What windows managers are available for X-terminals on campus?
ncdwm, the built-in window manager for the NCD X-terminals is
currently the only window manager allowed to run on strauss.
While 1 or 2 or 5 window managers probably wouldn't slow the
system, we currently have over 130 X-terminals that connect to
strauss for their xdm login window. ncdwm runs in the
X-terminal's X-server, which means every time you move a window,
or move your mouse, the computation takes place locally. By
running the window manager on strauss, strauss would have to
make these computations. 130 people running 130 different
window managers would cause any machine to slow down....
For this reason, only ncdwm, run locally on the X-terminals,
is allowed to run on the X-terminals.
October 23, 1994