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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."
that Apple in general isn't propagating that their stuff is better than XGF-productname.
but Apple is embracing it.
i think that many more fortune-500 companies could take a few hints
from Apple & IBM's marketing ideas & schematics..
So? That doesn't mean one could just take the code for such a huge project, compile it and run it flawlessly.
I think I'll wait to RTFA until after I've tried everything on my own first. Nothing like thrashing randomly to help you learn about a system :-)
Do they pronounce it 10-11?
Step 2: There is no step 2!
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
It won't be long before windows does this too...ow wait.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Believe me, you do not want to see what the Makefiles for a piece of software like that look like. We're talking about the era before GNU-style "configure" scripts and Makefile modularity. It's hideous. But it works. And it makes the differences between the various UNIX platforms as clear as day.
Right now, I'm in the middle of porting our main project to run on OS X, so this article is very timely. To be honest, I anticipate that the majority of the difficulty will be in getting the make system to run correctly, and possibly fixing a number of linker issues. I expect that the code itself will work almost unmodified.
I did this a few weeks ago and it was pretty damn simple. The cool thing abouts Mac's is that is what you get with the Unix backend and the Quartz windowing system, it can be as easy or as complicated as you want it.
I'm not sure that I get this. Its my recollection that X11 was included "in the box" with Panther. You had to download their beta version on 10.2 or could use XDarwin otherwise.
Why is this worthy of comment?
Hey, look! An MSDN bulletin on a strange but useful utility called, um, lets's see, uh, Notepad!
Isn't X-11 already available either on the mac-install disk and as part fo fink. Or are these just X-11 servers instead of being real cleints (using the bass-ackward X-11 speak)?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
IMHO this is a reaction to the announcement that no aquafied OpenOffice is planned.
Apple doesn't want people to think they are locked into MS Office (hope it continues to support Mac OS X).
This way, Apple can say commercial grade alternatives do exist.
Apple's products aren't bad... but lets face it, they target home and educational use. Not a business person who wants to occasionally work from home. Microsoft does have powerful software, despite being buggy and insecure.
IMHO Open Office rocks. Wish Apple would invest in an aquafied port.
It's worth remembering that an X application doesn't have to run on the same system as the terminal. So even if you can't get the source code, you might be able to run the software, provided you're willing to spring for a Unix box the software supports. That might be useful for people who need commercial applications (such as FrameMaker) which are no longer available for the Mac, but is still supported for Solaris.
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."
X11 is the protocol. XFree86 is the implementation that nobody likes anymore due to the change in license. X.org is the implementation that everyone is moving to. There are a number of other implementations.
Apple committed to XFree86 long before they changed the license. They may move to X.org as that implementation gets better features.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
We have been doing this via fink for quite some time now. http://fink.sourceforge.net/
Apple's X11 implementation is based on the widely-used XFree86 project
Is apple going to switch to X.org, since most everyone else has already? or are they sticking with XFree86 for the long run? What kinds of compatibility issues will develop as a result of that?
X.org is an implementation of the X11 protocol. X11R6 is the 6th revision of the X11 protocol. There was supposedly an X10 protocol before X11. What people have begun abandoning is XFree86, and not everyone is leaving it. I think NetBSD still uses it.
I rather like how the instructions talk about how to run X11 remotely, and the first thing they do is tell how to do it over ssh, with simple, easy to understand directions on how to do it. That is how "how to" manuals should be written.
2 points to Apple for doing that, and making my coworkers jobs a little harder (they're penetration testers).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Isn't X:org also X11? You probably mean XFree86? X versions are really complicated to comprehend, I'm not sure what the 11 means. I think I remember something like X11R5 some years ago, but never R4, not to speak of X10.
Roman Kennke
X11R6 is the protocol used, not the implementation. The XFree86 project was a popular project to implement the X11 protocol on 8086 machines. Because of politics, the X client/server was branched by x.org (as the source code was open), so a different development style could be done (and from what I understand many of the people from the XFree86 project switched to x.org as well). There do exist other implementations of X11 that cost money, but at least in the past advertised better performance.
Maybe you should understand what X11 is before you post on the subject.
Xmms works, koffice works, karm (my personnal favorite) works, kdevelop works, etc.
* I'm not sure of the technical differences between X11 or XDarwin, if someone can point them out.
Horrible makefiles haunt my dreams. I've had nightmares about them...
