[RULE] kdrive update

[Richard Kweskin]

Hello All

Presented here for the list to see is a draft of an updated documentation on kdrive. Hence introduction and observations you have already seen, plus additions:

Richard
==========================================
The RULE kdrive resource page

        Kdrive, formerly known as TinyX, is a trimmed down X server
        written by Keith Packard, and also used in some Linux
        distributions targeted to handhelds, internet appliances and
        similar. Michael Fratoni has built kdrive servers that will
        work on Red Hat 8.0 and 9 as well as slimmed down rpm packages for
        Red hat 7.3, 8.0 and 9.

 Mandatory disclaimer

        The information on this page has been updated October 2003 from an earlier draft and the RULE mailing list. 	     Of course, pointers to other kdrive resources online are much appreciated. It remains a work in progress and 	   subsequent discussion through the list will always yield the best results.

Pros and cons of kdrive

        It does have a _much_ smaller memory footprint, so in many
        cases it gives all and only the really needed features at a
        much smaller price. A partial top output from the first trials
        made with kdrive gives:

-PRE
  792 mfratoni  15   0 22756  22M 12384 S    15.3 59.8   1:19 mozilla-bin
  720 root      15   0  7192 3600  1148 S    10.0  9.5   0:27 X
-/PRE

	Even when xkb has been added (unlike the above example) and is running a setup using two character sets, us and el (which is used for modern Greek) the memory footprint has only grown a tolerable amount.

713 root     15 0 10412 8876 924  S 3,2   14,3 5:51 0 X
620 rkwesk 15 0 20060 18M 8712  S 27,1 30,3 5:51 0 MozillaFirebird

        On the cons side, it doesn't use the xfs font server, and
        doesn't support true type fonts. Also, kdrive servers don't
        use a config file. All startup options must be passed on the command
        line, or from inside the startx script. Michael also reports
        that the kdrive servers must be suid root to work, which is
        _not_ a good thing. Maybe it is possible to use the old
        wrapper that X used for this purpose, but this has not been
        investigated yet

    How to try the servers

The Slinky iso contains the rpm (look for TinyX, the older name) that will install the servers and a script that makes the necessary adjustments to a previous XFree86 install. Also, a manual method exists if you just want to try the servers, grab one (hopefully
        compatable with your video hardware, often Xvesa) here:

        http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/9/

        Install the server in /usr/X11R6/bin/ and then:
-PRE        
chmod 4711 (server)
ln -s (server) X
startx
-/PRE

        The last step (creating the link) must be executed manually
        even in one builds and installs the XFree packages. Since, as
        already said, kdrive does not use configuration files at all,
        options can be passed to the server on the command line. If
        you create a link from /usr/X11R6/bin/X to the server you want
        to start, options can also be set in the /usr/X11R6/bin/startx
        script as "server options. A working example of startx file,
        used by Michael on his laptop with an Xchips server, is
        available at:
        http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/startx

        The only line to customize is (to start in 800x600 mode,color depth is 24
        and emulate a 3 button mouse) this:

-PRE
defaultserverargs="-screen 800x600x24 -2button
-/PRE        


XKB

kdrive is very versatile and if additional features are desired they need only be compiled in. One of these is xkb, the extended keyboard. For those users who desire additional character sets, e.g. Richard Kweskin uses English and modern Greek, kdrive with xkb provides it just as with XFree86. However, as mentioned above, kdrive does not use a config file. A workable solution used by Richard Kweskin is to run a short script invoking setxkbmap, after kdrive has started, with the line:

exec /usr/bin/X11/setxkbmap -v 1 -model pc105 -layout us,el -option -option grp:alt_shift_toggle

-v 1 prevents confusing messages, an empty -option before the next prevents merging of previous options and the last -option enables a keyboard toggle between the two character sets. See man setxkbmap for more detail.

