[GRASS5] starting discussion on next generation UI

[Glynn Clements]

Michael Barton wrote:

> What systems on which GRASS is now run would be left out if OpenGL was
> required for the display? TckTk could be updated so that it works with 8.4.x
> or replaced by QT, GTK, etc. if needed.

It's impossible to list specific platforms, because whether or not
OpenGL works on a given platform depends upon the graphics hardware,
the version of the graphics drivers (which are often obtained
separately), the history of which previous versions of the graphics
drivers have been installed (and may be interfering with the current
version), whether or not the user has manually installed a CVS
snapshot of X11 in order to get some aspect of their graphics hardware
working properly, and so on.

And that's just OpenGL. NVIZ also requires Tcl/Tk, and requires that
Tcl/Tk is willing to get along with OpenGL.

OpenGL on my system is fairly reliable, but even there, if my system
crashes (which is quite rare), it's *always* due to OpenGL.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>