You can run your CDE off your Solaris or OpenVMS box, then display the X11 on your Mac desktop. The Gimp works pretty nice too. Version 2.2! Now if only there was better clipboard support...
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
http://www.abisource.com/
I could never get OO to work on OS X, though I use it on my Windows Machine.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
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
In the section "Which Machine Is the Client?", they completely mess up the explanation. What is wrong with just saying "The X server is a display server. X applications are clients (running on your machine or another machine) which request the server (which may be running on your machine) to do something ("draw a line", etc)."
Hey now, that didn't deserve an offtopic. I bet I'm not the only one that misunderstood the difference between a protocol and an implementation of that protocol. Anyway it's still relevant because Apple may use XFree86 or X.org, and that was kinda my original question.
But seriously, thanks for clearing that up. All 12 of you.
Congratulations, guys; you all got it right without stopping to realize that 10,000 other people also knew the same answer but weren't frothing to correct him. I bet you're all a lot of fun on mailing lists, too.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
X11R4 was in wide use when I first started using unix workstations back in 1992. X11R2 and X11R3 were before my time, but they did exist. Remember, those were the days before everyone thought a higher version number is automatically better, even if you're talking about a different app, which is why there was no Netscape 5. And why everyone switched to using a year or some random letters instead of version numbers (Photoshop CS or Fireworks MX both sound like they could be the best image editor out there, but no one's going to buy Fireworks v.2.0 instead of Photoshop 7.0. Photoshop is 5 better!)
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
/. comments in that thread.
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
ed
Yes, NetBSD imported the latest XFree86 as they had no problems with the license. OpenBSD has changed to X.org for upcoming release, while FreeBSD appears agnostic in this matter.
If you want to run a program that uses X libraries to draw windows, then you need an X server. Most X servers for Windows can run in "rootless" mode so your X application windows can be moved around just like Windows windows.
For more information, click here.
Disclaimer: I am a developer of Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
If the X11 server was preloaded onto all Apple systems, it would also solve quite a number of distribution problems for OpenOffice.org and other X11 applications. The license for Apple X11 doesn't allow third parties to bundle it and redistribute it. That makes it really frustrating from an installation perspective. Instead of being able to automatically install the X11 server (like we do using XFree86 for 10.2) we have to prompt the user to either go out and find where the X11User.pkg is on their Panther CDs or Software Restore CDs or even go and download it from Apple to install. Our installers can automatically install all of the other 6 applications OOo requires to run, but we just can't get Apple X11 so it kind of puts a dent in the installation experience. I'm sure that other commerical appliactions like MATLAB would like to be able to auto-install X11 as well.
Preloading X11 onto all shipping systems would allow us to not have to worry about users getting confused by the additional steps of the process. Traditionally, Mac installers are very simple and it's rare they require other software to be installed first.
Another solution which would be equally good IMHO is if Apple could come up with some type of distribution clause in their license to allow X11User.pkg to be bundled with installers for other applications. I don't think the problem is the underlying XFree86 based stuff, but rather quartz-wm and maybe other components. Last I knew quartz-wm wasn't open sourced, only the XFree86 derived stuff under the MIT license.
ed
If you want OpenOffice on OS X, help make one of the NATIVE ports more popular by using it. NeoOffice/J It's a totally native client that uses Java to render the UI. (Native Java? These are strange days.) Please help keep X11 apps off OS X.
I realize we're stuck with X11 on Unix, but if you're sitting on top of Quartz, might as well use it, no?
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Apple NEED to integrate the X11.org desktop standards more with OS X. The X11 server they provide gives you the equivalent of an X11 desktop running FVWM in terms of integrating the X11 apps with the rest of the desktop.
The desktop.org standards cover file type to application relations, clipboard, menu itmes. If Apple would implement them, X11 Apps under OS X would be a lot more useful. As it is I have to fight the system to make them work better.
Also, could Apple turn on the Freetype font smoothing/rendering fully? Make Open Office.org look way better
Really? I think performance is great.
Well, it's not a matter of "thinking", it's quantifiable, and it ain't good.
However, they need to work on a way to make X11 software look and feel more native (at least before it can compete with other OS X apps in the mainstream.)
What X11 applications look like is beyond Apple's control. If you don't like their looks, just don't use them. Most users don't give a damn in my experience.
We'll agree to disagree on whether its speed is OK. It works well for me but not for you. Fine. :)
In terms of the looks of applications, I was thinking in terms of bundling versions of GTK, Qt, etc. that have themes which give the apps native-looking widgets, toolbar background colors, etc. That certainly would be within their control.
