Gnumeric are running on Tiny Core Pure64 on another PC and displaying over the network.

This means that whatever problem is happening with Xvesa on Tiny Core should be fixable, but I don't even use Netsurf (prefer Dillo 3.0.5) or Gnumeric (prefer Siag Spreadsheet), so I'll not rush to look into that myself.

NanoX (AKA Nanowindows) is an interesting lightweight X server alternative. It's a relatively active project compared to TinyX, but because it's not derrived from XFree86 there are compatibility issues that are much more real than TinyX (some programs have little bugs, others won't run at all). However it's particularly targeted at FLTK (I think this is what's used for the DOS port of Dillo, for example), so if most of the programs used are FLTK-based then it might be practical.

I'm surprised that nobody's talked about NanoX here before actually - no results searching the forum. It's more of a replacement for Xfbdev than Xvesa actually, but that's pretty academic.

[Rich]

Hi CNK

I just tried both Netsurf and Gnumeric on Xvesa and both run fine. QUALIFIER: The machine running Xvesa is running DSL (bringing back old memories, anyone?), not Tiny Core ...

Are those GTK2 or GTK3 versions of the programs?

... Netsurf and Gnumeric are running on Tiny Core Pure64 on another PC and displaying over the network. ...

That would not be an issue there since Xvesa is 32 bit only.

[CNK]

Gnumeric is using GTK3. Netsurf is GTK2 but the extension description says it only works in Xorg.

The PC running Xvesa is 32bit, and that's all that matters with regards to the X server. The programs themselves, communicating with the X server via Xlib, are working with this Xvesa. So there must be something wrong with Xvesa in Tiny Core if they're not working there.

[Juanito]

Which versions of gnumeric and netsurf are working with Xvesa?

[jazzbiker]

Hi, Juanito!

netsurf-gtk3 3.10 works with Xfbdev with "background images" off.

[nick65go]

Maybe it was my mistake to mix, in the same title, two INDEPENDENT subjects: FLTK (GUI) and Xvesa (X server).
The MAIN point was to focus on small total RAM demand when we run few program in parallel.

It is NOT optimal to simultaneously run aterm (a FLTK terminal) , xmms (a GTK1 audio player), gnumeric (a GTK2 spreadsheet) and abiword (a GTK3 word processor). The point was that almost all programs to use the same GUI: FLTK, or GTK1, or GTK2.

For example, a minimal RAM demand combination run (under qmenu) if we focus on GTK2 was with Xvesa:
- gnumeric gtk2 1.10.17 (from tc 3.x), abiword gtk2 2.8.6 (from tc 4.x), vlc 2.2.1 qt4 (from tc 6.x), netsurf 2.8 gtk2, pacman etc

The next upper step, with GTK3 was:
- gnumeric gtk3 12..49 (from tc 12.x), abiword gtk 3.0 (from tc 12.x), vlc 3.0.11 qt5 (from tc 12.x), netsuft 3.10 GTK3 (from tc 12.x)

So if we try to lower the RAM demand (using FLTK or GTK1 only), then
- dillo 3.1 fltk, mplayer-no-dependency,  fluff fltk 1.07, etc
But then we are without javascript, old programs with bugs (or obsolete format): can not navigate most web-sites, can not interchange docs with new M$Office 365 etc

Summary: is (next to) useless to gain few MB for X-sever (Xvesa, Xfb, Xorg) and then loose many MB for programs + all their not shared dependencies (different GUI kit).

[jazzbiker]

Hi, nick65go!

The joy of Xvesa and Xfbdev is not only (and I expect not particularly) to save a few MB, but to work everywhere, even without drivers, matching Your graphics hardware. TinyCore is nomadic OS - see home page "About Our Project", that's why TinyX servers are the cornerstones of the whole project in my understanding. So don't worry

[CNK]

@Juanito
I installed the current versions of those extensions for TC Pure64 especially for that test. netsurf.tcz v. 3.9 (netsurf-gtk3.tcz is only available for x86, so I didn't try that), and gnumeric.tcz v. 1.12.45.

I tested both loading various pages/sheets and generally playing around - no problem displaying via Xvesa in DSL as a remote window. I haven't tried Xvesa in TC because I don't have the current TC release installed on an x86 PC.

@nick65go
Yes, I agree it's a problem. In fact any graphics toolkit could itself be considered bloat, because many programs have been written that use Xlib directly, without a graphics toolkit. Examples include the gv PDF/Postscript viewer, xv image viewer, and the vector image drawing program xfig. That is perhaps the ideal way for programs to work most efficiently with X, but it's difficult, so programmers use graphics toolkits instead. Then unfortunately they tend to pick bloated ones if they don't really care about efficiency themselves.

But then we are without javascript, old programs with bugs (or obsolete format): can not navigate most web-sites, can not interchange docs with new M$Office 365 etc

For what it's worth, there was an FLTK web browser based on Webkit (the browser engine from Apple's Safari web browser) called Fifth. It did Javascript, though my build of it never worked reliably. Also you can export to formats such as RTF and CSV for importing into M$Office, or even old versions of Office file formats which it is backwards compatible with. Of course it is tricky if you can't convince people to send you documents in a suitable format.

Summary: is (next to) useless to gain few MB for X-sever (Xvesa, Xfb, Xorg) and then loose many MB for programs + all their not shared dependencies (different GUI kit).

Except that some people might have Tiny Core installed on a PC that they don't use for browsing websites with Javascript, or opening M$ Office files, etc. They might be able to stick to programs using just one graphics toolkit (or none at all). So the smaller X server options might not be such an insignificant advantage for them. But yes, the range of cases where that applies is narrowing.

[Juanito]

I installed the current versions of those extensions for TC Pure64 especially for that test. netsurf.tcz v. 3.9 (netsurf-gtk3.tcz is only available for x86, so I didn't try that), and gnumeric.tcz v. 1.12.45.

I tested both loading various pages/sheets and generally playing around - no problem displaying via Xvesa in DSL as a remote window. I haven't tried Xvesa in TC because I don't have the current TC release installed on an x86 PC.

Pure64 extensions will not work with Xvesa?