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Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP 358

Posted by timothy from the so-who's-using-it dept.
stock writes: "A interesting and important piece of software on the win32 platform for me has always been X11 server software like Hummingbird's Exceed, or Startnet's Xwin32 Professional. Today i glanced at cygwin's site and found that a complete XFree86 4.2.0 for Windows XP can be downloaded now! It shouldn't be hard for newcomers as it features a setup.exe . The package comes free and is basicly licensed as X style licensed software which runs on cygwin32 which has a GPL license." Looks like this has been out since May -- can anyone who's been using it since then comment on how well it works? Update: 07/07 17:12 GMT by T : haroldhunt (project leader for Cygwin/XFree86) wrote to clarify: "Cygwin/XFree86 runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows; as of 2002-05-12 those versions are specifically Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP."
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Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP More

Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP

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  • I use it on win2k (Score:5, Informative)

    by salmo ( 224137 ) <mikesalmo @ h o t mail.com> on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:37AM (#3836404) Homepage Journal
    I've used it on win2k on a daily basis for over a month now. It runs nicely in full screen mode, which you can Alt-Tab out of. You can also run it in a window, but that's just what I prefer. Make sure you run xwinclip [cygwin.com] too so you can copy and paste between X and Winders. I've tried a couple commercial Win32 X Servers and although this doesn't have some of the fancy features, I find it more stable.
    • I'll disagree. I've used it, and I'd definitely use it... if my school didn't have a site license for Exceed. I just use Exceed. It's so awesome in a multitude of ways. First, it fixes some bugs I noticed in X11 (try XDMing to a Sun box, log in, and notice that the Welcome to Solaris screen is garbled under X11. Exceed displays it perfectly in true color.) Second, my favourite feature, Exceed lets you use its own window manager... which integrates with windows! What's that mean? Well, instead of having to flip back and forth between a separate window for my unix apps, they all show up on the Windows taskbar along with my Windows apps. Oh, and the CDE bar? It sits right on top of the taskbar! Want to switch from IE on Windows to NEdit? [nedit.org] Click.

      Sure X11 is pretty stable... but so is Exceed. And for all the folks that are claiming that "X11 is more stable" --- let me tell you, Exceed has never crashed on me, while X11 has crashed numerous times. Plus, I don't care what you say, running a native Windows app is theoretically mucho faster than running X11 through that Cygwin1.dll POSIX patch. Here is an example... Open up NT cmd and type 'dir'. It's instant, right? Now open up bash and type 'ls'.... it's slow as a mofo compared to the former!

      Exceed comes with a whole bunch of tools along with it as well... the nice part about it is that I can keep multiple sessions with their own individual settings in .ses files, which I can't easily do in X11. (Making individual batch file _is_ a pain.) If Exceed cost $40, I wouldn't mind buying it... but it doesn't. However, like I said we have a site license, so it's all good with me.

  • How many of you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:40AM (#3836408)
    ...downloaded setup.exe just for the hell of it? :)
    • Setup.exe us the bomb?
    • Luckily setup.exe is very small. Cygwin's setup.exe is analagous to Debian's dselect and part of apt, although easier to use. It connects to a remote host to find out what packages are available and you then use it to select packages and their versions. Once you've done that, it'll download and install, update, reverse update (if you want to go to a past version), and remove packages according to how you set it up. It also does dependancy checking (for example, I added Windowmaker and it added all the xfree stuff). Definitely a neat utility.
  • I haven't used this, but I have used XWin32. Could someone compare the ease of use of XWin32 (no cygwin, no console windows, nothing scary for Widiot32s to be terrified by) to Xfree86 (probably all of the above)?

    No matter what, it still feels weird to be doing X stuff on my Win2K desktop. =)

    • no console windows? i used Xfree on cygwin about a year ago (don't recall the version numbers), but X was started from a .bat file. the thing i didn't like about X was that it seemed to be full screen only. i haven't used XWin32, but it seems to be 250$ more than Xfree...
    • I use xwin32 regularly over a time warner cable modem connection. I run a win 2k on my machine. I find xwin32 (running with FSECURE SSH tunnelling) with single window (xterm window) ismuch faster than cygwin. The single xterm window has display set to your local machine. So you can run any x app on your machine. You can even alt-tab between the xapps. -mouloid

  • Cygwin/XFree86 (Score:5, Informative)

    by SirPrize ( 590850 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:42AM (#3836415)
    I've been using Cygwin/XFree86 for about a month or two now, and don't have any complaints. It may be a tad slower than what one is used to, but overall it works quite well. You can also run WindowMaker on Cygwin (comes bundled now), or any other window manager, as long as you can compile it on Cygwin, on Cygwin/XFree86
    • Of course, you can also run a window manager on another machine. It will be a bit slower than what you're used to. Most people use these X servers for Windows to run remote X apps anyway.

  • Works well... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Doug Neal ( 195160 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:44AM (#3836417)
    I tend to use Cygwin/Xfree86 if I ever need an X server on Windows and have always found it to work pretty nicely. I have had it running KDE from another computer on the network, and it's also useful when you want to run the occasional application that needs X on a headless computer.

