[plug] Differences between xfree and windows

[Christian]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 10:14:57PM +0800, R.Barnes wrote:
> I did feel that the windows GUI, on my systems, was crisper in response
> to events and even when trying a windows look-alike theme on the KDE
> desktop, it's not quite as sharp. Not that that is not my favoured look

X11's architecture is a network-transparent one.  In other words,
communication between X11 programs ("X clients") and the X11 display
server ("X server") are basically protocol requests that can optionally
be sent over a network.  A side effect of this is that these requests,
even just on the local system, tend to be slower than other approaches.
The advantage is that, today, when it gets too hot in my office, I can
go over to another room where there is actually an airconditioner that
works and run all the programs on my computer in my office but display
the graphical output on the machine in front of me.

Of course, another factor (apart from the ones that have already been
mentioned) is that the Windows GUI is built into the kernel whereas X11
obviously isn't.  This gives some speed advantage to Windows but also
means a bad video driver can bring down the entire system.  In contrast,
under Linux only the windowing system will crash. 

-- 
DSA 0x0EC1D28C: BBCB 0D79 4EBB 078A A066  7267 8BED E9D6 0EC1 D28C