Slashdot Mirror
Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP
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."
2000 is faster and more stable.
I haven't used it myself, as I use linux here for my machine. But someone I know, I helped them install it onto their machine, and we got it running xdmcp over the network to a linux box, making a quick X-terminal. It seems to work fairly well.
It works OK for most purposes. Creating a new remote KDE session will lead to some icons not being shown but I guess that has more to do with KDE than the X Server.
Only downside is the rotten window manager twm that comes as default.
That's like saying a piece of Linux software is "for Mandrake 8.2". Most win32 software will run on 95, 98, ME, NT, 2k, and XP. Yes, yes, there are exceptions.
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 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.
To overcome slashdotting, here is the mirror list that host cygwin software: (from cygwin's website) The following sites generously agreed to mirror our main Cygwin ftp site. To save you download time, please choose the one nearest to you! Note: We maintain a list of sites who have indicated that they are acting as mirrors of the full cygwin FTP area. We poll this list on a regular basis to determine if these sites are currently available. The list of sites below reflects all of the sites who appear to be on-line and acting as mirrors. If you think that your site should be listed below or if you would like to add your site to the list please contact us. Mirror Sites: * Asia: o Hong Kong: ftp.carfield.com.hk, www.carfield.com.hk o Japan: ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp, ring.aist.go.jp, ring.asahi-net.or.jp, ring.astem.or.jp, ring.crl.go.jp, ring.exp.fujixerox.co.jp, ring.ip-kyoto.ad.jp, ring.jah.ne.jp, ring.so-net.ne.jp o Korea: linux.sarang.net o Russia: ftp.chg.ru o Taiwan: ftp.nctu.edu.tw * Australia: o Australia: mirror.aarnet.edu.au, mirror.aarnet.edu.au, planetmirror.com, planetmirror.com * Europe: o Austria: gd.tuwien.ac.at o Belgium: ftp.easynet.be, ftp.skynet.be o Czech Republic: ftp.fee.vutbr.cz, sunsite.ms.mff.cuni.cz o Denmark: sunsite.dk o Finland: ftp.funet.fi o France: ftp.oav.net, ftp.oav.net o Germany: ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de, ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de, ftp.uni-erlangen.de, ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de, ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de, ftp.inf.tu-dresden.de o Greece: ftp.ntua.gr o Poland: sunsite.icm.edu.pl o Portugal: ftp.eq.uc.pt, ftp.eq.uc.pt o Slovakia: ftp.tuke.sk, ftp.tuke.sk o Spain: ftp.rediris.es o Sweden: ftp.sunet.se o Switzerland: sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch o UK: ftp.ccp14.dl.ac.uk, ftp.mirror.ac.uk, ftp.plig.net, programming.ccp14.ac.uk o Ukraine: ftp.tlk-l.net., ftp.tlk-l.net. * North America: o California: ftp.nas.nasa.gov o Delaware: ftp.lug.udel.edu, ftp.lug.udel.edu o Florida: ftp.cise.ufl.edu o Illinois: mirror.mcs.anl.gov, uiarchive.uiuc.edu, mirror.mcs.anl.gov, uiarchive.uiuc.edu o Indiana: archive.progeny.com, archive.progeny.com, archive.progeny.com o Maryland: mirrors.umbc.edu o Virginia: mirrors.rcn.net, mirrors.rcn.net * Pacific: o Hawaii: videl.ics.hawaii.edu * South America: o Brazil: ftp.matrix.com.br, ftp.unicamp.br, cygwin.matrix.com.br, www.softaplic.com.br o Peru: ftp.sajinet.com.pe Regardless of the origin of the tools, please be sure to read the download instructions which explains how to get get everything working, starting with the installation process. Enjoy!
...downloaded setup.exe just for the hell of it? :)
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. =)
.f00Dave
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
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'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
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.
:-). You can of course use it to run remote applications on a unix server (this works perfect).
/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 :-).
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
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
Jilles
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.
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
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
There's a few things that won't compile out of the box for cygwin, but for the most part the X stuff's pretty good at being an xserver. I've mostly got cygwin installed as a devel env for windows opengl stuff though.
I'm stuck with a windows machine at work, yet I'm doing development for AIX systems. Cygwin and the XFree86 server allow me to export a display from an AIX server on our network, essentially giving me a UNIX box within windows. So far I've had no issues with stability, although there is a bug where the XServer had to be restarted when I change windows screen properties such as num. of colors or resolution.