The license for Apple X11 doesn't allow third parties to bundle it and redistribute it.
Wow, I didn't know that. It looks like Apple is deliberately making it hard for people to get X11 running on Mac OS X. Apple must be really scared of X11 taking over their desktop.
Can't you just ship a non-Apple version of X11? You wouldn't need much more than the server and a tiny number of utilities (assuming you are using Render for fonts, which puts it on the client-side anyway). The server itself should also be pretty small since it wouldn't need most drivers and only a few extensions. Furthermore, you could use a high connection number (:57 or whatever) so that it doesn't interfere with any Apple X11 that the user may be using.
The unofficial
The Apple article was helpful and all but there are guys who have been working on the XFree86 port for a long time, like since 2002 or something, so if you need a place to get answers to running X apps on OSX, keep an eye on www.xdarwin.org/forum
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Or to translate more: CygWin/X lets me ssh to my home linux machine and type something like gnucash and have the window pop up on my screen at work.
Never confuse volume with power.
That's true. I've said in the passed what Slashdot really needs is a -1 Wrong.
Never confuse volume with power.
We'll agree to disagree on whether its speed is OK. It works well for me but not for you. Fine. :)
Well, it may be good enough for your needs, but it is much worse than native X11 on the same hardware.
In terms of the looks of applications, I was thinking in terms of bundling versions of GTK, Qt, etc. that have themes which give the apps native-looking widgets, toolbar background colors, etc. That certainly would be within their control.
Maybe. I don't see Apple going into the Gtk or Qt theme business. Furthermore, I don't think Apple has the wherewithal to manage Gtk and Qt library versions.
I think if Macintosh actually became a credible, commonly used platform for X11 applications, the theming and behavior would take care of itself: it would approximate Macintosh native as closely as users generally desire.
8086???
I could believe x86 machines (possibly including the 80286), but don't think 8086 boxes would have had enough memory. Not to mention the old VGA cards that would support only 4 bits of color in 640 by 480 mode - don't even talk about EGA or (barf!) CGA.
I haven't tried Panther yet, but on jaguar I found that many X11 apps were much faster (or seemed so) than their aqua counterparts. It wasn't that unusual for me to be running KDE and Mozilla in X11 rather than bothering with the Aqua alternatives.
I was glad to hear that X11 was even better integrated into Panther...but at the same time, the download for X11 for Jaguar silently disappeared, and in fact when I located the few remaining links to it on the Apple site it was really downloaded an Panther-only version. Having had some hardware problems with my iBook I suddenly found I had to depend on a third-party X11 interface.
This is the compromise you have to make with commercial software. You upgrade, or you better have a CD full of the old version of things or you are out of luck. That software upgrade cycle, eventually and mysteriously, force you to buy a faster machine with more memory at some point. The "upgrade treadmill" as I've heard someone refer to it may be due to cost cutting, incompetence, or some sinister plan at Apple, but it doesn't matter, the outcome is the same, I, the user have little control over the use of my own equipment.
I'm very tempted by the new Apple mini, but if I get one I may just install Linux on it to begin with and avoid the treadmill altogether. The other advantage is that such a system integrates seamlessly with my existing menagerie of PCs (also running Linux.)
No. OS X is Unix, and Apple's X11 implementation is fine. X apps don't 'behave' as well as native applications, but all the stuff you love about X, e.g. network transparency, works great.
What they need to do is write a simple extension to their version of X11 that allows X11 applications on the Mac to have their own Dock icons. Even if it weren't backward-compatible, a lot of projects like OO.o would quickly move to implement this. If they made a standard to embed X11 programs in .app form, it would be great for many applications. Obviously you wouldn't want everything this way, but many applications would benefit. Combined with quartz-wm, such a system would allow such a completely transparent integration that less advanced users would find it unnecessary to distinguish between Cocoa/Carbon and X11 apps. This and a little bit of polish could make certain projects like OO.o take off on the Mac IMHO.
English is easier said than done.
-x40sw0n
Mod parent funny.
What the original poster probably meant was "the XFree86 project was a popular project to implement the X11 protocol on UNIX-compatible OSes running on x86 machines", with "x86 machines" probably mainly referring to 80386 at the time.
FreeBSD appears agnostic in this matter.
