Making Mac OS X Work Like X Windows?

X Fiend asks: "Is it possible to configure Mac OS X's window manager to run in a client-server mode like X Windows? I'd like to use my (rather anemic) iBook as an X Terminal, with apps running on my (manly dual-processor) desktop machine, but I don't want to have to use X Windows to do it- I want to use Mac OS X's native window manager. Any ideas?"

Comments

In theory...

[sco08y]

In theory, all IPC is done through Mach messages, whether the underlying transport is TCP/IP or shared memory.

In theory, you can intercept messages between two ports and run them through arbitrary filters.

Since the window server process is nothing but another port to Mach, you *should* be able to catch everything going to it, send it over the network and have it appear on another Window Server on another machine.

In practice there would be a lot of details to take care of like configuration and non-display. But the nature of Mach is that any IPC can be generalized to take place over any kind of network connection.

Sloppy Focus

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want sloppy focus. Please someone, make this happen. Clicking in the window has been the hardest thing to get used to.

Re:Sloppy Focus

[TiMac]

It'll never happen. Imagine Grandpa (or another extremely basic user) waving his mouse around and having it lose focus every time he accidently moves it. I know my Grandpa (who currently uses Win98...against my advice) would loathe this system, and I would have to explain it to him about 20 times before he understood it, and then he would probably just unplug the mouse while he was typing things to prevent it from happening.

Sloppy focus can be nice for pro users, but its terribly confusing for novices, and it goes against Apple's beliefs.

Next version of OS X?

[SlamMan]

The rumor mills seem to think this'll be available in a future version of OS X.

See macosrumors.com

Re:Write to Apple to reput in NXHost

[mithras the prophet]

Interesting.

This is what turns up for me (note that most of these are duplicates, since the Frameworks folder has symlinks all over the place):

[mithras@localhost: data] grep -r NXHost /System/Library/Frameworks/
Binary file /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/AppKit matches
Binary file /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versio ns/C/AppKit matches
Binary file /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versio ns/C/AppKit_profile matches
Binary file /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versio ns/Current/AppKit matches
Binary file /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versio ns/Current/AppKit_profile matches
/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.framework/ Headers/architecture/byte_order.h:NXHostByteOrder( void)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.framework/ Versions/A/Headers/architecture/byte_order.h:NXHos tByteOrder(void)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Kernel.framework/ Versions/Current/Headers/architecture/byte_order.h :NXHostByteOrder(void)
So it seems bits and pieces of the old architecture are there, but are probably rotting away from disuse. I hope we can convince Apple to revive this effort.

Here you go!

[SHEENmaster]

OS X is just whoring the letter X as the X-box is. X was first used in a computer project in X10 and later X11(unrelated, but much more fun).

If OS X is gonna whore the name around, they should do so with style rather than beauty.

To the original author, just do what I did and install Linux on your iBook. If necessary you can run MoL on your dual processing G4 and run it remotely on your iBook. I use MoL for programs such as Bryce and Flash MX with no trouble to speak of. Configuring networking will be a bitch, I warn you.