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:
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).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.
I love it and have been running it for a while. I use blackbox 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, GnuCash, Red-Carpet 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.
I have been using this for about 9 months now for doing xdmcp to a freebsd box running xdm, such as how they suggest. i have found it to be rock solid.
i run the latest server in the server test series. 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 running bochs. 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...
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.
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
Soccer Goal Plans
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.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
Another oddity is that ever since I followed these directions 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).
Let me start by saying I love Cygwin - I use the shell and many utilities on a daily basis.
However, my biggest peeve is that if you want to compile a *nix program, a large percentage of the time you have to tweak the Makefile to statically link certain files (instead of dynamically; as I recall this is mostly apps that deal in some respect with graphics). So, one ends up spending a fair bit of time hunting down why someone else's program won't compile...
I should say, though, that this is getting better - as more people use/become aware of Cygwin, more and more apps are starting to include autoconf "platform" options for Cygwin, taking away the guesswork.
Rant over.
That should have been these directions for setting up sshd.
I've been using it on XP for a while, no complaints really.
It's a little on the slow side, but just about everything using cygwin is, it's hard to avoid.
As somebody else mentioned, there's some quirks with KDE, but I've been exporting my KDE sessions on my laptop out to it on my desktop occasionaly with no major problems*.
*Until last night that is. Seems KDE 3.0.2 threw a major quirk in. None of the icons are showing up. Ah well, I'll work it out later.
That's like saying a piece of Linux software is "for Mandrake 8.2".
No, it's like saying a piece of Linux software is "for Linux Standard Base x.xx". Microsoft introduces improvements to its standard libraries in every OS revision, and sometimes bug fixes break apps that had depended on buggy behavior.
The announcement was that Cygwin XFree86 had been 1. successfully ported to Windows XP, and 2. upgraded to XFree 4.2.0.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How stupid are you people!!
I have been using Cygwin for years. The X Window (NOTE Window NOT Windows (morons)) support is quite good. Harold Hunt (the main Cygwin X-Window guy) has done a great job (give him an interview on Slashdot). Cygwin is one of the best free (all ways) software projects/packages around.
LOL windows xp has xfree86 4.2.0 before debian!
haha...
emacs
Hs anyone tried any 3d engineering applications with this product? How's the OpenGL support?
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
the windows machine has ttf installed...your *nix machines probably do not.
you can install ttf for your *nix machines if you want.
I use GNOME on linux, with the Cygwin XFree, is it possible for me to access the exact same desktop (with the same apps as they are etc) on a networked windows box?
Is that at all possible?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
It shouldn't be hard for newcomers as it features a setup.exe
I never understood that whole setup.exe thing. Why do they call an obvious installer a Setup.exe program? I mean, that's just not user-friendly. I bet you that they couldn't call it an installer back in the day because they feared retaliation from Apple and then only now do they have the balls to call it one. Too late, Setup.exe caught on instead.
Is it possible to run X "rootless" in winblows like you can in OS X? It'd be really nice to be able to have X apps appear side by side with winblows ones. Plus maybe then I could convince people that they should use evolution instead of outlook. And having galeon in winblows would rock too.. its tabs are just plain better than moz's.
Did you see that? I actually used "its" instead of "it's" for possessive! It's really not that hard people...
"Caffeine is not an option. Caffeine is a way of life."
Not to make too fine a point of it, but the X on X has delivered over a year ago already.
It's not only a plain part of XFree86 itself, with the feature-rich XDarwin tying X11 neatly into Mac OS X, including both rooted and rootless display modes. It's also complemented with an elegant window manager like OroborosX that makes the X legacy apps maximally Aqua-conformant.
There's just no reason whatsoever to waste time on Windows. None.
IMHO it works better then Xwin32. Then again , i ran it through xdm login , not with local wm. Smooth going after KDE gets fired up.No redrawind problems like i saw in other X servers for wintel.
If someone could use Windows XP's "Remote Desktop" where the remote desktop protocol is mapped to the x-protocol.
Then all users would have to do is double-click here 'n there to get into their fav. Unix/Linux box.
Wouldn't M$ just love that?
You're joking right? The setup for Cygwin is awful...you have to manually select every little package you want, it takes for ever to download, and a base install can be as big as 400 MB! OTOH, it is a great free Xserver platform...I use it with XDMCP both at work and at home. I found if you use it with commercial unixes you just need to be sure to run a font server on the Unix box and point Xwin (the X server) to it.
