Dynamically-linked
Indicates that the binary will attempt to look for and
use libraries located on your system at run-time. This means the binary is
smaller then the statically linked one, but sometimes certain libraries
(the libX11.so library in particular) are not in the usual places and
you may need certain tricks to solve the
libX11.so.x.x not found
error message:
% ldd `which xterm`
-lXaw.5 => /path/path/lib/libXaw.so.5.1
-lXmu.4 => /path/path/lib/libXmu.so.4.18
-lXt.4 => /path/path/lib/libXt.so.4.20
-lXext.4 => /path/path/lib/libXext.so.4.13
-lX11.4 => /path/path/lib/libX11.so.4.21
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-lc.1 => /usr/lib/libc.so.1.9
-ldl.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0
% setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /path/path/lib
If you want to avoid the hassle and you have enough disk space, just
get the statically linked client.
Statically-linked
Indicates that the binary does not use the dynamic library method
described above. This is the default for most operating systems.
If a dynamic client exists, though, it's probably in your interest to try it
first because it will take up less disk space.
Speed and and all other factors will be identical, however.
Font-based
The font-based clients uses pre-loaded fonts for graphics
rather then bitmaps on the observation that font drawing is usually
more highly optimized in X servers then bitmap drawing.
On slow workstations -- sun3s in particular -- this helps the client
keep up with the action being displayed.
These clients require an extra file of
fonts
which should be uncompressed, un-tarred and the directions in the README file
followed.