How to build kdrive from source

        Here are the steps that Michael Fratoni used to build kdrive.
        He installed the XFree86.src.rpm from the Red Hat 8.0 release
        to avoid downloading the source. Then I unziped, extracted the
        tar archive and changed firectory to
        [path/to/archive/]xc/config/cf/. He then created a 'host.def'
        file containing what follows:

-PRE
#define KDriveXServer YES
#define TinyXServer YES
#define XvesaServer YES
#define ProjectRoot /usr/X11R6
#define BuildLBX YES
#define BuildDBE YES
#define KdriveServerExtraDefines -DPIXPRIV
#define BuildRandR                 YES
#define BuildXInputLib             YES
#define Freetype2Dir               $(TOP)/extras/freetype2
#define Freetype2LibDir            $(TOP)/exports/lib
#define BuildXTrueType             YES
#define BuildScreenSaverExt        YES
#define BuildScreenSaverLibrary    YES
#define SharedLibXss               YES
#define ServerXdmcpDefines
#define XfbdevServer               YES
-/PRE

        and executed the following commands:
        
-PRE        
cd ../../
make World
cp programs/Xserver/Xfbdev [to the target system]/usr/X11r6/bin/
-/PRE

        (in this case, the target system already had the full stock
        glibc and XFree86 packages installed). The defines above could
        probably use some work, but they did allow to build the
        servers. The only thing used at that stage were the server
        binaries. The next move would be to build everything again,
        but linking against uClibc, make an rpm package for both
        Xfree86 and uClibc, and test it on a slinky install.

How to build Kdrive from stock Red Hat RPMs

        So far (see next paragraph) the procedure to build Kdrive
        was to make it a subpackage of Xfree86, This means rebuilding
        all of XFree86 just to make a small change in TinyX. On a slow
        machine, this can take several hours.

        Michael Fratoni has now worked out the following procedure to
        create a source rpm that builds just TinyX. (Even on an i586,
        this takes less than 15 minutes)

        .   Install the stock XFree86 source rpm from the Red Hat 9
        disks. (You should be doing this as a normal user, not root.
        If you need help setting up a non-root rpm build environment,
        see: http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/hack.html )

        .   Install:
        http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/kdrive/9/XFree86-TinyX-4.3.0-7RULE.nosrc.rpm
        (The package contains nothing but a .spec file, it uses the
        stock XFree86 source to build.)

        .   Build the TinyX package (again, as user)

-PRE
rpmbuild -bb ${your_rpm_build_dir}/SPECS/XFree86-TinyX.spec
-/PRE

        Rebuilding with this my spec file causes the rpmbuild process
        to unpack the sources and apply all the XFree86 patches, then
        replaces the host.def file with one that causes only TinyX to
        be built ( By using #define BuildServersOnly YES )

        Now, modifying the TinyX build options is as simple as editing
        the spec file in the section where we write out the new
        host.def file, then rebuilding the package.

How to build kdrive RPM packages from XFree sources

        RPM packages for Red Hat have actually been built for
        slinky, and they seem to work well. They are about half the
        size of the stock rpms. They also offer about half the
        functionality of the stock rpms.. ;) These packages use the
        stock XFree.org 4.2.0 source, and are then patched to 4.2.1
        during the build. (There was no full source for 4.2.1 posted,
        only a patch) file. Here is a little bit of size comparison:

-PRE
  5.3M XFree86-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
 11M ../../devel/dist-8.0/stock/RedHat/RPMS/XFree86-4.2.0-72.i386.rpm
  1.4M XFree86-libs-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
  2.2M ../../devel/dist-8.0/stock/RedHat/RPMS/XFree86-libs-4.2.0-72.i386.rpm
-/PRE

        In general, if you want to build rpm packages
        yourself, there are nosource rpm packages available. To begin
        with, you need the (3) X420src* packages from
        ftp://xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/source/ Then, you can
        build the packages using:
        http://www.tuxfan.homeip.net:8080/rule/XFree86/XFree86-4.2.1-11RULE.nosrc.rpm
        Remember, the nosrc package contains only the specfile,
        patches, and some source. It contains NONE of the XFree86.org
        source. Once you have the packages and nosource rpm, move
        everything to your rpm build environment SOURCES/ directory.
        Then, run 'rpmbuild -bb XFree86.spec' in that directory.The
        rpmbuild process will patch the source to 4.2.1, and build the
        xfree86 rpms, which will include the kdrive servers.