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, 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 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.
Debian really needs to change their "we support all architectures" policy. Windows, *Windows* mind you, has a Linux package that should've been on Debian months ago. What is taking Debian so fscking long to keep up with the times? I say dump the obscure processor policy and tell those hapless lusers: "FOAD, we've got packages to port."
Get a life moron. There are some people who while being stuck with this shitware called Win XP, want to use an X server.
As for me I fail to see the logic of having any winblows OS installed on my PC. XFREE86 works great on my SuSE Linux.
'ls' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\>
Never again.
No sig to see here. Move along.
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.
Well if you looked at the page you'd see that, contrary to the Slashdot submission, it runs on all recent Windows versions: "as of 2002-05-12 those versions are specifically Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP".
He knows that. What he's referring to is the ability of software like eXceed and Xwin/32 to use Windows as a window manager; so X becomes transparent. You get a little systray icon you can pop up for settings/security, etc, and other than that, windows just appear like normal windows windows to be maximized/minimized whatever.
Xfree can't do that.
Used it myself a few weeks ago for an Oracle Installation. I recommend Cygwin to everyone I know for not just X but for ssh, apache, cron, expect, perl,python, the list goes on and on and on...=)
Not like it's gonna happen, though.
The absolute last thing MS wants is for a university to be able to buy a handful of Windows servers to put in the back room and manage centrally while the labs go on using X terminals.
That doesn't force them into investing heavily in MS infrastructure.. so what's the point.
Microsoft has already said they want nothing to do with GPL, and have further gone to say that interaction or usage of GPL'ed software on their systems is prohibited. How long will this last until Microsoft tries to say its illegal to run on their OS?
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
I always knew the Xfree devs were pot smokers
hence the 4.2.0.
What was your username again? -BOFH
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)
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I use it every day since forever. Definitely before May. It has been available since before that in previous versions. I have used it every day together with the other cygwin tools (ssh of course) to open applicatons from our sun boxen at work and my Linux boxen at home. I basically run it full screen and use very few other tools at all. It works like a charm on Win2k ... I have never had any crashes and I run most all of my KDE apps from home without a problem. I would definitely recommend it! It works better than many commercial X servers out there, especially since you implicitely have access to to the full UNIX command shell. Look at it, ENJOY IT!
Life's like that
Granted, I did not roll my own, check the sources, read the FAQs, hit the lists, or hold my breath. I just used the default installer blindly.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Bash, Apache, PHP, MySQL, gcc, binutils, openssh, etc, etc..
./configure.
The X works without configuration. Setup windowmaker as the default desktop manager.
Download and installed the startalk tarball. Appears to work up until actual use. Used a serial port monitor. Can see it get up to the point where it does the initial AT commands and recieves an OK back from the motorola phone/modem but it stops there. Need to look into it further. Had to change one line of source to get it to compile (Replaced a psignal with a fprintf to stderr) and added the --no-locking option to
I'm very happy with the performance and wish there were more packages available through the automated setup.exe's package management. Although if the compiles from source continue to be as easy as this. I may not care.
The only caveat is that I already had what I needed on Windows (Apache MySQL PHP Perl) and only needed the X Server. So there is a bit of overlap here.
It looks like maybe a bug in fluxbox. You mention developing an application, so I'm going to assume you know what a pure virtual function is and why it shouldn't be called. I don't see why changing shell scripts would cause one to be though. Maybe a config file, if fluxbox has buggy config file code that corrupts memory. I would look at stack traces and fluxbox code. It also might be a case of corrupted memory. (Oh, joy.)
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?
You must be really, really new to computers if you think something from 1995 is "old, old".
Is there any kind of "rootless" window manager for the Win32 port of XFree86?
If you're using rootless Blackbox from Fink on XDarwin, you know what I'm talking about...
- Benad
I've been using xfree86 on win32 for several months now, as it has been buildable from source for some time. It is a bit slower than exceed, and doesn't run rootless (i.e., there is always a window around it). But, it is liberated - and functional ... what more could you ask for? ;-P
I am guessing that it is slower because of a few required hacks in cygwin ... like fork(), select(), etc. that have to be approximated on win32 (certain posix/*nix-esque primitives do not exist). These cyg hacks are quite slow. But, don't complain, these folks bring us wonderful ports of liberated software.
Also, kde 2.1 and gnome1.4 are ported to win32/cyg/xfree and are mostly functional. I use windowmaker, though, as it is much more stable at this point.
mx
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, 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...
