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X GUI Businesses Apple

Apple Explains How to Run X11 on Mac OS X 375

Posted by michael from the having-it-your-way dept.
tuc writes "In this document posted on its Developer Connection, Apple explains how to install X11R6 on Mac OS X, details of the default quartz-wm window manager, how to compile X11 code on Mac OS X, how to install OpenOffice, and the like."
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Apple Explains How to Run X11 on Mac OS X More

Apple Explains How to Run X11 on Mac OS X

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  • Weird (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:33PM (#11435436)
    How weird -- I'm right in the middle of doing exactly this (trying to port one of our UNIX products over to run on Mac OS X using an X server).

    I think I'll wait to RTFA until after I've tried everything on my own first. Nothing like thrashing randomly to help you learn about a system :-)

    • Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 )
      Isn't X-11 already available either on the mac-install disk and as part fo fink. Or are these just X-11 servers instead of being real cleints (using the bass-ackward X-11 speak)?

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:44PM (#11435582)
        Yeah, it's there. But you're thinking like a Linux user, not a developer :-) My job is more than just getting the thing to compile and run. I need to get it packaged up in a way suitable for endusers. We don't want to explain to our users how to get the X server running. They need to be able to just click and have the thing work.

        Like I said, I'm in the middle of the project right now, so I don't know if it will be easy or hard. But I think you're jumping to the conclusion that it'll be a piece of cake just a LITTLE too soon...

        • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

          by geoffspear ( 692508 ) *
          The OS X distribution of OpenOffice comes with a handy .app that starts up X and openoffice at the same time, just like you're running a normal mac application. It's a nice idea, even if I don't like OO.o that much on the whole. This might be the sort of thing you're looking for.

          On the other hand, it requires your end users to have X11 already installed and configured, which might be more of an issue for you, depending on your target audience.

      • Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Onan ( 25162 )

        Or are these just X-11 servers instead of being real cleints (using the bass-ackward X-11 speak)?

        It's not backward, and it's not X11 specific. People just tend to have an inaccurate idea of what "client" and "server" actually mean.

        The general tendency is to think of server as being "the big machine that does all the hard work for lots of little clients", or "the machine that provides some useful function, of which clients take advantage", and of course the client as the converse of these.

        While these

  • The real question (Score:5, Funny)

    by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:33PM (#11435445)
    Do they pronounce it 10-11?

  • Step 1: Double click X11.app (Score:5, Insightful)

    by punkass ( 70637 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:33PM (#11435450)
    Step 2: There is no step 2!
    • Well, the article does go into more detail than that and it's probably useful to someone starting out with X11. On the other hand, I'm not sure how this qualifies for /.'s front page.

      I should try submitting "Apple posts technical Q&A on variable arguments in Objective-C methods" as a slashdot article, if every update to the ADC website needs its own story.

    • Re:Step 1: Double click X11.app (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alien Being ( 18488 ) * on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:47PM (#11435633)
      Yeah, but which mouse button do I use? Oh, never mind.
    • The article says nothing about starting an X app. Read through yourself, it only talking about building and installing. Maybe implied starting since screenshots are shown, but nothing specifically mentioned.
    • "Step 2: There is no step 2!"

      Depends. If you're running anything in KDE or Gnome, there's quite a few steps that Apple doesn't go into. I was quite perturbed to install KDE, have it start up successful, and get the Quartz WM trying to take it over (imagine KDE dialogs with Quartz close buttons). It took me a long time to figure out exactly what needed to be added to the .rc file to curb this behavior.
      • All you have to do it type fink describe bundle-kde | less

        To use KDE as your windowing system in XDarwin, create a file called
        ".xinitrc" in your home directory, containing the following line:
        .
        /sw/bin/startkde >/tmp/kde.log 2>&1
        .
        See http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/x11/run-xfree86.ph p#xinitrc
        for more information on the xinitrc files and how they work.
        .
        If you want to use Apple's X11 instead of the KDE window manager,
        put the following line before the startkde line in .xinitrc:
        .
        export K

    • Step 2: There is no step 2!