    So yes... I would definitely recommend it. The disadvantage over something like Exceed, though, is that it needs its own window - you can't have the X windows alongside the Windows windows (if you see what I mean). And you can't resize it either, you have to choose the dimensions on startup. But you can also use it fullscreen, and because it uses DirectDraw, it's nice and fast.
    • it needs its own window - you can't have the X windows alongside the Windows windows (if you see what I mean).

      i.e. it cannot be rootless.

    • I want rootless mode. Every commercial X server has this. Unfortunately the version of X-Win32 I'm using has a bug (at least on XP) where it will eventually stop accepting pastes from windows; IE, you can still copy FROM X clients, and you can copy from an X client and paste to an X client, but you cannot copy from windows and paste to an X client.

      When Xfree/cygwin has rootless mode, I'll be using it, instead.

      Incidentally, I've been using cygwin for a long time, and I was ecstatic when xfree binaries became available. Now I can run xterms on windows, which are dramatically superior to windows console windows in every way. First of all, they are WAY faster, and second, you can make them transparent (hardware alpha) with glass2k (or similar.) You cannot do this with a win32 console window. But really, a non-rootless xfree is a joke on windows.

      GDI support would be a plus, too. :P

  • Works perfectly. Killer app. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:46AM (#3836420)
    It's funny, but I just saw this slashdot article when I was testing an X desktop from a Windows 2000 client running Cygwin Xfree. I'm sitting here right now, typing.

    It works splendidly. Unlike with Hummingbird & Co, you get the exact same feel as regular Xfree with regards to font and small behaviour differences - which is good, since GNOME and KDE is targeted there.

    It has some funcitonality lacking (imo - the developers seem to regard this as not being their problem): Cut and paste between X and Windows does not work (although I once saw rumors of an experimental daemon to fix this). Non-US keyboard setups must be loaded manually with xmodmap (while imo, Xfree for Windows should support xkbdb stuff).

    In other aspects, it's great! Scroll wheel stuff works perfectly, graphics are fast and stable (better than a recent version of Hummingbird Exceed I tested), etc.

    Oh, one more drawback - there seems to be a hard coded limit to the window size that prevents me from letting the X desktop span two windows monitors in multihead setup. This should be easy to fix if one feels inclined, though, I expect.

    Otherwise, the product is brilliant. Now I can roll out Linux/FreeBSD desktops cheaply and easily, and make the switch from Windows to GNOME/KDE in small steps for my customers. The killer right now is letting them use Mozilla and Evolution through X from a server located outside the firewall: very secure and virusless (and cheap!) Attachments and saved files are available through a samba share. Oh, and let the server run IMAP (to Evolution) and webmail (ssl) from the outside. People get the same folders abroad and at the office.

    I'm telling you, the revolution is here.

    -- Daniel, www.copyleft.no
    • The killer right now is letting them use Mozilla and Evolution through X from a server located outside the firewall: very secure and virusless (and cheap!)
      So, you're going to let an unsecure box act as an X client for the secure boxes? That would give the unsecure box the power to:
      • monitor the content of the X displays on the secure boxes
      • inject keystrokes, e.g., when someone on the secure boxes logs in as root
      • display arbitrary stuff on the secure boxes (e.g., "System Locked, enter password to unlock").

      Unless the X display is used *only* for the specified apps and users are very conscious of what's going on, you're not gaining security much in principle. It's true, however, that most generic attacks won't affect the secure boxes; some more effort by the attacker would be required.
      • Not at all! In fact, since cygwin comes with the latest openssh, you could set up a login script that fires up ssh for compressed, encrypted X-forwarding and then logs into the server to run the apps you want. On the server, access to that port-forwarded socket is controled by X authentication via a dot-file which is protected by user rights. So, as long as everyone has their own account and key exchange is set up properly this can be painless and very secure!

        Now, personally I'd just drop a Linux box on their desks and tell them to cope, but that's just me :)

    • Re:Works perfectly. Killer app. (Score:5, Informative)

      by mjh ( 57755 ) <(moc.nalcnroh) (ta) (kram)> on Sunday July 07, 2002 @09:50AM (#3836548) Homepage Journal
      The killer right now is letting them use Mozilla and Evolution through X from a server located outside the firewall: very secure and virusless (and cheap!)

      You might want to be careful with this box that is outside the firewall. If someone can get into it, they can launch applications like xkey [attrition.org] This will enable someone to do keyboard monitoring of anyone who's running an X application. Combine that with "netstat -anA inet | grep ESTAB" and you can easily determine some good IP addresses to target. What I'd be concerned about is someone sniffing my keystrokes in my mozilla sessions, getting by all the wonderful SSL encryption!

      One way to combat this would be to use X forwarding through ssh as the X11 transport. That way you have to have access to the user's ~/.Xauthority file, which is typically set readonly for that particular user. Which means any local root exploits would grant someone access to all of your customer's keystrokes.

