Re: [Crust-discuss] Goals?

[Johan Rydberg]

Wolfgang wrote:
> 
> Hi Johan!
> 
> Johan Rydberg <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > What are the technical goals of the Crust project?
> [snip]
> >
> > I will try to decrease this the number of levels to atleast three and a 
> > half.
> >
> >    1. Device drivers -- Handles graphic acceleration and framebuffer
> >    2.0. Surface server -- Handles onscreen surfaces
> >    2.1. Surface client library -- Provides drawing primitives, working on 
> > surfaces.
> >    3. Client library (for example GNUstep).
 
> Will there be a X-compatiblity layer which makes it possible to use
> old X applications? 

Well. I will will probably write both GTK and GNUstep backends for Crust.
Writing a Xlib wrapper library is not my top priority, but it can be done
I guess.  I see no problem with that.

> Especialy over the network? 

The main problem is that my current design of Crust depends heavely on
shared memory (between client and server).  This makes it pretty hard to
make it distributed as X11 is.

> This would help Crust being accepted. Will all high-level client libraries 
> use a common look&feel? 

No, per default they wont.  It is up to the high-level client library to
implement the look&feel of the application.  You will run into the same
problem as with running parallel KDE and Gnome applications.  I'm thinking
of implementing a common clipboard and drag'n'drop interface, though!

> How will applications contact the server? Will the server be a translator?

The client uses Mach-IPC to communicate with the server.  The server install
itself as a translator (e.g., you don't install it with "settrans").

johan