Apple Explains How to Run X11 on Mac OS X

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."

Comments

Re:Trash your mac?

[pclminion]

It's unfortunate, but people who have only been exposed to Linux really have no clue about cross-UNIX portability. Yeah, UNIX systems are all similar, but you can RARELY take a piece of code developed on one system and just compile it magically on another.

It's much less work than, say, porting a UNIX project to run on Windows, but it's definitely much more complicated than just copying the source code to the Mac and typing "make."

Re:Reaction to OpenOffice

[JJahn]

To those who want an aquafied OpenOffice, please check out NeoOffice. 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:Remote Applications

[sootman]

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 found Abiword to be much easier than OO

[sesshomaru]

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/

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

Minor OpenOffice.org corrections

[soullessbastard]

Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice 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 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

eWeek article on "cancelation" with clarification

[soullessbastard]

Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice 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 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

Re:Remote Applications

[drew]

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.