FreeBSD switched to X.org in -current in July of 2004. See Eric Anholt's post to freebsd-current here, or the Slashdot writeup here. You can still use XFree86 if you like, but X.org is the default.
C'mon guys!!! How can an FP be ANYTHING BUT redundant?!
Disclaimer: I am a developer of OpenOffice.org Mac OS X and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
/usr/X11R6, /etc/X11, .xinitrc, and so on. As a result, you can't really install the two different X11 environments side by side as there are differences in some of the libraries (such as Open GL). This makes it difficult to include a different X11 environment in the distribution since there's a strong possibility of potentially horking someone's pre-existing Apple X11 install on the machine or the opposite of the user installing Apple X11 after the other environment and horking it.
Yes, we could ship a different X11 environment, and this is what we do already to automatically install XFree86 + OroborOSX on 10.2 machines. There are really two problems with 10.3 machines however...
First off, Apple X11 really is nice in that you get your full quartz-wm that allows X11 windows to be minimized into the Dock and used via Exposé. Not many of the other X servers support this type of integration. I don't know myself since I haven't really investigated using too many other X servers on 10.3 systems. But, like other Apple software too, non-technical Mac users tend to want to use an Apple alternative if it exists.
Secondly, both Apple X11 and XFree86 do wind up using the same locations to install themselves:
The general feedback we got from users is that they really do prefer using Apple X11, so that's why the OOo installer only supports Apple X11 when installing on 10.3. Heck, there are still users who are still using the Apple X11 Public Betas that ran on 10.2! (note, if you do that, search out Beta 2 and not Beta 3...Beta 3 has window positioning bugs that can't be worked around since quartz-wm doesn't really have source shipped for it IIRC. good luck finding it, tho).
ed
Would it be possible to ask the user to insert the proper CD, and then just run the command-line version of installer.app to install it transparently? Or distribute your app in a metapackage, one of its dependencies being the X11 package on the CD? It still requires inserting the CD, but it would be more seamless.
Just a thought.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
They are? Where was this mentioned? (Note: any place mentioning this that uses the word "Pages", with a capital "P", or the string "iWork" needs to indicate why they think Pages is intended as a full replacement for all uses of Microsoft Word, including the more "high-end" ones.)
What X11 applications look like is beyond Apple's control. If you don't like their looks, just don't use them. Most users don't give a damn in my experience.
That's everything that's wrong with OpenOffice (and most other UNIX GUI) software in a nutshell, folks.
Developers generally don't care about Look & Feel, and when you're developing a package that primarily targets Linux, an OS whose desktop use is primarily confined to tinkerers, devs, or people making an ideological statement, most of the people you interact with aren't going to care, either. They've got bigger things on their mind.
But, and this is a big but, there is a reason that people who only use Windows or MacOS feel that OpenOffice is a clunky, user-unfriendly piece of software. It's because for the vast majority of GUI users (who overwhelmingly use Windows or the Mac), being able to use their software, and use it easily is much more important than whether or not it's interface cruftiness allows it to be ported to some developer's NetBSD toaster. Regularity of interface and ease of use matters to ordinary users.
Sure, the people you interact with on a daily basis don't share these concerns, but guess what: These people are not typical. As long as the OpenOffice developers basic attitude it "Hey, just install X11 and run OpenOffice with it. Users can either put up with it's idiosyncracies or fuck off", it's destined to be a distant also ran in most people's minds.
Disclaimer: I am a developer of Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
FWIW, the screenshot that appears with that text is actually showing the package descriptions from the Fink project through the FinkCommander GUI and the article text is representative output from a Fink command line. Apple didn't write Fink (and certainly not its package descriptions) nor a bunch of the other software mentioned in the article (e.g. OpenOffice.org, xgalaga).
ed
You forget that many people don't even know what 'command-line' means. Asking an end-user whose experience level you may not be aware of to run something from a command line is rather dangerous.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
No, whoever packaged ximian-connector for Fink spelled Microsoft as M$. Apple just cut-and-pasted the output from the fink command.
Furthermore, the software I'm talking about makes heavy use of the FPU, so we need to account for all the little differences between architectures as far as floating point math. Yes, IEEE is supposed to standardize these things, but in practice there are little differences which become significant. The fact that you believe otherwise only proves that you have little real world experience.
You could do this under 10.1 (and I think 10 beta), but it is nice that it is actually nice and easy to do now.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
.pkg. Apple does have registration forms to fill out prior to download, so the procedure unfortunately can't be automated using a simple curl command.