      Actually Step 2 is get Fink or Darwin ports for the applications. While Fink has been pretty good in the past, I've switched to darwinports as its more tested, and multi-platform. Darwinports also has less compile issues on popular ports.

      Also nice you can run X apps in a -rootless display in mac by default. I even run VNC with Xquartz on the OSX box, i havnt used my linux box since ive bought the dual cpu mac.

  • X on windows (Score:3, Funny)

    by datadriven ( 699893 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:33PM (#11435455) Homepage
    It won't be long before windows does this too...ow wait.
  • I'm not sure that I get this. Its my recollection that X11 was included "in the box" with Panther. You had to download their beta version on 10.2 or could use XDarwin otherwise.

    Why is this worthy of comment?

    Hey, look! An MSDN bulletin on a strange but useful utility called, um, lets's see, uh, Notepad!
    • I think it's that they point out how to compile stuff for X11. (i.e., when you install XCode, you have to remember to click the checkbox that says, "Install X11 libraries" or whatever)

      Not that a bulletin on the existence of a clearly-visible checkbox is news, either.

      Really, the most interesting and useful thing in this article for me was the screenshot of XGalaga. I didn't know this game existed. I like Galaga, so I'm going to hunt it down this afternoon so I can install it on my (already incredibly fu

    • Re:Slow news day? (Score:4, Informative)

      by JHromadka ( 88188 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:42PM (#11435562) Homepage
      X11 isn't installed by default. You have to do a custom Panther install.
    • It's not included in a default install, and even if it were the configuration and working of X11 running on top of the Apple native Quartz windowing system is a bit different to the usual X11 experience. This gives a little depth to what goes on behind the scenes.

      Double clicking an icon to start the X server is weird enough on its own.

  • Reaction to OpenOffice (Score:4, Insightful)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:40PM (#11435536) Homepage
    IMHO this is a reaction to the announcement that no aquafied OpenOffice is planned [slashdot.org].

    Apple doesn't want people to think they are locked into MS Office (hope it continues to support Mac OS X).

    This way, Apple can say commercial grade alternatives do exist.

    Apple's products aren't bad... but lets face it, they target home and educational use. Not a business person who wants to occasionally work from home. Microsoft does have powerful software, despite being buggy and insecure.

    IMHO Open Office rocks. Wish Apple would invest in an aquafied port.

    • Re:Reaction to OpenOffice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:46PM (#11435618) Homepage Journal
      IMHO this is a reaction to the announcement that no aquafied OpenOffice is planned.
      Apple doesn't want people to think they are locked into MS Office (hope it continues to support Mac OS X).
      This way, Apple can say commercial grade alternatives do exist.

      No, this is. [apple.com]
      • iWork doesnt have a spreadsheet. Maybe so Microsoft wont dump MS Office support on OSX.

        I'd still use Openoffice over iWork.
      • Where's the Excel replacement?

        Oh, there isn't one? Guess I'll have to wait for version 2, since iWork with spreadsheets every day and I haven't found a decent Mac spreadsheet app besides Excel. OpenOffice's spreadsheet program is non-native, ass-slow, and supports half as many rows as Excel does (32,000 versus 65,536). Gnumeric is even worse than OpenOffice at reading or writing Excel files, and it too is not Mac native.
      • Hate to break it to you, but Apple's iWork, or AppleWorks doesn't even come close.

        It's fine for kids doing homework, or a casual home user...

        but in terms of interoperability... it stinks.

        Business people can't afford to spend time dealing with "iWorks doesn't support _______".

        End users are *not* geeks. They want simple equvilants. iWork is not an equivilant.

        It's a good product. But it's not an office product.

        Apple *needs* an office product. It's essential to it being viewed as a productive platform
        • Hate to fix it for you, but [apple.com]:

          "You can, for one, export your journal or newsletter as a PDF document, so that anyone with the free Acrobat Reader can enjoy it. You also have the option of exporting it as a Word, HTML, RTF or text-only file -- cross-platform formats one and all."

