Palette Management

[Sean Kessler <smkessler us fortis com>]

... I am from a Windows background, trying to grasp the whole
color concept under Linux.  Although I agree that colors can be used
up under Windows, the application in the foreground is guaranteed
to have the palette it desires minus the colors contained in the system
palette (32 colors).  Palette normalization is the process of mapping
the foreground palette to the desired colors while at the same time
mapping the system palette colors to the lower 16 and upper 16 
locations in the palette.  In fact, one can see a performance increase
while using system palettes because GDI doesn't have to do any
palette remapping when an application "realizes" it's palette.
  My question is... How does Linux, or rather X Windows under 
Linux, manage the system palette?  Is it a similar process where
the system wants to have specific colors mapped into the palette
at all times?  
  The question stems from an observation that if I attempt to display
a 256 color bitmap, I do not get all of the colors in the palette.  

  Sean Kessler
  europa@li.net
  smkessler@us.fortis.com
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