That's actually what the 1.1.2 GM installer does do. When installing on 10.3, if it detects Apple X11 isn't installed it prompts the user for the appropriate CD from the Panther retail set and searches for the package.
Only problem is that the installer is only intelligent enough to work with retail 10.3 CD sets...it doesn't have the ability to go through the software restore CDs that ship with computers since we don't have the CD layouts. Unfortunately, in the time since we've released it that's much more common for users as there are less and less users upgrading machines via retail CDs. The installer still prompts users without CDs to go to the Apple X11 website and has the URL displayed in a dialog.
Next installer I put together I'm going to see if I can make it a bit more helpful or at least be able to redirect users straight to the website to download the
ed
Great, I was just thinking the other day, "Ok, having UNIX underpinnings is great, but I miss the clunky, inefficient, bloated, ugly and outdated graphical interface that I used to have with linux and solaris."
I think you're over-estimating the animosity between MS and Apple, if indeed there's much at all.
Of course, they compete with eachother, but what you describe doesn't sound like my interpretation of Apple and MS's behaviour.
The Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft have a very close relationship with Apple. They're not just some MS developers who've been told to bash out some Mac knock-offs of Windows software. They're all long-time Mac developers who want to make the best Mac software they can. The spin-off of the MacBU to a separate division meant that they could work on making Mac software, not Windows ports. As this article explains, before the creation of the MacBU, the Win & Mac versions of Office shared 80% of the same technology. The result? Shoddy, un-Maclike software which no-one liked and few bought. The MacBU now works every bit as closely with Apple's technologies as it does with MS's.
Office:Mac (both v.X and 2004) are very nice programs. They're not perfect, but they bring a very usable, feature-rich, Mac-specific Office suite to the platform.
Apple would not benefit one single bit from making the MacBU's software unprofitable for Microsoft. iWork is not a replacement for Office. Keynote's a very nice alternative to PowerPoint, sure. But one app does not an Office-suite make. Pages is clearly not in the same space as Word. If you need Word, you won't buy/use Pages. If you don't need Word or can't afford Office, Pages is a sensible choice. If Pages is aimed at those who don't need or won't buy Office, it's hardly a competitor, is it?
Just as Pages is not a drop-in replacement for those who need Word, any rumoured spreadsheet app will not be a drop-in replacement for those who need Excel.
Apple aren't in the business of making 'temporary, difficult alternatives'. They're about fulfilling user's needs (with the caveat that, like all corps., they don't always get that right!).
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
No, you misunderstand, have the installer for OpenOffice run the command itself. No need for the user to even know it's happening.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
At least if it is a new Mac...just reinstall from the system software disc, and select the option to include X11. It's on the disc and the installer knows about it...it simply isn't included in the default install that Apple does.
Is it possible to have a pre-install script search for the proper package by name, even if the CD layout changes? (Forgive my ignorance of the capabilities of the installer framework.)
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
supposedly?? stupid children.
Some compilers require an explicit "-ansi" switch to properly compile ANSI code. HP7v8 requires the magical compiler flags "+DA1.0 +DS1.0". On Solaris, we need to add a "-Xc" flag.
The situation is complicated by the fact that we do two Solaris builds. One build is done with the native compiler, the other uses GCC. As you might expect, these require slightly different flags.
Some platforms need a "ranlib" program to build the library indexes in the .a files. Some platforms have this functionality built into the ar utility.
On Solaris, we need to link against libsunmath.a instead of the traditional libm.a. Solaris also required linker flags "-lw -lresolv -lsocket -lnsl -ldl", other platforms do not.
Don't even get me started on the difficulty of doing static/dynamic builds (we do both types) on each of the various platforms. Some of the platforms have GNU binutils. Some do not. Some are remote. Some of the platforms we compile on don't even BELONG to us (we build on the customer's system).
Did I mention that this thing works on VMS and OS/390 also? And that it depends on Motif?
Ah, was not aware of that FreeBSD had changed to use X.org as default. Thanks for the clarification.
Yes, that makes perfect sense.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
I've tried various "native" ports of Emacs and none fit my tastes. It's either the color scheme I can't set correctly or the font. I should mention that I prefer non anti-aliased fonts while programming.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
But can you really fill in that blank? Pages exports to PDF, RTF, Word, plain text, or HTML. Keynote exports to PDF, PPT, Flash, QT movie, or a series of JPEG, PNG or TIFF images. Now what crucial format don't they support, again?