          Perhaps do some research before correcting someone.

          Also, I believe you're confusing iWork for something else. 'Kids doing homework' is another way of saying that an application is underpowered and lacks serious features. To state

    • Re:Reaction to OpenOffice (Score:5, Informative)

      by JJahn ( 657100 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:50PM (#11435674)
      To those who want an aquafied OpenOffice, please check out NeoOffice [neooffice.org]. They are working to make OpenOffice more MacOS native. Currently, they have removed the need for X11, put in Aquafied menus, and native printer and font support. Sure, its not perfect yet, but its getting there.

    • Re:Reaction to OpenOffice (Score:4, Interesting)

      by richmaine ( 128733 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:55PM (#11435720)
      You pigeonhole them too much.

      As of OS-X, there is a *LOT* of interest in Apple systems as engineering workstations. That's what I'm using, as are many people I know. This mac replaced my linux box at work.

      The big interest in Macs as engineering workstations isn't exactly a big secret.... anyway not to anyone in the engineering field.

      Yes, there are also plenty of other platforms used. Still a lot of Sun/Linux/other boxes here as engineering workstations, and that isn't about to change in the near future. The Macs aren't suddenly taking over it all - but they are certainly now a significant player in that market.

    • eWeek article on "cancelation" with clarification (Score:5, Informative)

      by soullessbastard ( 596494 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @04:05PM (#11435816) Homepage Journal
      Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project.

      Well, as it turns out my update to the timeline was grossly misquoted in a couple of places. The update was really just to put things in perspective as to what was really going on in the various projects as well as to reinforce the importance of the X11 work. It was never intended to "cancel" anything since, well, there wasn't really anything to cancel. The update was just stating how things really are within the project.

      Today's article on eWeek [eweek.com] has some much better reporting on the progress towards 2.0 X11 and other issues that had been raised by my update. I highly recommend giving it a read as it's a bit more informative then the old /. comments in that thread.

      ed
    • Apple's products aren't bad... but lets face it, they target home and educational use. Not a business person who wants to occasionally work from home. Microsoft does have powerful software, despite being buggy and insecure.

      So, I'm a network engineer who does all his work on a Powerbook. Do I qualify as "home" or "educational"?

  • Remote Applications (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:41PM (#11435545) Homepage Journal
    It's worth remembering that an X application doesn't have to run on the same system as the terminal. So even if you can't get the source code, you might be able to run the software, provided you're willing to spring for a Unix box the software supports. That might be useful for people who need commercial applications (such as FrameMaker) which are no longer available for the Mac, but is still supported for Solaris.

    • Re:Remote Applications (Score:5, Informative)

      by sootman ( 158191 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:55PM (#11435723) Homepage Journal
      Or like when I ssh home (um, at lunch, right) and play Freecell. :-) Or run nedit, then go help -> about and see "Built on Linux, x86." Fun fun fun.

      In all seriousness, I guess the deal here is that it's a newer version than what ships as X11.app? 'About' says 'X11 1.0 - XFree86 4.3.0'. I know the '1.0' refer's to the fact that it's *Apple's* 1.0, but can someone who spends more time with X than I do explain the significance of X11R6?

      [later]

      OK, I just looked at TFA. The title of this summary is a bit misleading--this title is "Apple Explains How to Run X11 on MacOS" but the actual article's title is "Configuring and Running X11 Applications on Mac OS X" and in goes on to say "X11 for Mac OS X... includes the full X11R6.6 technology including an X11 window server, Quartz window manager, libraries, and basic utilities such as xterm." OK, got it. I think. Still not sure how R6 and 4.3.0 relate, but the main thing is, there is nothing new here. They're talking about the X11 that OS X ships with.
      • I should have thought to mention SSH -- a simple low-resource way to establish a secure connection to a server. Those of us in the Windows world who want to use access company networks have to reply on VPNs -- which are pretty resource-intensive.