      Something else you might want to look into is NSA's SELinux [nsa.gov]. I don't know much about it, but it seems like you could take advantage of the higher granularity of access controls to limit someone (other than the rightful user) getting access to ~/.Xauthority. Even root wouldn't be able to get access.

      Anyway, that's a very cool idea you have. Just be careful.

  • works fine (Score:4, Informative)

    by jilles ( 20976 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:46AM (#3836421) Homepage
    I've installed it at home and at work. The only problem is that there are very few ported X applications to run with it and most things do not compile out of the box.

    I'm running it with a port of windowmaker in fullscreen mode and it looks great. However, the thrill of running xcalc and xclock on windows xp wears off quickly :-). You can of course use it to run remote applications on a unix server (this works perfect).

    Another issue I found is that it is not possible to cut and paste between X apps and windows apps. So if you are surfing using mozilla or IE and want to paste some command from a howto into your xterm, you have a problem. You can paste into a bash terminal (i.e. outside X).

    The cygwin installation is pretty smooth (lots of great stuff other than X too). However you do need to set a path to /usr/X11R6/bin manually before you can type startx in bash. In addition you'll want to change the windowmanager (windowmaker works fine for me). Configuring X on windows XP is actually easier than on linux :-).

  • Old news ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Wudbaer ( 48473 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:47AM (#3836423) Homepage
    XFree86 has been available on Win32 using cygwin for ages. Ok, it might have been 4.10 and it used an (also easy to use) bash shell script for installing it under cygwin instead of a setup program, but this is not really news.

    I used the old version for a couple of times on W2K, seemed to work quite well.

  • Er... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hatless ( 8275 )
    This is news? The cygwin XF86 port has been around since long before May. Anyone who's installed cygwin this past year probably knows about it.

    It didn't run rootless as of the last time I checked, which is quite a limitation. Has this changed? Hummingbird and Starnet don't have anything to worry about until then.
  • I have a curious setup...
    I have a small windows PC for experimentation that I run a Citrix Server on...
    I have screenshot of the new X11 (WindowMaker)running on Cygwin accessed remotely throught the Linux ICA client on WindowMaker!
    Go here: http://cguru.ma.cx/cygwin.png [cguru.ma.cx]
    • Would you mind explaining what this is used for? I do not see or understand the application. I can see where it might be used as a client to a Unix console but, what is the advantage over telnet, ssh, or VNC? To me these seem like simpler, cheaper, faster solutions.

      Perhaps my problem is that I have never fully utilized X's capabilities. For me it is just a graphical front end. What am I missing?
      • Nothing. It's sole benefit is being a client to a Unix console.

        Once it gets rootless mode, it will be useful for integrating X and Windows apps on the desktop, which is a great transitional state between people running all-Windows, and people running all-Unix on the desktop.

        In other words, it's one more step toward world domination! :-)

      • What is citrix used for? Well, for one it tries to make the the NT terminal server fast..it uses it's own protocol to highly compress audio and sound (I can get audio and video on a remote Windows conole!), and can even remotely display DirectX....it's just a layer added to Win NT Term Server to make it like a local connection....lime a TRUE X connection in *NIX..however, it costs THOUSANDS of dollars..I got this from my old job (a perf of being laid off :) ).I only access my windows machine thru citrix because I use it SOOOOO rarely and ir's DOWNSTAIRS in the basement :)
  • I use the cygwin/XFree86 programs daily, and have been for several months now. It is truly a beautiful thing to be able to use bash _and_ windows explorer to manage files, or to Alt-TAB from emacs to CorelDraw to FrontPage when web editing.

    Actually, though, what I use are Xclients compiled against the XFree86 libraries. The XFree86 X server doesn't yet have a useable multiple-window mode -- that is, one in which XP is your window manager and each program appears in a separate Windows window. <FLAMESUIT>Since what I want is the superior windows UI with the superior GNU utilities power, the separate window mode is pretty essential. Thus I still use eXceed as my Xserver. </FLAMESUIT>

    Work on this capability is proceeding; it is, in fact, the top item on the Cygwin/XFree TODO list [cygwin.com]:

    Seamless integration with Windows: Create a Cygwin/XFree86 window manager to display each X client in its own Win32 window. Such a window manager will be a stand-alone client, but it may require some internal modifications to the Cygwin/XFree86 server to allow drawing to be redirected to various Win32 windows, depending on which client is being drawn.
    By the way, if you are setting up Cygwin for the first time, I highly recommend following the procedures outlined at
    (which largely consists of instructions for ssh/sshd with Cygwin, but has many other excellent setup tips).
    • Regarding the lack of multi-window support, I agree. I've played with XFree86 for Win32 quite a lot, and this is the chief and only significant reason it's unsuitable for the things I do.

      With everything in one big X window, I *have* to load an X window manager and have to keep all of my X apps contained in that one window. It makes it a little awkward if I need to be working between a Windows app and an X app, because I'm having to swap out of the X system entirely to go back to a Windows app. It's just a little cumbersome. I love the way Exceed is able to do this: every X app appears seamlessly like any other Windows app. And it's fast.