        You'll end up with minimal X packages. You can then install
        them, create a link to the server for your card (cd
        /usr/X11R6/bin; ln -s servers/? X) Where ? is the name of the
        correct server. startx should then bring up an xsession. I'm
        using the Xfbdev server, which works much better than either
        the Xchips server or the Xvesa server on my hardware. Using
        the Xfbdev server requires making the framebuffer device
        available at boot time. I do it by adding vga=788 (for
        800x600) to lilo.conf.

        After the packages build, the resulting installation of
        XFree86 takes about 30M of disk space, and seems to run fine
        on my laptop with 40M of RAM. It actually is quite responsive
        running several small apps Slinky and Kdrive

        The package list for slinky uses the stock XFree packages, and
        should satisfy all dependencies. It installs things you do not
        need with the kdrive server. For example, you can stop the xfs
        font server, and remove the package, kdrive doesn't use it.
        The XFree source rpm put together installs a smaller X
        overall, with far fewer dependencies. It's a big download, and
        takes some time to compile on a slower machine.

        Michael testedkdrive on a slinky install on a P100 laptop,
        including base packages, network, laptop, web/communications,
        and ssh package sets. Disk usage was about 319M.
        
-PRE
[root at conundrum root]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2             2.7G  314M  2.3G  12% /
none                   18M     0   18M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1              95M  4.7M   87M   6% /boot
-/PRE

        Then, he built and installed Xfree packages, plus
        fontconfig, freetype and fluxbox.

-PRE
[root at conundrum root]# rpm -ivh XFree86-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-libs-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-tools-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-base-fonts-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-font-utils-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-truetype-fonts-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-twm-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
XFree86-xauth-4.2.1-3RULE.i386.rpm
freetype-2.1.2-7.i386.rpm
fontconfig-2.0-3.i386.rpm
fluxbox-0.1.12-1.i386.rpm
-/PRE

        After install and removal of the .rpm files, it looks like the
        X packages account for ~ 34M of disk usage. (348M v. 314M on
        /):

-PRE
[root at conundrum root]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2             2.7G  348M  2.2G  13% /
none                   18M     0   18M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda1              95M  4.7M   87M   6% /boot
-/PRE

        Create a link to the X server needed;

-PRE
ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/servers/Xfbdev /usr/X11R6/bin/X
-/PRE

        Available servers for kdrive were:
        
-PRE        
# ls /usr/X11R6/bin/servers/
Xchips  Xfbdev  Xi810  Xigs  Xmach64  Xsavage  Xsis530  Xtrident Xtrio Xvesa
-/PRE

        Right after that, a .xinitrc file was created to load the
        desktop (in the users /home directory), and the server was started:

-PRE
[mfratoni at conundrum mfratoni]$ echo exec /usr/X11R6/bin/fluxbox > .xinitrc
[mfratoni at conundrum mfratoni]$ startx
-/PRE

        It took no more than 3 or 4 seconds to start up and have the
        fluxbox

Documentation and online resources

        "man Xkdrive" should provide some info and pointers to
        other man pages.

        A thread on the Xpert list about "ways to reduce the size of
        X": http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpert/2002-November/thread.html

        Other online resources are:
        
        .   http://village.flashnet.it/users/fn048069/files/config/host.def
        .   http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/kdrive.html
        .   http://www.xfree86.org/pipermail/xpert/2001-March/006945.html


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