-multiwindow vs -rootwindow (Was: Re: Setup failures during mirrored install)

[luke dot kendall at cisra dot canon dot com dot au]

On  4 Jun, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>  Umm, I noticed the typo before, but I was hoping you'd notice it too and 
>  correct it.  It should have been "startx -- -multiwindow" (you're passing 
>  the "-multiwindow" to the server, not to the clients).  Sorry about that. 

No worries.  (I had assumed startx had been modified to treat
-multiwindow specially, which was a silly thing to think.)

Interestingly, I just did some tests and found that -rootless seems to
work much better overall:

1) Able to type in all rxvt and xterm windows, instead of unable to
   type!

2) Responsiveness of mouse tracking at least twice as good using
   -rootless compared to -multiwindow.

One advantage of -multiwindow is it gives you a confirmation dialogue
box when you right click and choose exit from the startx.bat window's
task bar entry, not just from the X taskbar entry.

Plus you have an option to show the root window.

I was using Xserv 4.2.0-37, but have just upgraded to 4.2.0-42 and
there's no real change.  I'm using Window Maker as the window manager,
and running 24 bit colour on 1600 x 1192, under Windows XP Professional
on a Dell C400 laptop driving an external monitor.

One thing I noticed was that when using -multiwindow, for a short while
(just after WM replaced the default window decorations with its own),
I was able to type a few characters in one of the rxvt windows.  By the
time WM had started up all my rxvt and xterm windows, though, I could no
longer type in any X window.

And Xserv 4.2.0-42 seems about 5 to 10 times more responsive at tracking
the mouse cursor when using -rootwindow instead of -multiwindow.

This sounds to me interesting enough to Cc: to the mailing list - hope
you don't mind.

Regards,

luke