      Plus, it's sometimes interesting to still use a window manager or shell in this mode. You get the benefits of having X windows float around a Win32 desktop, in addition to having these windows all managed by a different window manager. It's kind of cool having your Gnome panel, desktop icons, etc., floating on your Win32 desktop alongside your Explorer bar and Explorer desktop icons.

  • Wow, Promote unnecessary XP upgrades, willya? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SN74S181 ( 581549 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @08:57AM (#3836447)
    I find it disappointing that in the article summary no mention is made of the fact that this Cygwin X11 server will run on all the Win32 platforms. I looked at it and said to myself 'well, there's the motivation to "upgrade" to XP' but was hopeful. And yes, the page at Cygwin says 'Cygwin/XFree86 runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows'.

    Is this a case of unconcious shilling for the Microsoft version upgrade treadmill? I hope so.
    • No, it was probably just the platform he happened to test it on. When I report on something working, I'll tell you about it working in Windows 2000. I don't speak for any other versions, since that's what I run. Genreally speaking, anything that runs on 2000 should run on the whole Win32 platform, but not always.
    • From http://cygwin.com/xfree/
      Cygwin/XFree86 is a port of XFree86 to the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. Cygwin/XFree86 runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows; as of 2002-05-12 those versions are specifically Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.
    • Think of it this way: Now, you can use it in WinXP.

      you're reading into it the assumption that it wasn't compatible with previous versions of Windows. This is a compatibility alert, stating that XFree86 now works with something that it had troubles running on before.

      The fact that it works on Win98 et al is not news...that support has been around for a long time. Therefor, the /. people were actually reporting news for once. They weren't reporting on something that was (as) old (as some previous stories have.)
  • I love it and have been running it for a while. I use blackbox [progeny.com] as my WM since I only run programs over the network it doesn't get in the way and leaves a tiny footprint.

    I get by day to day with Kmail [kde.org], GnuCash [gnucash.org], Red-Carpet [ximian.com] and a few other miscellaneous apps that I run over the in-house LAN.

    As the subject says I noticed that programs use the same fonts whether I run the program on the Mandrake box locally or over the network, however when I run the progs over the network to the Windows machine all the fonts look nice....??!?!? Is that a feature? I think most the programs just plain look nicer in the Win32 port... maybe I'm delusional...... anything's possible.

  • Experiences with Cygwin/XFree86 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jeff Probst ( 459812 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @09:03AM (#3836458) Homepage Journal
    I have been using this for about 9 months now for doing xdmcp to a freebsd box running xdm, such as how they suggest [cygwin.com]. i have found it to be rock solid.

    i run the latest server in the server test series [cygwin.com]. they recently added -nodecoration, which makes the x server use as much of your screen as possible, without any title bar or borders. My xdmcp command line, setup as a shortcut on my win2k desktop, looks like this:

    C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\XWin.exe -screen 0 1600x1200 -from spandex -query lycra -once -emulate3buttons -nowinkill -nounixkill -nodecoration -fp "tcp/lycra:7100"

    The -fp option is for a font server, so cygwin/xfree86 will get the necessary fonts from the machine you tell it.

    HTH
  • ...if Cygwin/XFree86 ran under Wine.

    Seriously, the Wine and Cygwin teams need to cooperate much much more. Both share a very important interface: the Win32 API. Since Cygwin uses it and Wine "makes" it, I see great potential for cross-project development here.

    This would be analogous to bochs [sourceforge.net] running bochs [sourceforge.net]. Actually, it would be really funny if they optimized the heck out of it, so that running Cygwin/XFree86 is faster on Wine than Windows...
    • ...if Cygwin/XFree86 ran under Wine.
      Hahaha. That's one way of putting the brakes on all that native *nix speed and stability. The only more useless thing I can think of, would be to run a PC emulator on a mac to run x86 linux, then run wine and then cygwin/xfree86 on top of all that.
      • "Hahaha. That's one way of putting the brakes on all that native *nix speed and stability."

        Well, not the speed. Neither WINE nor Cygwin are emulators; they are APIs. So you don't have the speed hit of emulation.

        With the Mozilla project, the Windows binary sometimes runs faster under WINE on Linux than the native Linux binary does.

    • There was a discussion on the Cygwin mailing list a while back. I don't recall the details, but with older Cygwin builds you could run under WINE very nicely. Then something changed in Cygwin (serial support, I think) and this altered the behavior of Cygwin + WINE.

      Bottom line of the discussion was, I believe, that Cygwin + WINE is an unsupported configuration (at least on the Cygwin list). If you're curious, check the archives -- I could be mistaken.

      BTW - It's no surprise that Cygwin might be faster on WINE (I heard it could be)... Cygwin tries to do threads and processes the same was as on UNIX, which is expensive on WIN32 (especially on Win9x but still true on NT as well). It would be faster to map all that stuff back to native UNIX, than emulate it in Win32 land...

