CompuServe Messages

I'm sorry that the company gave you so much trouble. When people ask me why if Unix is so great why doesn't everyone use it, my answer is that the people who make Unix products are often clueless when it comes on how to market and/or support their products. If Bill Gates had come to PCs from Unix rather than from CP/M, we'd all be running Unix today. Anyway, to get to your questions. You don't need TCP/IP to run X11. Streams, yes, TCP/IP no. The default is to run X11 with TCP/IP, X is after all designed as a network windowing system, but it can and does run without it. (I'm typing this in an xterm running without the benefit of TCP/IP) I'm also puzzled why they can't just send you the binaries for your hardware. That is, after all, what they are advertizing: source and binaries. You don't need a developer's kit to run X, again I'm running X on a system right now that didn't require me to compile a darn thing. I can only suggest that you try the vendor you mentioned, Austin Code Works, and see if they can do better by you. From the sounds of it though, merely have an X11R5 server and some clients won't help with your base problem: developing for Unix as well as extended DOS. If you're planning on developing for Unix users, you have to get a developer's kit. While gcc and other GNU software products are freely available in source code, you need a minimum of the Unix linker and assembler to pull gcc together. It's not a job to start with when you're new to Unix. Another point is that if the users are using Sparcs, than they may or may not be running X. OpenWindows is X based, but SunView is based on the NeWs windowing system, which is another kettle of fish entirely. If you're developing for Sparcs, you really need to work on Sparcs. Solaris 2.0, the upcoming version of SunOS, will run on i386 platforms as well as Sparcs, but the basic C development kit will be unbundled this time around so for your purposes, i386 Solaris won't be a cheap approach. Continued Next Message