--
Benjamin Coates
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i have found that weirdx works quicker and better than cygwin. weirdx supports rootless mode (such that x windows look just like regular windows windows, without having to have a separate canvas), alpha transparency (i believe this is why it was mentioned on slashdot years ago), and is written in java. in fact, it's the fastest java app i've ever used.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Works now :) they are adding more support...e sound.html
http://www.sitecity.net/cygwin-audio/
The best xclient for windows ive found is... Xthin pro
http://www.labtam-inc.com/
May linux finally subvert the desktop from ms!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
wanting to name everything X.
xbox, x11, xfree, xp, modx, activex, xpandit, xxx
Don't forget SSH! I use the SSH
client all the time under CYGWIN.
A few features of SSH are really great:
1) "-C" option (for compression).
2) "-X" option for encrypted X communication.
The combination is pretty powerful.
And of course, being SSH, the entire
connection is encrypted as well!
The command line (typically entered
in a shell window once you have the
X server running on your PC):
ssh -C -X user@hostname
If you have LINUX/UNIX on the other end,
you must (as an administrator) set the
X11 forwarding feature.
But once you do, here's what happens:
ssh -C -X user@hostname
prompt-from-host >
If you do an "echo $DISPLAY"
you should see something like
remotehost:10
Try firing up X clients and see what happens.
"-C" seems to speed up things quite a bit,
even on a high-speed connection.
Another tip for speed/compression: LBXPROXY. This has been part of X11
for a long time, and is specifically designed
for modem users (LBX = Low-Bandwidth X).
It is not too hard to set up and is built
in to all (I think) X11 servers & clients (including this CYGWIN version).
I tried the x server on both Win95 and WINNT, They are OK, KDE can also be run(WINNT), but very slow.
crash often if you run KDE applications. I don't know why. I mainly use it for X-tunnelling with SSH to connect with my linux machine. NO annoying 30 minutes limit by X-win pro.
Very nice port.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I uesd it to install KDE 2.2 and mess around. Having never used Linux seriously I found it quite a learning experience, and am putting together a linux box.
However, I found that KDE's performance via Cygwin was extremely slow (AthlonXP 1900+ & GeForce 3), and quite unstable (Applications were crashing and there seemed to be tons of bugs). Some people hailed this as a desktop replacement for Windows 95 users... I think they're kidding themselves.
Regards, Guspaz.
Here is the coolest part: I can ssh to SGI machines at work from cygwin and run OpenGL applications! (It is kind of slow... I can't tell if it's rendered in software or my little TNT1.)
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 $100+ graphics processor. Most respectable commercial X11 servers for MS Windows use this method.
- Clipboard integration - We have been working on this for a long time. Currently we have a seperate client, called xwinclip, that provides this functionality. We recently added support for passing Japanese text through xwinclip when running on NT/2000/XP.
- PseudoColor for TrueColor visuals - A lot of applications, particularly drawing or CAD programs, require a palette-based PseudoColor visual, while most people run Windows in TrueColor depths of 15, 16, 24, or 32 bit color. We would like to support PseudoColor visuals when our primary visual is a TrueColor visual. Some commercial X11 servers for MS Windows do this.
Go ahead and try Cygwin/XFree86 if you haven't already. We hope you like it. If you find some missing feature that you would like, then take a look at our source code and read our Contributor's Guide for instructions on how to download the source and build the tree, plus a general discussion of the technologies involved in Cygwin/XFree86. We bend over backwards to make it easier for developers new to the project to contribute.Harold
I use it to login to my SGI boxen. It handles OpenGL better than Starnet's X-WIN32 and it's free. I tried the Starnet demo and for some reason if you start an OpenGL app and move it somewhere else the OpenGL stays where you started off at in X-Win32.
I've also used X-Free to HP/UX and Redhat using XDCMP and it works great. My regular Xfree has FVWM2 now which compiled and ran without problems. Definitely recommended if you need X on Windo$e.
Can I just install XFree im my home-dir and run it from there(that would rock) or does the admin has to install it?(that would not happen anytime soon)
Michael
I'work great, in combination with lbxproxy (X server/client network traffic optimisation)
a really fast X on M$ killer app.
