Subject: Summary of X-clients

From: [email-masked] (Raymond C. Fort, Jr.)
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 15:50:22 -0500

Here is the promised summary of responses on the topic of 
X-windows clients.  Last week I asked the question:

>I have recently received an NSF-ILI grant for the purchase of SGI
>workstations that will be used to introduce molecular modeling into 
>the undergraduate and graduate curricula.  Our plan is to run SPARTAN, 
>PCModel, and MacroModel on the workstations; all are available as 
>X-applications.  Then we will provide student access from a Department 
>PC cluster by running X-terminal emulators on the PCs.

>I would be interested to hear from persons who have successfully 
>applied this kind of connectivity to modeling software, even if 
>it did not involve the specific programs cited.  What X-term 
>software is best?  (We currently are looking at PC-Xware from NCD 
>and XoftWare from Age).  What problems did you encounter?

The most common response was to put LINUX on the PCs and use
Xfree86.  Fred Arnold ([email-masked]), Kris Boulez 
([email-masked]), Carlo Nervi ([email-masked]), 
Susan Jackels ([email-masked]), Carl David ([email-masked]),
and Konrad Hinsen ([email-masked]) suggested this option, and
Konrad was good enough to summarize the best points of LINUX:

- Cost. Linux is free and doesn't demand huge resources.
- Flexibility. A Linux system is an independent (if not very powerful)
  workstation, which is sufficient for the needs of many students.
  So we could reduce the number of users on the "big" stations, and
  offer accounts to more students.
- Administration. There is no shortage of graduate students who
  Linux very well (from running it on their own machines athome).
  So system administration was not a problem, after the initial
  installation.
- Independence. A Linux system contains its own complete set of
  X software with fonts etc., whereas an X terminal may need an
  external font server, thereby increasing network load and
  creating a dependence on a specific machine (we often had network
  problem that could cut off some machine from the local Ethernet).

This is the solution I will employ for access from my own
PC, where I have a half gig LINUX partition installed.  However, the
PC cluster is also used by large numbers of people running Windows 
apps, and so this is not a solution for student access.  Also many
of our faculty are Mac users.

The next most frequent suggestion was eXceed, from Hummingbird software
(http://www.hcl.com/HOWTO.HTML).  Positive experiences were reported
by Fred Arnold (address above); Tom Pierce ([email-masked]),
who used it specifically to access SPARTAN and MacroModel; and Ned
Martin ([email-masked]), accessing SPARTAN.  eXceed also was
mentioned in a very helpful summary from the CUR list provided by
Mark Timken ([email-masked]).  I have ordered a trial
copy.

MacX was the only software mentioned for Macintoshes, with positive
experiences reported by Stephen Bowlus ([email-masked]), Per
Arvidsson ([email-masked]), Dave Young
([email-masked]), and Craig Burkhart
([email-masked]).  We have some small experience with MacX
ourselves, and find it usable, although a bit clunky.

Other clients receiving some comment were XVision 6.0, used by
Andrey Bliznyuk ([email-masked]) to access SPARTAN, 
but found poor by Tom Pierce (address above); ReflectionX 
(Stephen Bowlus; address above); the X-win32 shareware client
suggested by Carlo Nervi, which Jim Macmillan
([email-masked]) found of poor quality.  

From an ad in BYTE, I had learned of XoftWare for Windows, from AGE
Logic, Inc. ([email-masked]).  Katie Breen was particularly helpful
in faxing me a copy of the sales brochure.  Xoftware comes in
versions for both PC and Mac; Craig Martens ([email-masked]) has a
positive experience with the Mac version.  We will order trial
copies.  Similarly, we learned of PC Xware, from NCD, Inc.
([email-masked]; http://www.ncd.com); no one seems to have had
experience with this software, but from its literature it appears to
be an especially robust application.  It does not come in a Mac
version, and is pricier than Xoftware.

Several individuals suggested that accessing SPARTAN and other
programs from more than 3-4 clients produced an unacceptable
slowdown; Jim Macmillan suggested that the servers should be on
their own branch of the local network to avoid untowrd effects on
other users.  Several respondants also reminded me that
Wavefunction, supplier of SPARTAN, requires a $200 license for each
client that accesses SPARTAN over a network.  This charge is
unfortunate; we will probably have to acquire licenses over several
years to reach our full intended capacity.

My thanks to all who responded, and apologies if I have
inadvertantly omitted anyone's contribution.  I will file a report
later on our experiences with examination copies.
Professor Ray Fort, Jr.             Voice:   (207)-581-1180
Department of Chemistry             FAX:     (207)-581-1191
University of Maine                 E-mail:  [email-masked]
Orono ME 04469                               [email-masked]
         Computational organic chemistry, especially on wood-
                       and paper-related problems