  • Very slow (benchmarks) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Baki ( 72515 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @09:13AM (#3836474)
    I compared it some weeks ago with other X servers available for win32, using x11perf (after I noticed how slow it was when scrolling windows).

    I benchmarked cygwin, exceed (7.1), omni-X and xwin32. cygwin was by far the slowest, around 10 times slower than exceed for many basic X11 operations. Exceed was about two times faster than omni-X and xwin32.

    Exceed is extremely expensive however (a cheap second PC plus KVM switch, dedicated running Linux just as an X-terminal might be cheaper than buying an exceed licence). For most normal text-based remote access, cygwin+xfree will do. For graphically oriented programs (such as running KDE remotely) you'll want something else however.
    • We've been looking for someone to run some comprehensive x11perf tests for Cygwin/XFree86 and a couple of the commercial X Servers for MS Windows. We would appreciate it very much if you could send the output files from x11perf (or better yet, links to the output files) to the `cygwin-xfree at cygwin daught com' mailing list.

      You may want to check out the new `-clipupdates num_boxes' parameter, which gathers together num_boxes or more regions into a GDI clipping region and then does one bit block transfer to the screen, rather than one bit block transfer per damaged region. I'm guessing that `-clipupdates 10' or `-clipupdates 50' would give a good return on the overhead that is involved in creating a GDI clipping region.

      Harold
    • I've never used either of the other x servers mentioned, but i've never had a problem with running either gnome or kde (or knome--both at the same time ;). In fact, both run slightly faster on my remote xserver than on my 1ghz machine, i guess because that machine only has to handle processing while my other handles displaying. I've been using the cygwin XServer for about four months now, and I have to say, it really is pretty damn nice. aside from issues noted elsewhere (no multimonitor support, poor clipboard integration, no way to serve "rootless" windows) its an outstanding piece of software you should take another look at.
    • I benchmarked cygwin, exceed (7.1), omni-X and xwin32. cygwin was by far the slowest, around 10 times slower than exceed for many basic X11 operations. Exceed was about two times faster than omni-X and xwin32.
      Keep in mind that Exceed, Omni-X, and XWin32 are windows-specific while XFree86 is not. Windows optimization is in the works for XFree86, but until then XFree86 is getting very little assistance from the graphics card. The advantages of XFree86 are that it is free (in both senses) and that it is getting a lot of development. The coolness factor is that Cygwin is capable of running XFree86 on Windows and that all the changes are getting merged back into the official XFree86 tree.
    • Slow is what I expect from w2k anyway, and I'm happy to get this no cost version. My poor computer at work is so loaded down with NAV, M$ spyware, and buggy M$ junk that everything takes forever to do. Sigh, one day the great rip off of my company will end.

      This will help bring that day closer. If this will work through putty, I'll finally be able to "show" people I work what I'm talking about as I sigh at the M$ stupidity of the day. How nice it will be to be able to use, on occasion, my computers at home through a graphical interface. I don't expect lightening response over a gimped up cable modem, but funciton is function.

      Will this work the other way? If I get sshd on Win32, will I be able to get at my work from home? I'm neither willing nor able to install the junky windows based clients for remote computer use that the company provides. It's not that I want to do piles of work at home, especially with the horrid tools I have to use. Being able to get at company data from home can mean I stay home when the unexpected happens at my plant. It also means a faster and more reliable response. You would think the company wants that kind of thing, but they have a hard enough time making it so that you can get at your data while you are actually there.

      "gotta fly."

  • RedHat Thin Client Edition? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Sunday July 07, 2002 @09:15AM (#3836479)
    I have not used this yet, but I will be giving it a try at work on Monday. Based on what I am hearing in comments, it seems to work fairly well.

    If I were RedHat, I would make RedHat "Thin Client Edition" out of it. Modify the RedHat install to accept connections and display a X login, or at least have that option during install. I know I have been able to do that before, but all the protocol and service names slip my mind right now.

    Once that is in place, marketing can begin. Migrate to centralized (Linux) application management without betting the farm. I know you can easily turn most PC's into X-Terminals, but most people would be more comfortable starting with a Windows Client version first. Offering OpenOffice and Mozilla to "clients" would be able to cover 90% of what low end user needs to do. They can even keep Outlook/Exchange running on their desktop if they don't want to pull the plug on that yet, which is a common reason for staying with windows on the desktop.

    If they were to package and market this correctly, it could be the first step in moving into the desktop realm.

    -Pete

  • Cygwin rxvt (Score:2, Informative)

    by dr_l0v3 ( 568242 )
    I use cygwin at work as I need Windows to run Outlook but still want bash and cvs available locally. I tried X but ended up just relying on rxvt straight under the Win 2K desktop.

    Using rxvt in this way really flies and I don't miss X at all. In fact, this method has brought me back to command line alternatives that are quite a lot better in most cases (OK, I wouldn't want a terminal version of the Gimp but for most things ...)