        I do use SSH to synchronize my Linux-hosted web site with its staging area on my Windows box. But that's done with command-line tools, since I don't have any X-Window support. Can't afford commercial X terminals, and the only free one I know of (X for Cygwin) does

      • Re:Remote Applications (Score:5, Informative)

        by drew ( 2081 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @05:02PM (#11436467) Homepage
        X11 is an open group specification that is implemented by XFree86, X.org, and a number of commercial X servers. R6.6 is the current version of that specification.

        4.3.0 is the version of the Xfree86 software that Apple ships with OS X, which implements X11R6.6.

      • Re:Remote Applications (Score:4, Informative)

        by jsebrech ( 525647 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @05:23PM (#11436712)
        I know the '1.0' refer's to the fact that it's *Apple's* 1.0, but can someone who spends more time with X than I do explain the significance of X11R6?

        X11 is two things, a standard for windowing systems, and a series of implementations of that standard. X11, the standard, is developed by the X.org foundation, at www.x.org. The current base version of that is version 11, release 6, X11R6. Don't let the version 11 thing fool you though, X has been at version 11 since 1987, and likely will never get to version 12, which is why everyone just calls it X11.

        As for the implementations ... originally it was simply X11, developed by the X consortium. However, since they were slow to adapt to new platforms or technologies (notably the x86 platform becoming powerful enough to run unix), a spin-off project called XFree86 evolved (it's a bit more complicated, but then who needs details). They became the de-facto reference implementation of X11, even if they didn't have the honor of owning any of the X consortium IP (like trademarks and so on). However, the leadership of the XFree86 project a while ago decided that they would change the license in ways the community did not like. As a result, the last truly free version of XFree86 is 4.3, which is the code that Apple's X11 1.0 is based on. X.org was founded around the same timeframe to step into the void left by the XFree86 project's implosion, and they now develop the official reference implementation (currently X.Org X11R6.8.1). Likely, in the future, apple's X11 will be based on the X.Org code.
    • I regularly ssh from my PowerBook in my office to our backup server, then run the Arkeia GUI over the connection.

      Or at least I did, until something broke Fink's install of X11. Dammit.
    • It was immensely helpful in administering the SGI box at my last job, we ran fullpress and all of the easy admin tools were part of the 'toolchest' or whatever they call it in IRIX, x-windows based of course. I was able to run the x-app on my local machine finally, previously had to use the PC.

    • That might be useful for people who need commercial applications (such as FrameMaker) which are no longer available for the Mac, but is still supported for Solaris.

      I did a bunch of research on the viability of running the Solaris build of FrameMaker on OS X/X11 when embroiled in a couple large jobs last year. With the frequency of the Classic environment tanking on me--FM being the only app running within it--I figured the Solaris version was a natural alternative. Sadly it's not that easy, being that Ado

      • I'm not talking about running Solaris FrameMaker on Mac -- I'm talking about running Solaris FrameMaker on Solaris, and making it available to Mac users on the same network. As I said before, X terminals can be used with software running on remote systems. In fact, X was originally designed for dedicated terminal systems, which wouldn't run any software at all, except for the terminal software. A concept which never caught on, probably because an X Terminal cost more than a PC.

        The other people who replie

  • FINK (Score:3, Informative)

    by chadpnet ( 627771 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:44PM (#11435587) Homepage
    We have been doing this via fink for quite some time now. http://fink.sourceforge.net/

  • XFree86? Why not X.org? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:45PM (#11435599)
    Apple's X11 implementation is based on the widely-used XFree86 project

    Is apple going to switch to X.org, since most everyone else has already? or are they sticking with XFree86 for the long run? What kinds of compatibility issues will develop as a result of that?

  • For the security guys (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:48PM (#11435642) Homepage
    I rather like how the instructions talk about how to run X11 remotely, and the first thing they do is tell how to do it over ssh, with simple, easy to understand directions on how to do it. That is how "how to" manuals should be written.