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.
try { println( SigString ); } catch( Exception e ) { println( 'Who cares?' ); }
I've been using XFree/Cygwin for quite some time. It's great, I just run it on my Win2k box and can simply alt-tab to my full screen gdm/xdmcp login session on my Linux box. It's nice and fast over my full duplex 100 switch, feels like I'm sitting at the console.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I got a portable that has XP home installed and found that security issues are a problem since cywin likes to put different users' home directories in /cygwin/home. XP home doesn't protect directories outside of the user's Document and Settings directory so you need to do something extra if your PC is used by more than one person. Either use something like junction points or manually use the cacls command to protect your cygwin directory structure.
I've setup cygwin to run my preferred window manager, Blackbox, under WindowsXP. It's nice because I can have a shortcut in the start menu that starts X directly (startxwin.bat) without having to open up a cygwin console and 'startx'. However, if I'm not mistaken, X under cygwin has been available long before May, as I've been using it for quite some time.
Screenshot:
http://oshuma.dynup.net/images/cygwin-winxp.png
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.
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
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That was most helpful.
... two commercial X servers which are faster and more convenient, IMHO.
The story gives the impression that setup.exe is for the XServer only, but it gets you the whole toolkit. You can pick and choose what you need.
Also, Cygnus is no longer an independant company. They got bought out by RedHat some time ago. See http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/.
I've been running cygwin for years. My job is a UNIX shop and the MKS toolkit just wasn't cutting it. It's come a long way, now I can do pretty much anything I need. I have Perl with Tk extensions, a decent Bash shell, grep, sed, and all their friends. It makes the command shell actually usable. I have my bash shell with the current diretory in the title bar just like on good ol' UNIX. The cygwin shell is ANSI escape code compliant. Then you have stuff like cygutils package, including cygrun, that integrate the cygwin environment with Windows.
XWin has been actually available as beta for a while, a few years I remember. But it was not available in the main download, didn't take advantage of GDI, was kind of unstable, just looked like, well, beta software. Glad they polished it. I'll look at it again. It took them a lot of effort to get it to this state, I congratulate them
I have been using VNC and Cygwin for a long time and find VNC to be unbearably slow.
If you are really bold, you could try actually running KDE on Cygwin... Seriously, it is possible, but is currently pretty slow and requires a special version of the X server. Though we are working on making it faster and eventually part of the main Cygwin distribution.
Check out:
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net for more info.
Hi,
I don't want to have to use the cygwin.dll. Basically I want to use an OpenSource XFree server for windows that doesn't use a Unix emulation layer. So has someone ever tried the
MinGW port of XFree86 ( http://sources.redhat.com/win32-x11/ ) ?
1. Is it as 'stable' as Cygwin/XFree86 ? The last version of cygwin/XFree86 was quite stable, but the installation was what you would call Windows-User-friendly (basically extracting tar.gz in the right folders, modifying some configuration scripts. This leads to the next question:
2. It seems this has changed for the better on cygwin, but is a similar installation programme available/planned for the MinGW/XFree86 aswell (at least a simple setup.exe) ? Looking at the homepage it doesn't sound so, and it's unclear whether the tarball on their homepage is compiled with MinGW at all (or whether MSVC was used).
3. Looking at the mailing list, the development process seems to be stale. Is is still actively maintained ?
Thanks alot
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.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
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.
I'm suprised that one of the 'better' X windows servers hasn't received a mention here.. for about $100, way cheaper than eXceed, it provides ssh1 and 2 and allows you to run any window manager you choose.. (and also run a local window manager that gives win32 controls)
I've gotta say I'm extremely impressed with the package.. I'd love to see what people have to say about the performance and 'usability' of the product.. The best thing.. if you only need it for 'quick' ssh X sessions to check something its free (it has a 30 min timeout)
Comments?
Exceed is actually a very impressing piece of software. It's a lot more usefull than the rootwin-demanding cygwin-xfree. We need an open source Windows X server.
Can you hear me, Major Tom? I'm not the man they think I am at home...
It works great. I didn't realize that it was bleeding edge, I thought everyone who wanted X on windows did this!
Eminem is the most successful troll ever.
Props to shady, he admits that his continued popularity is the direct result of the trainwreck that is his stardom. I am appalled, yet I cannot look away. Shameless trolls may be cocky, but at least they come across as more or less honest.
The second most successful troll, Marilyn Manson, serves it up to the disenchanted white teens of America as "art", so the result is a bunch of whiny goths with a false sense of entitlement and no clue that they've just been trolled. *sigh*Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Will it run on a ThinkPad that has the TCPA/Palladium option installed? Hop to it! I need my DRM, and xeyes too!!!