  • I use it on my linux environment to create a windowed X session to one of my other UNIX boxes. I haven't been ambitious enough to locate another solution to create non ctr-alt F-key session bopping in XFree. Redhat linux, running win4lin, in less then fullscreen mode. Then launch an Xsession under cygwin to one of my other linux boxes. Tada running multiple UNIX and linux boxes on the same display. Yup, its an oddball solution, but it works.
  • In general, Cygwin/XFree86 works very well. However, just recently I've been developing a Win32 product that needs to interoperate with Microsoft NetMeeting 3, and I find that whenever NetMeeting is running, the XFree86 window is a blank white rectangle, and refuses to repaint itself any other way until the NetMeeting process terminates. I haven't investigated this, but I suspect NetMeeting sends out some broadcast window message that XFree86 finds confusing. I really ought to bring up Microsoft's Spy++ tool to see what messages the XFree86 window receives when NetMeeting starts up, but I haven't done so yet.

    Another oddity is that ever since I followed these directions [tech.erdelynet] to set up sshd on Win32, my window manager (fluxbox) won't start from the startxwin.sh script -- it just prints "Pure virtual function called" and exits. However, I can start the wm manually, and all is well from then on. I haven't taken the time to debug this either; it could be related to having sshd running (why?) or to some change made by Erdely's fix-perms.sh script. Or perhaps the changes Erdely recommends for /etc/passwd and /etc/group?

    Btw, I use the same window manager on Cygwin/XFree86 that I do on Linux/XFree86 -- fluxbox 0.1.9, which is a nice extension of blackbox 0.61.1 with a number of nice features such as user-customization of the title bar button positioning (essential, as blackbox insists on putting the Close button right next to the Maximize button, which is stupid) and tabbed windows (which ought to be an WM feature, not an app feature).

  • Hs anyone tried any 3d engineering applications with this product? How's the OpenGL support?
    • I have run IBM OpenDX many months ago on Cygwin/XFree86, and at that stage there was no GLX support. The program ran great, and worked just fine in software rendering mode.

      However, i believe that since i was doing this, great strides have been made by the Cygwin guys in the area of GLX etc. and it's very likely that 3D does work.

      I have long since switched to Linux/OS X for any 'real' work i do, so couldn't say for sure.
  • Even GLX works. I've managed to compile XScreensaver [jwz.org] without too much trouble, (despite Jamie's best intentions, I suppose :> . All I had to do was change the order of some of the compile options... move -lXmu and -lXt up a bit. I also had to remove one of the hacks and didn't have GLExtrusion, but that was it.). GL hacks run pretty fast even using software rendering.

    XFree86 for Win32 in general isn't terribly stable yet, but it works pretty good. It only runs in a window, so it doesn't really integrate seemlessly with the Windows GUI the way eXceed in passive mode does (where each client window can pop up separately using your Windows "window manager").

    We have eXceed 3D (GLX), but I haven't gotten it to work well. It is dirt slow running the GL Xscreensaver hacks, but I probably need to recompile using the eXceed libs if I can figure out how to do that... I haven't had a lot of luck running GLX apps over the network either, probably because most of my GL apps are statically linked or something :/ .

    My favourite solution for accessing UNIX desktops from a PC remains VNC [tightvnc.org], though.

    Cygwin is just about mature enough to make Win32 a viable *NIX platform. The biggest thing missing is just decent file access (it's currently very, very slow, because they have to open every file in a directory just to get check for hidden UNIX-style attributes I guess.) Once this is handled better, as well as maybe some security issues, you'll pretty much have a decent POSIX environment.

    Let's hope Wine does a good job catching up from the other end! ;)

  • I used to use Exceed and Reflection X, but once I found out about VNC [att.com] I switched and never looked back. VNC has the added benefit of leaving my stuff where I left it on my linux box when my windows machine needs a reboot.
  • The only problem I've had with XFree on Cygwin is when trying to run L-Edit - a semi-popular VLSI tool. It's got a thing where it won't run unless in 256 color mode. By setting the display to 256 colors in Sun or Windows/Exceed, it works well. But in Windows/Cygwin, it crashes as if it's in 16 or 32 bit color. Quite odd.
  • I find it most useful for "XWin -query mylinuxbox", which brings up the standard [gkx]dm login screen if you enable xdmcp on the linux box. There are few x clients that are much fun to slog through tweazking to compile under cygwin, so it's easier to use X across the network to a linux box.

    It also worked fine for tunnelling X apps through ssh in the normal manner.

    My main gripe is the fiddlyness of the keyboard - I end up having to manually xmodmap stuff into shape (I'm in Ireland, we tend to use UK keyboards rather than USA ones)

  • Does anybody know of other free (either or both) X servers are for Windows?

    The only other one i've been able to find is the GPLed WeirdX [jcraft.com], which has a usable but slightly buggy rootless mode (where you use Windows as your window manager). I've been pretty happy using it to run my linux boxes (mostly xterm), and I could run some things (like xscreensaver) locally using U/WIN [att.com]...

