Linux platform info

[mbp]

> We intend to use Geomview to model an animation of up to 100 
> Polyhedra.  The platforms recommended are SGI, Sun4 and HP/UX 
> 7.x, 8.x, 9.x.  
> 
> Of the three systems, which one is the slowest?  And how do the 
> other ones compare?

I believe Sun4 would be the slowest.  We have SGIs and Suns here; we
do not have HPs but I believe their graphics are faster than Suns.
The Sun is perhaps 10 to 100 times slower than an SGI, on the average,
depending on which Sun and which SGI.

> Could we use Linux with it's X windows to run Geomview on an 
> Intel platform?  If so, how efficiently?

I don't know about this.  In theory, yes, although in practice it
would probably take a bit, or perhaps a lot, of work with the source
code to get it to compile.  We have not tried this.  If you're
interested in running Geomview on a PC you might consider using
NeXTStep; the NeXTStep version of Geomview performs reasonably well on
our Gateway PC.

What is the name of your organization and what sort of work 
do you do?  Your message didn't say, and I'm just curious.

Mark Phillips
Geometry Center

PS:

The "geomview-users at geom.umn.edu" mail address goes to a group of
150 or so people around the world who use Geomview; we use it for
announcements, and users use it to communicate with each other.  If
you have further specific questions that you want us to answer it
would be better to send them to "software@geom.umn.edu".