This will help bring that day closer. If this will work through putty, I'll finally be able to "show" people I work what I'm talking about as I sigh at the M$ 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."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Man, what are they thinking, an X server on MS Windows?
The fact that I can't play games on Linux is the only reason I get any work done! If I can open xterms next to an instance of Armada II.. argh!
WeirdX? I use wiredx every day. Its rootless and AA fonts supports are amazing. Why not try it?
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 gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
... next stop Debian's Sid.
using Winblows instead of Windows just makes you look like a sad geek.
If you give it the appropriate window dimensions it "handles" multimonitor - or do you mean something else?
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 don't know if many other people use it, but astec-x is a great xserver for windows. It is easy to use and works well. You also don't need cygwin or anything else to run it. Check out www.astec.co.jp for the download. It is a 30 day trial, but you can renew it every time it expires. Good stuff.
--
"There's a madness to my method." -mthed
Their official concern is the "viral nature" of GPL, how it supposedly contaminates any proprietary software it touches with the free-as-in-beer virus. A bigger concern is probably open-source software that replaces their products -- Samba being a case in point.
Of course, their not against such software because it competes! That's not the American Way! ;)
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
http://www.geocities.com/jaaronfarr/cygwin.html
Who said Freedom was Fair?
you just aren't used to thinking that way.
A cluster of NT servers in the server room along with your unix servers, etc, and a bunch of remote X stations would be just fine, and much easier to administer than 1000 workstations.
this leaves the mcse free to deal with other bullshit from linux users who think they can hack the corp. system with ALT-F4 and CTRL-ALT-DEL.
I've been using the Gimp with GTK 2.0 on Cygwin for a while too. Another cool thing about Cygwin for Java developers is you can write gcc/make compatible libraries to access POSIX/open source library features that "pure" Java doesn't give you access to. I often use this to compile the same code base under windows and solaris and linux/etc. and use the exact same Java JNI code to get access to quite a lot of open source C/C++ code libraries in a cross platform fashion.
It has issues diplaying KDE 3 icons in 32 bit color mode. The solution currently is to downgrade your Windows screen to 16 bit and then load the system with KDE3.
I've had a few instances of the "jumpy mouse pointer" but I've seen that on Linux and Solaris too, so I figure its just how I abuse X.
Overall, I'm very happy with Cygwin's port, since it saves me from having to buy Xwin32 for every machine. I kind of wish it had a rootless scheme for individual windows, but that's only a minor irritation.
BTW, NICE timeliness with this (rolls eyes)... I've been playing with this since at LEAST March, and I don't think I'm an earlier adopter.
Now, how do i replace Windows explorer etc. with XFree86 as the only available interface to my Windows machine?
Depends on Windows version. Win98: in win.ini, replace shell=explorer.exe with shell=startxwin.bat. WinNT/2k: Policy editor (I think; one of those management consoles), there should be an option to replace explorer.exe there.
I've come to... anesthetize you!
I've been using it for a couple of months now (under Win2k and ME) and it works remarkably well -- there's even a port of WindowMaker and some other window managers which make using it a lot easier than the default twm. Don't expect to run heavy-duty OpenGL applications, but as a basic X connection to a *NIX box, it gets the job done.
Seems there's some confusion to what the poster means about "multiple-window mode"
we use xfree to display remote vmware sessions running on our linux server, so that we can test on different windows platforms. All of our devlopment machines are windows, but we don't want to mess them up by running our code on them you know..:)
I just really cool to beusing a windows session, being run on vmware on a linux box being displayed useing X on cygwin...You end up always working with the sense that everything is going to blow up at any instant..
We just wish Xwin would interface with the windows WM instead of providing it's own desktop like StarOffice..:)
I recently got xdm logins from my Windows computer to my Linux computer working. My stumbling block was with ipchains. Many Linux distributions, not unwisely, block port 137, the port necessary for xdmcp. Once I added filtering rules to accept packets from my Windows box, it worked.
Even though it is easy, it took me a long time to figure out. I hope someone else is saved some trouble.
Granted, X11 on Windows is very cool. However, you should consider how (un)stable your Windows box is. Do you really want all your Unix apps dying when your X display goes down with your Windows box? If not, consider VNC.
VNC lets you run an X server on your Unix box that you can connect to remotely from just about any platform, including Windows. When the client dies, the server just keeps on running; the mouse cursor is even in the same spot you left it in.