    --
    Benjamin Coates
  • Doesn't this seem just a little foolish to anyone? After all, running Linux on top of Windows loses any and all advantages Linux might have. Basically, you get the glitzy user interface of Linux with the stability and security of Windows and the speed of emulation. Usually, emulation is used to unlock a world of programs that aren't available to you on your own system, which is why people emulate Windows on Linux: Windows has more programs. And if you're trying to convince people to switch to Linux with something like this, how/why would it work? It can be no more stable than Windows, it's uglier than Windows (let's be honest), and it's slower than Windows (emulation). And a new user would realize none of this.

    In short, this is an interesting application and I'm sure it could be used well in a few situations, but ultimately it isn't all that useful.
    • You are confusing X Windows with Linux. When you run X Windows under BSD, you are not running Linux on top of BSD. The same is true for X Windows under Microsoft Windows (not simply Windows XP, mind you, but also Windows 9x/NT/2k).
      • So what, then, is the usefulness of this X Windows on Windows?
    • X WIndows is a server application. You can connect it to, view and operate a remote unix box just like sitting at the remote box's monitor and keyboard.

    • <i>Doesn't this seem just a little foolish to anyone? After all, running Linux on top of Windows loses any and all advantages Linux might have. </i>

      This is NOT running Linux on top of Windows. This is setting up all of your favorite GNU tools and running them from the command line on Windows. It's a great help for people who need to be in Windows for one reason or another - think of it as a reverse WINE.

      I also dispute the concept that Windows has more programs than Linux! Sure, Windows has more GUI word processors and games, but it does NOT have more technologically oriented programs like bash,zsh, emacs, gcc, postfix, etc. etc.,and of course all those windows programs cost, and come without source code.

      Additionally, the tools here are NOT slower than Windows tools, simply beacuse fast command line tools that UNIX features, unencumbered by the wonderful Microsoft MFC.

      No, cygwin is a godsend for people who miss having a powerful command shell on their computer, complete with tools like sed and awk.

      I've even heard tales that cygwin is heavily used by programmers at Microsoft.

  • Post from the project leader (Score:5, Informative)

    by haroldhunt ( 199966 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @12:35PM (#3837067) Homepage
    Cygwin/XFree86 has been working on all recent versions of Windows (95/98/Me and NT 4.0/2000/XP) since somewhere around March of 2001. The real news here is that we finally became installable via Cygwin's setup.exe program in May of 2002.

    Current features we are working on include:
    • Native GDI Server - Translate X11 graphics calls into GDI graphics calls; currently we just draw to an offscreen framebuffer and transfer updates occasionally. This allows you to utilize the power of your $100+ graphics processor. Most respectable commercial X11 servers for MS Windows use this method.
    • Clipboard integration - We have been working on this for a long time. Currently we have a seperate client, called xwinclip [cygwin.com], that provides this functionality. We recently added support for passing Japanese text through xwinclip when running on NT/2000/XP.
    • PseudoColor for TrueColor visuals - A lot of applications, particularly drawing or CAD programs, require a palette-based PseudoColor visual, while most people run Windows in TrueColor depths of 15, 16, 24, or 32 bit color. We would like to support PseudoColor visuals when our primary visual is a TrueColor visual. Some commercial X11 servers for MS Windows do this.
    Go ahead and try Cygwin/XFree86 [cygwin.com] if you haven't already. We hope you like it. If you find some missing feature that you would like, then take a look at our source code [xfree86.org] and read our Contributor's Guide [cygwin.com] for instructions on how to download the source and build the tree, plus a general discussion of the technologies involved in Cygwin/XFree86. We bend over backwards to make it easier for developers new to the project to contribute.

    Harold

  • Xfree on Xp (Score:3, Interesting)

    by euroBob ( 586971 ) <brownrl@NOspam.gmail.com> on Sunday July 07, 2002 @01:07PM (#3837178) Homepage
    Actually, with cygwin you have been able to get x working for some time now. I recall January being my first X-perience on Xp.

    Since cygwin's setup program is now idiot proof its about 6 clicks and a bunch downloading later and BAM! X on Xp. Just make a shortcut to the startwinx.bat file in the /usr/X.../bin/ dir and you then become |golden boy|. Ofcourse blast out the line in starwinx.bat that kicks of tvm and get a real window manager ( as if you care, but fvwm is my choice ).

    For performance sake I keep to just a simple fvwm2 setup. Not to say Xp is great but I don't see a need to duplicate half of the fancy stuff ( email notifiers, clocks, start menus, yada^3 ) by running KDE or something more ontop of your current Xp rig.

    To be honest I think the work the cygwin folks are doing is the most complete solution now for your PC. You now get the power and devel environ of Nix and the hardware compatibility and other features of windows. No more dual boot. No more kernel recompiles just to get a USB flash card reader working. Just point scripts to /cygdrive/d where d is drive letter that windows assigned to your hardware.

    Only complaint is the file naming problems that occur when your strike off a DOS program with files as arguments. But not a huge issue. ( Compiling Tcl/Tk scripts using the Windows version of tclpro tools, chokes on the file names ). Other than that perfect!

