SUMMARY: X11r? for Sun 386i's

From: Dave Shevett (sparc!shevett@erika.bighouse.unipress.com)
Date: Thu Aug 20 1992 - 01:47:35 CDT


I'd like to thank everyone who responded to my query. My original
posting follows:

> We've dug out an old 386i from the back room we'd like to get running
> X11. Anyone know of someone who has a hacked version of R4 or R5
> for this beast? It's currently running SunView (bleah).

Responses ranged, but the final answer was 'X11Rwhatever compiles for the
386i right out of the box, so just get that and type 'make'. Well,
that's pretty much what I did, and X11R4 is up and churning away fine.
The machine is a 386i/250, with 8 meg of RAM. It's now running Motif
and various X-apps under mwm. The performance is comfortable, and apps
are running fine. The Sun/OS on the 386i is 4.0.3 (any later release?)
and it looks like it was configured oddly. Cross linked directories
EVERYWHERE (into a directory called 'cluster'???? Was this machine
on a lan somewhere?).

Also, I noticed some oddities with symbolic links, as in I couldn't
get them working at all. A ln -s sparc:/huge/sun386x11/bin /usr/bin/X11
would come back with a # prompt, but nothing would happen. No link.
Any suggestions?

Anyway - here's the rundown - If anyone does have some 386i's lying around
that they'd like to part with, please feel free to call me. Since
performance for salespeople is not a major issue, these might be a nice
solution.

From: john@toshiba.tic.OZ.AU (John Baird)
From: paul@bmskc.ppg.com
From: Chris Keane <rufus.state.com.au!chris@repo.unipress.com>
From: ica.philips.nl!geertj@repo.unipress.com (Geert Jan de Groot)
From: world.std.com!bzs@repo.unipress.com (Barry Shein)
From: jpmorgan.com!cyerkes@repo.unipress.com (Chuck Yerkes)
From: sunspot.nosc.mil!wolfgang@repo.unipress.com (Lewis E. Wolfgang)
From: hal.com!woodstck@repo.unipress.com (Nathan Hess)

--
Dave Shevett - UniPress Inc - Edison, NJ
shevett@Unipress.com  (908) 287-2100 x921

--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--snip--

From: john@toshiba.tic.OZ.AU (John Baird)

Unfortunately I've got 12 386is still in the front room! Were looking at turning them into X terminals of some description. We currently have OpenWindows v2.0 for them, but the SPARCs are about to go the v3.0 and there is no v3.0 planned for the 386i. Our only bet at the moment seems to be to compile X11R5 for them and do the best we can at turning them into stand alone X terminals. This will not be easy. We are also trying to find a version of Xkern, the X windows kernel, for them. If you hear of anything usefull, please let me know. Alternatively, if you want to buy some more 386is we could probably help there too.

==============================================================================

We have a version of X11R4 + Xview 2.0 + OpenLook window manager compiled for 386i. You are welcome to a copy if you wish but you might like to find a site closer to you.

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From: fluke.com!telematic!beesvax!oz!paul@repo.unipress.com (Paul Evan Matz)

You could always run Openwindows version 2.0, which is an X11 derivative. (runs both X and NeWS). It's slow (unless you have gobs of memory and a 250), but it works OK.

You may even be able to buy it still. If not, I could probably make you a tape of what I've got. Let me know.

I'm sure there is a real X11 version for the 386i too. Can't remember who has it, though.

==============================================================================

From: Chris Keane <rufus.state.com.au!chris@repo.unipress.com>

I don't believe (at least for R4) that you need to find a hacked version - it's already supported in the default package. Mind you, it takes about 6 hours to compile...

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From: ica.philips.nl!geertj@repo.unipress.com (Geert Jan de Groot)

Ask Luc Rooyakkers <lwj@cs.kun.nl>, he made some fixes to GNU C and made X11R5 to complile on thos beasts.

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From: world.std.com!bzs@repo.unipress.com (Barry Shein)

There's a mailing list, sun-386i@compaq.com, they were just about to announce (or just announced, can't say I've been paying close attention) an FTP site for X11R5 for the 386i. You might join that list and ask them (sun-386i-request@compaq.com I assume).

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From: jpmorgan.com!cyerkes@repo.unipress.com (Chuck Yerkes)

Sun has some VERY good deals on upgrades to IPCs and IPX for those (I think they're trying to have to get rid of them all)

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From: sunspot.nosc.mil!wolfgang@repo.unipress.com (Lewis E. Wolfgang)

Gee, we made the 386i mistake too. We used to have six of the beasties, and after spending ~15K$ each to purchase them (sans monitor) the only thing they were good for was credit for upgrading to SparcStations. Good luck in your quest, be sure to sumarize.

==============================================================================

From: hal.com!woodstck@repo.unipress.com (Nathan Hess)

X11R4 built out of the box for the Sun 386i. I assume that X11R5 wouldn't have any problems, either.



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