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XFast

 

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XFast



 
 
XFast is a lightweight desktop environment
Desktop environment

In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface that is based on the desktop metaphor which can be seen on most modern personal computers today....
 that incorporates X and a window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 within the same project and therefore doesn't needs a separate X-server and WM. It is portable and works on many devices (embedded devices, handhelds, set-top boxes,...). Here the communication between server layer and desktop layer can be made in classical way via TCP/IP but depending on the configuration and target system it can be done via shared memory too.

The goal of project XFast is to have a very slim and fast graphical environment that contains both within the same project: a replacement for the X-server to give access to the graphics hardware and a WindowManager-like layer that offers user interface elements for applications and desktop management.

Target systems for XFast are (not only) embedded systems with low resources where it is important to have a UI available with short loading times and low memory consumption.






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Encyclopedia


XFast is a lightweight desktop environment
Desktop environment

In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface that is based on the desktop metaphor which can be seen on most modern personal computers today....
 that incorporates X and a window manager
Window manager

A window manager is computer software that controls the placement and appearance of window within a windowing system in a graphical user interface....
 within the same project and therefore doesn't needs a separate X-server and WM. It is portable and works on many devices (embedded devices, handhelds, set-top boxes,...). Here the communication between server layer and desktop layer can be made in classical way via TCP/IP but depending on the configuration and target system it can be done via shared memory too.

The goal of project XFast is to have a very slim and fast graphical environment that contains both within the same project: a replacement for the X-server to give access to the graphics hardware and a WindowManager-like layer that offers user interface elements for applications and desktop management.

Target systems for XFast are (not only) embedded systems with low resources where it is important to have a UI available with short loading times and low memory consumption. It currently runs at Linux
Linux

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL license...
, Windows, PlayStation
PlayStation

The PlayStation is a 32-bit history of video game consoles video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December .The PlayStation was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation ....
, GP2X
GP2X

The GP2X is an open-source, Linux -based handheld video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings of South Korea.The GP2X is designed for Homebrew developers as well as commercial developers....
 and others.

Within the XFast windowing system environment GTK and Simple DirectMedia Layer
Simple DirectMedia Layer

Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform, free and open source software multimedia Library written in C that presents a simple interface to various platforms' computer graphics, sound, and input devices, allowing a developer to write a Personal computer game or other multimedia application that can run on many operating systems includi...
 applications are supported, so there is no need to re-write them. To use them special patched GTK and SDL versions are required, the related patch and build scripts are part of the XFast package. Beside of that XFast offers an own GUI widget library that can be used to write native applications for that windowing system.

XFast is free software
Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
 that was licensed under the GPL
GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most popular and well-known example of the type of strong copyleft license that requires derived works to be available under the same copyleft....
.

History

XFast is a fork and further development of the Xynth
Xynth

Xynth is an embedded windowing system, released under LGPL, developed to systems with low resources, is an alternative for X Window System.The goal of the project is to release a soft but portable and powered Window Environment....
 windowing system. It was branched from the original project in order to add some far reaching modifications to the environment that are not compatible with the idea behind the original project. The goal of this fork is to have a more compatible source base for both: low level embedded systems and desktop systems with bigger hardware resources.

Features

  • UDS (Unix Domain Sockets) for IPC
  • DMA (Direct Memory Access) for each client window surface
  • overlapped client window - server management
  • 8-way move, resize
  • runtime theme plugging support
  • image renderer for xpm, png and gif
  • antialiased fonts with freetype Library.
  • device independent basic low-level graphics library
  • rgbcolor, colorrgb, setpixel, getpixel, hline , vline, fillbox, putbox, putboxmask, getbox, putboxpart,
  • putboxpartmask, copybox, getsurface, setsurfacevirtual, setsurface
  • overlay drawing ability
  • rgbcolor_o, colorrgb_o, setpixel_o, getpixel_o, hline_o, vline_o, fillbox_o, putbox_o, putboxmask_o,
  • getbox_o, putboxpart_o, putboxpartmask_o, copybox_o, getsurface_o, setsurfacevirtual_o, setsurface_o
  • anti flicker double buffer rendering
  • keyboard, mouse, touchscreen drivers
  • remote desktop support
  • built-in window manager
  • low memory and CPU usage and footprint
  • in 1024x768 32 bits mode with 253 clients memory usage is ~2,5M
  • static linked binary is <125K


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