    If you are truly sick... Cygwin does come with glut and glu. I'd like to see someone hack something like q3 for linux inside a cygwin session running on Xp or 2000 or whatever illegal bangkok version of the Microsoft OS your are running.

  • I have run this, and it's a reasonably nice server. But I would find something like this mainly useful for easying Windows users into the UNIX/Linux/X11 world. For that, I found the installation too complex last I tried it.

    I think what XFree86 really needs to become mainstream on Windows is a simpler install process and a smaller installation. There really isn't any reason why an X server install should be more than a couple of megabytes. Even better would be a simple drag-and-drop install: you drag over a directory containing the server, and you can double click on the server to start it.

    Both the Mac and the Windows version also would benefit from GDI calls. They are usably fast without it (on the Mac, the X11 rendering hack seems actually faster than OSX's Quartz engine), but window redrawing just doesn't look right with the off-screen rendering.

  • I've got a bunch of spare space on my /usr/local partition, and I'm running Samba, so I thought I'd install CygWin/XFree there, so my still-stuck-with-WinDOS roommates would have a way to start experimenting with X and Linux. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to install it from Linux, so I'm still stuck with VNC, which has bandwidth issues, and ease-of-launch issues. *sigh*

  • As a Linux admin who's managing a bunch of 'Doze boxes as well, one of my first steps was to put Cygwin on all Windows desktops, along with TightVNC. This includes Win98, WinNT40WS, Win2K, Win2KS, and WinXP. This provides a local toolset I'm familiar with, OpenSSH (including sshd), and remote X capabilities. For admin needs, it's a godsend.

    Installation of Cygwin itself is largely painless (though the download for the full install is time consuming, and space-consuming on smaller systems). I've had far better luck installing XF86 by hand according to the instructions in the INSTALL file. Using the scripted install tends to break in different ways on different platforms, YMMV.

    The X11 server itself is pretty decent. Fullscreen is nice. My one gripe is that the <alt><tab> key combination remains stolen by MS Windows for application cycling. I prefer to use this to circulate windows under WindowMaker. Hummingbird and/or Reflection have a setting to bind this to the X server.

    Agree that having a rootless mode would be useful. Among other things, it could help start migration toward a Linux desktop by exporting Linux apps to Cygwin.

    I also like the suggestion someone made here to support exporting onto a Samba share, as this would be a good way to make Cygwin globally available.

    Question: how does one update an existing Cygwin install? It would be nice (and in the case of ssh, damned necessary) to be able to grab the latest update packages on an occasional basis.

  • Remote Access is nice -- but what about ..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @04:43PM (#3837898) Homepage Journal
    All the posts seem to be about using Cygwin/XFree to access Unix/Linux systems from Windows systems. Which is a hot application, but not as hot as that other thing...

    The main purpose of Cygwin is to run Posix apps under Windows. And if XFree under Windows is now solid (wasn't, last time I looked, but that was a couple years ago), then we now have all kinds of interesting possibilities for migrating Linux apps to the Windows platform. In particular, it'd be nice to be replace the Windows shell and desktop with one of the many open-source equivalents.

    There are, of course, non-Posix Windows shell replacements. But I've never liked any of them as much as I've liked the best Linux desktops: KDE, GNOME, Enlightenment. Add your own favorite to the list.

  • Will it run on a ThinkPad that has the TCPA/Palladium option installed? Hop to it! I need my DRM, and xeyes too!!!

  • I've been using this for months (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ikekrull ( 59661 ) on Sunday July 07, 2002 @06:22PM (#3838255) Homepage
    I've had cygwin running for a long time now, and consider it an indispensible tool when sitting in front of a Windows box.

    In fact, its made me less keen to trash the Windows install on the only Windows machine left in my house, since it is now quite functional with Cygwin/XFree86.

    Now, how do i replace Windows explorer etc. with XFree86 as the only available interface to my Windows machine?

  • I've been running the XFree86/Cygwin combination
    at work for over a month now to connect to my
    local Linux production box. Prior to this I was
    using VNC to achieve the same thing.

    The one thing I miss is being able to close my
    VNC client window, shut my desktop machine down
    overnight, then come in the next day, power up my
    desktop, reconnect to my VNC X session and have
    my existing session waiting for me.

    I gather X(Free86) can't do this, as by
    definition the server is running on my desktop
    machine, so as soon as I log out or power down
    my desktop machine, my session's gone.

    Is there any way to do this with XFree86/Cygwin?
  • I work in a Win2K environment, so cygwin keeps me sane. I've been using the XFree86 port for it for a while and it's really nice. I would recommend to anyone the whole cygwin project. In fact, it's a great way to get windows users used to unix commands without having them commit to installing a new OS!

    A little while back I took a course in scientific computing and put together some instructions for setting up cyginw/X windows on Win32. It's got screen shots and links to other resources. Check out [geocities.com]
    http://www.geocities.com/jaaronfarr/cygwin.html

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