[TUHS] Re: Early GUI on Linux

Thank you for highlighting that! Several folks had already hinted at such, but your comments make clear that by 1991 the X ecosystem had come out on top in a winner-takes-all dynamic: people wanted X because that had the apps, and the apps were for X because that was the most prevalent. This also explains that MGR on Linux was so short-lived: although it provided the terminal multiplexing that was the key use case, it did not have the application ecosystem that was apparently already important enough to motivate people to make X run on Linux very early in its existence. I had always thought of those early X applications as little more than gimmicks, but apparently they were more appreciated than I thought. > On 27 Feb 2023, at 21:30, Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 12:22 PM Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote: >> Thanks all for the insights. Let me attempt a summary. >> >> What it boils down to is that X arrived on Linux very early, because what the Linux hackers needed/wanted was a familiar terminal multiplexer. > > While that was literally true, I think it was a little more nuanced. > I'd perhaps put it that people wanted their familiar environments. > Many people were used to running a lot of xterms on their > workstations, of course, but there were other X applications people > used regularly. > > Some I remember where `gv` to look at PostScript documents, `xv` to > view image files, `gnuplot` could generate plots in a window, `xdvi` > to look at TeX/LaTeX output, and text editors like `emacs` had X > front-ends that offered syntax highlighting and the like; some folks I > knew liked `nedit`. `exmh` was my preferred email client for a while, > and things like `xman` (was there a `tkman`, too?) was nice. Some > system monitoring tools `xload` were considered essentials; `xbiff` > could be useful (I could have sworn there was a `tkbiff`, too). A > clock like `xclock` or `oclock` or something was also nice. Some folks > liked graphical newsreaders, chat programs (I guess IRC was a thing > back then, and I believe some `talk` client had an X front-end). There > was a fractal viewer that I thought was fun, but I don't remember it > much anymore (even the name...). Oh, and lots of games; I had a nice > Solitaire version that I can no longer recall the name of. `xeyes` was > cute, and running `xroach` was a popular (?) prank for an unsuspecting > (but amenable) colleague. > > A lot of us spent a lot of time customizing our environments, and many > eschewed the vendor-standard environment. For instance, a lot of > people I knew used `twm` and derivatives (`ctwm` and `tvtwm` were > popular), and spent a lot of time tweaking menus and stuff to set > things up the way we liked. A lot of folks also wrote custom tools > using `tk` or `expectk`. Giving all of that up to run on Linux was a > bitter pill to swallow, so there was a real impetus to get X running > quickly. Personally, I kept my `tvtwm`-based environment going until I > switched to plan9 and then to the Mac as a daily driver. I'm not sure > I miss it, but at the time it was head-and-shoulders above anything > you could get on Windows or (classic) MacOS. > > So it wasn't just that people wanted a "familiar terminal multiplexor" > as that people wanted the environments they had put a lot of time and > energy into building up for themselves, and again, that often meant X. > >> It seems that the pattern persists till the present day (and yes, it matches with my own dev setup/needs). I wonder to what extent this is a generational thing though. Maybe today???s twenty-somethings spend their days in front of Xcode, VStudio, Eclipse, etc. more than using multiple terminals. > > I think it probably depends on what people are doing. I more or less > switched to using VS Code for my editor, and I'm using a Mac Studio to > write this, but my desktop is still littered with terminal windows, > I've got a `drawterm` session open to my local Plan 9 network, and am > logged into a bunch of old systems (Multics, TOPS-20, VMS, an IBM > mainframe, CDC Cyber, RSTS/E, PR1ME), etc. > > But the way we write software has changed pretty dramatically in the > last 3 or so decades. I used to start with an empty C file and write > my stuff. Things like linked-lists? Mostly implemented by hand. These > days, there are other languages and vast collections of libraries for > almost anything imaginable; much of what "programming" is today is > glueing together different libraries and making them interact in > sophisticated, often quite complex ways. I don't know that it's > better, nor that it's always worse, but it is qualitatively different. > So almost necessarily the toolsets and environment have changed > accordingly. > >> This ties in with another observation on early window systems. The earliest Unix window system that I could find (i.e. documented) was NUnix from 1981/82. Its desktop was designed around the idea of a dozen or so top level windows, each one being either a shell window or a graphics canvas, with no real concept of a widget set, dialogs, etc., or even of sub-windows. This paradigm seems to have been more or less the same in the Blit terminal, and carried through in MGR, Mux and even as late as 8 1/2. In the context where this serves the needs of core user group, such makes sense. > > It may be instructive to look at the early X window managers in this > regard. One I remember was `uwm` (I think); I recall being struck > that it reminded me of rio when I saw it. > >> It is in stark contrast with developments at the lower/consumer end of the market. The original Mac, GEM and Windows all placed much more emphasis on being a graphical user interface, with standard widgets and UI design elements. On Unix and X it remained a mess. It seems that this was both for technical reasons (X not imposing a standard) and for economic reasons (the Unix wars). Linux then inherited the mess and the core user/developer demographic had no need/wish/time to fix it. > > I remember the X mantra was, "mechanism, not policy." Which was fine, > except that there wasn't much of even a default policy, which made X > (IMHO) a bit of a bear to program and meant that interfaces were > pretty wildly inconsistent across programs. By contrast, writing > simple programs to draw lines on the Mac was easy. > > Interestingly, frustration with this caused an almost cambrian > explosion of new windowing environments within a few years of Linux's > arrival on the scene. From larger efforts like Gtk (and then GNOME), > KDE, GNUStep (which I guess might predate Linux, but not by much...), > etc, to less ambitious things components like fvwm and Enlightenment, > we kind of went from "OpenWindows or Motif or roll your own stuff > around twm or something" to a whole plethora of things. It's still a > bit of a mess, though. > >> It makes me wonder when true graphical applications started to appear for X / Unix / Linux (other than stuff like terminal, clock, calculator, etc.). The graphical browser certainly is one (1993). StarOffice and Applix seem to have arrived around 1995. Anything broadly used before that? > > Lots! See above. > > - Dan C.