[jfpoole]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/

It looks a lot better than the other implementations of X for Mac OS X that I've seen, and it's rootless. Worth checking out if you're a Unix geek.

 

[dthompson101]

Giddy UP!!! Woo HOO. Can't wait to set this up.

Very nice keynote today. I have to say that indeed their new safari browser if very fast and streamlined

 

[jfpoole]

dthompson101 wrote:
"Giddy UP!!! Woo HOO. Can't wait to set this up. "

It's quite nice; for some reason an xterm feels far more responsive than Terminal.app. I woulder how hard it is to port X applications from Unix to Mac OS X now?

"Very nice keynote today. I have to say that indeed their new safari browser if very fast and streamlined"

Indeed! Safari is *very* snappy. I'm quite pleased.

 

[hayesk]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jfpoole:
dthompson101 wrote:
It's quite nice; for some reason an xterm feels far more responsive than Terminal.app. I woulder how hard it is to port X applications from Unix to Mac OS X now?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are thousands already done. Apple's X11 is XFree86 which has been available for MacOS X for over a year, but I'm sure Apple configured theirs to be more friendly. Apparently there is little porting to be done, just some reconfigging of makefiles and a few little bits in the code (if any).

 

[elmer]

Hearing about this, I'm hoping we'll see better optimization and integration between X11 apps and the rest of the system. As far as I know you can't have an X11 app in the dock, or set it as the application for opening certain kinds of files? I'm thinking primarily of the Gimp.
I noticed this new X11 only runs on 10.2.x.

 

[robert]

elmer, this is Apples subtle way of forcing the use of X over 9. All software releases yesterday require at least 10.1.3/5. I have spent the last year slowly converting software to X. Pricey job, but well worth it. Adobe rocks under X. As does Appleworks. (although an upgrade would be nice)
Robert

 

[elmer]

Actually, I was referring to how it requires Jaguar as opposed to 10.1.x.
MacOS 9 is not really something I think about much

 

[jfpoole]

hayesk wrote:
"There are thousands already done. Apple's X11 is XFree86 which has been available for MacOS X for over a year, but I'm sure Apple configured theirs to be more friendly. Apparently there is little porting to be done, just some reconfigging of makefiles and a few little bits in the code (if any)."

Good point; I'd forgotten about the earlier implementation of X11.

I'm quite pleased, though, that I was able to build XEmacs last night without a lot of grief. Granted, the widgets look like crap compared to Aqua widgets, but I guess you can't win them all.

 

[Sever]

Sweeeet.

Been at a clients for two days. Come back and look what shows up, a nice new shiny X11.

Can't wait to mess with it.

 

[PosterBoy]

So being a Nerd, but not so much of a UNIX Nerd as yet, can someone point me in the direction of some info on X11, and what software a user such as myself might be interested in running (besides OpenOffice) that requires X11?

--PB

 

[jfpoole]

PosterBoy wrote:
So being a Nerd, but not so much of a UNIX Nerd as yet, can someone point me in the direction of some info on X11

There's a good introduction to X11 available at http://www.visi.com/~grante/Xtut/.

and what software a user such as myself might be interested in running (besides OpenOffice) that requires X11?

Unless there's a specific piece of Unix software that you want to run on Mac OS X that doesn't have an Aqua port, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that you'd want to run. I'm running XEmacs under X11 because the Aqua port isn't very good at all.

 

[Sever]

I haven't really done anything with it, but I would think that you could load up Gnome, couldn't you jfpoole?

And if so, have you tried it. Maybe not as 'light' as the 10.2 version of aqua, but maybe it is.

Blender on Linux always flies, so that may be worth tinkering with as well.


I have to stop working and start playing with the guts of 10.2, missing all the fun

 

[islander]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> PosterBoy:

... can someone point me in the direction of some info on X11, and what software a user such as myself might be interested in running (besides OpenOffice) that requires X11? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I had installed fink + xDarwin just a few days before MWSF. That was so I could (learn to) use the GIMP--a freeware UNIX app more or less the equivalent of PhotoShop. I had just started the 'learning process' when lo and behold Apple's X11 implementation happened.

I removed the existing X11 stuff (via some godawful long UNIX sudo command) and with fingers crossed installed the Apple X11. And it works and seems much faster (with the GIMP anyway) than what I had originally installed. Not sure what additional UNIX apps I'll try but I'm ready for 'em.

 

[gordguide]

There are a lot of apps that it will run. KDE and Gnome are basically window managers, which X11 also is.
Gimp isn't exactly as polished as PhotoShop but it does work. If you've used UNIX/Linux it's allright but if all you've used are Mac apps you may get frustrated with the interface.
One really cool app is Film-Gimp which is alternative to Apple's Cinema Tools.
If you're interested in this stuff start with X11 and Fink (which somewhat simplifies getting *Nix apps on your box).

Film Gimp
Fink

 

[jfpoole]

Sever wrote:
I haven't really done anything with it, but I would think that you could load up Gnome, couldn't you jfpoole?

Gnome would also require *at least* GTK+ (there is a Mac port available here), if not other libraries. I have no idea how hard it would be to get Gnome working....

And if so, have you tried it. Maybe not as 'light' as the 10.2 version of aqua, but maybe it is.

I've tried Gnome before. There's a reason why my Linux machines all just run X Windows and sawfish

Blender on Linux always flies, so that may be worth tinkering with as well.

There's a Mac OS X port of Blender, no?

 

[jfpoole]

gordguide wrote:
There are a lot of apps that it will run. KDE and Gnome are basically window managers, which X11 also is.

Actually, Gnome and KDE are desktop environments; neither one provides the services window managers provide. Plus, all X Windows does is provide methods for creating windows, handling events, and throwing pixels on the screen; I'm not sure you can run X Windows without a window manager of some sort (and if you could, would you want to).

 

[elmer]

Version 0.2beta is now out. Some good bug fixes and enhancements.
I especially like these changes:
- fixed the library build bug
- respects the system's keyboard mapping
- can set it to no-click-to-focus

 

[Mississauga]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by elmer:
Version 0.2beta is now out. Some good bug fixes and enhancements.
I especially like these changes:
- fixed the library build bug
- respects the system's keyboard mapping
- can set it to no-click-to-focus<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Have you launched OpenOffice under the new X11? Some bugs fixed, others introduced. X11 now behaves more like XDarwin. Resizing and moving windows is not specifically Mac friendly any longer... at least on my 9600/G4 at home. Not going to install this latest version at the office... waiting for next update.

Overall speed and UI look has improved.

 

[elmer]

Oops - should have put a disclaimer - haven't tried the update yet because my powerbook is in the mail... thanks for the warning, Mississauga

 

[Chealion]

Well they just released 0.2.1 which was supposed to fix some more bugs, I have nothing to use with it yet, but well it looks like Apple employees have been working very hard.