Hahahha, nice. :)
OO.o would quickly move to implement this
They announced they are not adding any new features to the Mac version. I doubt they would rush to implement this one.
1337 is MCCCXXXVII, but then it could also be the roman l33t-legion of |v|cCcXxX\/][
The more you know, the less you need. [Admin added: from me.]
Disclaimer: I am a developer for Mac OS X OpenOffice.org and a founder of the NeoOffice project.
That very well may be an interesting solution for the software restore CDs as well as addressing changes in layout of the CDs or OS versions (e.g. locating X11 on Tiger CDs which will become needed at some point this year). I hadn't thought about that and will check out some sets from computers that shipped with 10.3. I don't have any since I've not yet purchased a mac that had 10.3 preloaded. Thanks for the suggestion!
ed
still.
Pete Forsyth
Apple X11 b3 for X.2 with SDK
http://tinyurl.com/2q7ys
~hylas
http://kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1
yes i jest.. but it does reveal another dimension to this discussion
Who needs X-Windows when Emacs is still a much more reliable window system? Cut-and-paste in emacs has always worked perfectly, with full undo/redo and a kill ring! An Emacs shell with fully editable text beats X-Term any day.
X-Windows can sit on it and rotate its cut buffers.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Anyone out there able to help?
Is ant a possibility here? I know that we use ant to compile some of our C projects. It's not really the intended use, but it might help your portability a little bit if you are able to count on the fact that at least it'll be the same program running your build scripts on all the architectures, rather than having to try to detect which make version is running, and what features it supports.
Apple really pissed me off taking down the 10.2 supporting beta x11 server. I had it installed on one 10.2 mac and trashed the installer, then I little while later I wanted to put it on another 10.2 mac and all of a sudden I couldn't download it. It was a very "soup nazi" type moment, "no x11 server for you!". It also seemed pretty damn arbitrary since it obviously works on 10.2 quite well in the beta version.
somewhere there is a tutorial that I followed and lost, that shows how to install x11 to run from startup and remove the x11 icon from the doc as well as be able to default call x apps from the apple terminal....
.profile or similar-
I wish I could remember where it was... but basically it was down to
-adding X11 to the start up bit of your account definition,
-setting the DISPLAY environment to 0.0 in
-adding an entry to the end of the x11 info.plist file
-------------
NSUIElement
1
------------
just before the last
there was also a bit about using the 'defaults' mechanism to allow you to emulate the normal xwindows mouseover action but I preferred not to do that so I have forgotten that bit
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
One word....Fink
http://fink.sourceforge.net/
I grabbed the X11 server from fink, compiled it locally, and had WindowMaker running on it in a couple hours (well the X11 compile took ~12 hrs, but it was a Grape iMac (90MHz G3) my G4-400 can do it in ~3-4 hrs).
I haven't been back for a few months to see if the X11 is from Xfree86 or X.org, but either way, fink has it AND instructions on getting it functional.
"I never get lost because everybody tells me where to go"
Unfortunately, you can't run Modelsim, Synopsys, or other EDA tools on it :(
I know some people who would be interested in it as a Unix workstation if those apps were ported.
Come on EDA vendors, get your SH*T together!
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Anybody sucessfully get printing to work with Open Office via X11 the first time. I have followed all the documentation on how to hack the printing engine , install all the proper dependancies and configure them and it's never worked :[
:p.
The end solution was to export to PDF then open the PDF in preview and then print. Kinda like a Microsoft workflow
Is there any reason that Apple cannot create a bridge to enable X11 apps to print directly through the OSX printing frameworks?
Tighter Quartz WM integrations would be sweet too such as x11 apps showing up on doc and X11 acting more as a system level application instead of a regular dockable application.
Considering that OOO have dumped Native Aqua port, it would be nice to have Apples X11 less intimidating for non-*nix hackers.
JsD
Bah, silly developer. This is good- any true MacOS X developer who actually tries out OpenOffice under X11 will, after his or her face has stopped twitching enough that they can see again, look for some alternative and find NeoOffice and start helping purely out of motivation to let OpenOffice under X11 die a fast death :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Will this be the first instance of a Netcraft-confirmed double suicide? XFree86 and NetBSD are definitely dying.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Everything I've written works just as well on OS X as it does Linux. Then again, that could be because I use ANSI C....
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I know this isn't the Slashdot definition, but I'd call it redundant because it's common knowledge.
