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Cygwin's XFree86 4.2.0 on Windows XP

Posted by timothy on 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."

12 of 358 comments (clear)

  1. How well it works by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:How well it works by axxackall · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I successfully compiled Icewm, AfterStep and WinMaker. And then discovered the reason why they are not inlcuded into the distro from the first place - they are way too buggy. They manage windows well (well, otherwise they are not window managers), but all those extensions - workspaces, lounchpads - are just broken. At least on my win2k box.

      As for UNI*X features not yet available in Cygwin - you mean Gnome ported to win32, do you? At least that what failed the compilation Sawfish and others for me.

      Have anyone heard about porting Gnome to win32? How about KDE? I can use Gnome or KDE through X11 net, but how about the case of temporary standalone box? Such win32 port would be a very nice feature then.

      --

      Less is more !
  2. Compare with XWin32, please! by f00Dave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  3. Works perfectly. Killer app. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  4. Re:Only for Windows XP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    XP is really the beginning of the MS decline for the desktop OS. There is no good reason to upgrade a 2000 box to XP, unless you go for gimmicky features and eye candy. I think the same can be said for Office 97 & 2K. I run 97 and Office 2000, and can barely tell the difference between the two (of course, the icons are different).

    As an MS user (and not Linux), even I want to tell people I see buying copies of the XP OS/Office Suite, "you're wasting your money!" That is truly market dominance: people upgrading like zombies, when there is no good reason to.

  5. Functional and useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  6. Now some REAL news would be... by Bollie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...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...

  7. Re:I use it on win2k by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    use it all the time on w2k. use blackbox as my windows manager. like being able to tunnel sessions from openbsd or hpux even. even supports font server, which i found i needed for openview sessions.

  8. Xfree on Xp by euroBob · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

    --
    try { println( SigString ); } catch( Exception e ) { println( 'Who cares?' ); }
  9. Remote Access is nice -- but what about ..... by fm6 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

  10. Re:I use it on win2k by Verizon+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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? 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.

    --

    Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski

  11. I've been using this for months by ikekrull · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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