On Fri, Nov 05, 2010 at 07:26:39PM -0400, Mark J Dulcey wrote:
> I understand that argument (not quoted). But I also understand the way=20
> that most people think of clients and servers. A server is a distant=20
> thing that does something for you, and a client is something that you=20
> operate to get the server to do something.=20

I can't be sure, but I don't believe I know anyone who thinks of a
client as what you described.

> But in X terminology you sit in front of a server and connect to a
> client. The X client runs on a server computer, and the X server
> runs on a client (i.e., desktop) computer. Backwards.

I don't agree with this assessment at all, FWIW.  You don't "connect
to" a client at all, and in fact you're sitting in front of both: the
X server is running on the hardware -- though you don't "see" it, per
se -- and the client is being displayed on your display, right in
front of you.  It just happens that the code that controls it is
running somewhere else.  Maybe. =20

I don't ever call my desktop or my laptop a "client" -- I call them my
desktop and my laptop.  I think you're just confusing two different
meanings of "server" and mixing and matching terminology.  One
definition of "server" is a classification of hardware, distinguished
=66rom desktops and laptops.  The other is a type of program, which can
be run on potentially any sort of multi-purpose computing platform,
including my phone, my mp3 player, etc....

I don't think my parents, for example, who are not computer types of
any sort, have ever referred to or thought of their various computing
devices as "clients" in any sense of the word.

> The main point I was making is that installing the part that X calls a=20
> client is useful on a server (in the non-X sense, like a computer=20
> providing storage or web services) so you can run GUI apps on the server=
=20
> and control them remotely. Running what X calls a server (the part that=
=20
> actually puts graphics on your computer screen) is less useful, since=20
> you don't normally sit in front of the screen of a server (in the non-X=
=20
> sense) and operate it directly.

I don't agree with this either.  In the course of my system admin
career, I have spent plenty of time sitting at the console of servers.
I also have used my desktop system and my laptop system as servers for
a wide variety of things.  The two concepts associated with "server"
are separate, different, and mostly incompatible, except that often
one type of server runs on the other.  Lay people may not understand
this, but to the best of my knowledge, I've yet to run into bonified
"computer types" who did not, for some definition of that phrase which
I won't bother to elaborate on.

--=20
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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