    2 points to Apple for doing that, and making my coworkers jobs a little harder (they're penetration testers).

  • I found Abiword to be much easier than OO (Score:5, Informative)

    by sesshomaru ( 173381 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:55PM (#11435725) Journal
    If all you need is a word processor, there's a native version of AbiWord for OSX that seems to work great:

    http://www.abisource.com/ [abisource.com]

    I could never get OO to work on OS X, though I use it on my Windows Machine.

  • Minor OpenOffice.org corrections (Score:5, Informative)

    by soullessbastard ( 596494 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:56PM (#11435734) Homepage Journal
    Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice [neooffice.org] project.

    I happily noticed this myself earlier on in the week and was impressed to find the OpenOffice.org related section. Unfortunately there are some inaccuracies in the section, but I couldn't find any address to which corrections should be submitted.

    Perhaps the most major omission is that the OpenOffice.org Mac OS X (X11) installer is not limited to 10.3 only. In fact, it supports both 10.2 and 10.3. For 10.2 users it also will automatically install XFree86 and a window manager if the system does not have XFree86 on it. Since Apple X11 is not redistributable under its license, 10.3 users are required ot manually install Apple X11. Ironically, that makes installation on 10.3 more inconvenient then 10.2!

    On the trinity forums [neooffice.org] Smokey also noticed the file format "incompatibility" line in the article. It isn't actually true since OpenOffice.org is 100% compatible with StarOffice which, last I checked, is a commercial office suite even if it doesn't run on Mac OS X :)

    Even with the little foibles, it's great to see support from Apple for X11 applications in general as well as a basic introduction that can help open up the entire world of X11 OSS applications for users, not just OpenOffice.org.

    ed

  • Dumb explanation of X 'client' / 'server' (Score:3, Informative)

    by figlet ( 83424 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @03:57PM (#11435740) Homepage
    In the section "Which Machine Is the Client?", they completely mess up the explanation. What is wrong with just saying "The X server is a display server. X applications are clients (running on your machine or another machine) which request the server (which may be running on your machine) to do something ("draw a line", etc)."
    • In the section "Which Machine Is the Client?", they completely mess up the explanation.
      Heck, I'd say they completely mess up the question. It makes more sense if you ask, "Which process is the client?" Since most people run the server and clients on the same machine (at least on Unix workstations), their question can only lead to confusion.

  • Please don't use X11 OpenOffice on OS X (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VAXGeek ( 3443 ) on Friday January 21, 2005 @04:20PM (#11435990) Homepage
    If you want OpenOffice on OS X, help make one of the NATIVE ports more popular by using it. NeoOffice/J [neooffice.org] It's a totally native client that uses Java to render the UI. (Native Java? These are strange days.) Please help keep X11 apps off OS X.
    I realize we're stuck with X11 on Unix, but if you're sitting on top of Quartz, might as well use it, no?
    • If you want OpenOffice on OS X, help make one of the NATIVE ports more popular by using it

      Bah, silly developer. This is good- any true MacOS X developer who actually tries out OpenOffice under X11 will, after his or her face has stopped twitching enough that they can see again, look for some alternative and find NeoOffice and start helping purely out of motivation to let OpenOffice under X11 die a fast death :-)

  • XDarwin forums still the best place to get advice (Score:4, Informative)

    by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) * on Friday January 21, 2005 @04:32PM (#11436120) Homepage Journal
    The Apple article was helpful and all but there are guys who have been working on the XFree86 port for a long time, like since 2002 or something, so if you need a place to get answers to running X apps on OSX, keep an eye on www.xdarwin.org/forum [xdarwin.org]

  • Woo (Score:3, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Friday January 21, 2005 @05:15PM (#11436610) Homepage
    Great, I was just thinking the other day, "Ok, having UNIX underpinnings is great, but I miss the clunky, inefficient, bloated, ugly and outdated graphical interface that I used to have with linux and solaris."

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