It'd be like replying to a post about Windows saying, "Windows is an operating system." It's redundant information, even if it's relevant.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You need to install X11SDK if you want to compile stuff to run on X11 though. That's on the Xcode CD for Panther, though you can also download it seperately. However X11SDK isn't even installed automatically with the Xcode tools, so you have to install them off the CD specially, not that it's a big deal, it's just a small package.
I have no doubt that once I get the build environment working, I'll have very few, if any, changes to make to the code base proper. But the build environment can't just be discounted as if it doesn't exist. For large projects, especially those which have been evolving organically for over a decade (as this one has), they are nearly as complex as the code itself, require their own testing (aside from tests of the "real" code base), and are far more platform-specific.
On the other hand, there are libraries which abstract the mathematics still further in order to account for these differences for you...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And followed the directions, which were clear.
/etc/inetd
I was able to get X11 installed.
There's already a terminal on OSX, but it doesn't know about the DISPLAY variable.
There's also an ssh client, and an ssh daemon, but I couldn't figure out how to enable the ssh daemon, does anyone know how?
For example, I tried adding it to the
but I couldn't write to the file.
The 'su' command doesn't seem to work either; no matter which password I tried or even if I changed the password of the administrator user, 'su, would still give an error.
I know there must be a 'Mac' way to do all this, but what I'd really like is a list of DIFFERENCES between say an average Linux distro and OSX.
I know OSX is based on FreeBSD, which I've never run, but I expect it can't be that different from Linux.
Anyhow, if anyone has a link to an sshd how-to for OSX, I would both appreciate it and thank you in advance!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
It also lets me open bash xterms on my windows box (using the rest of cygwin) so I can have a decent shell in a decent command window. Between XP and Cygwin I've come up with a single environment in which I can run everything I want to use (I'm a gamer.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It would solve a lot of distribution problems. It would create a lot more user-experience problems.
Apple is not in the business of making it easy for third-party developers to ship lousy software.
Yes, but I just opened up a shell window in Emacs (esc-X-shell) and when I tried to run vi, it came back:
sapphire: {1} vi
Error: tigetnum: lines: No such file or directory
ex/vi: error initializing terminal
And I was able to easily cut and paste that text from Xemacs to this comment window in Mozilla using the X cut and paste.
So neaner, neaner. Or something.
"What's the frequency Kenneth?"
That's what autoconf is for.
./configure;make).
I've done this with many projects.. and it really is just as easy as typing 'make' (rather
Of course you have to write your code in a cross platform manner in the first place...
The Mach Kernel, with BSD subsystem and lots of Voodoo, love, puppies and distortion field to bind it all together with some fruit on top actually.
I like it.
While Cocoa (really Mach-O) apps would have been easy to move (I used to run apps remotely on Mac OS X Server 1.2), that doesn't account for all apps on Mac OS X. Carbon (really CFM) and Classic would not have that capacity without a lot of work. I expect that Apple decided to drop the support since it wasn't really that advantageous to most users, would be really confusing for many users, and wouldn't work for a lot of apps.
Add to that that Apple has Apple Remote Desktop, a commercial product for remotely running apps, and I could see a number of reasons why they would have been fine with dropping support.
These are guesses. There could also be real techincal reasons why it broke that were too serious of hurdles to manage for so minimal a payoff.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
I found it easier to get this working than to figure out how the heck to get X-darwin going. Apple's site didn't seem much help at the time. It seems a little more klunky than I expected.. not as pretty as tying X natively into the desktop, butit go thte job done well enough so I moved on to setting up the main software I use on the system (recording).
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I've done this sort of thing before - had to have things that run under linux, Irix, SunOS, and windows. It's not really hard as long as you start out with the idea that things are going to be system-dependent. I had directories with Makefiles in that called directories (some ours, some 3rd-party) Makefiles etc. etc. You just need to put the thought in ahead of time.
/. these days leads me to believe I've become an old fart. Oh well. Happens to the best of us [grin]
My solution was to have the top-level Makefile set a variable based on running the 'uname' command, and then 'include' the definitions that worked for the platform, based on the variable name (we were running gcc and gmake on all the platforms, although the windows one was cross-compiled under Linux. Believe it or not, this was easier!)
So, CC, CXX, JAVA, LD, RM, AR, RANLIB
etc. etc were all defined within the platform-specific file, and the main Makefile looked pretty clean. All you have then are the #ifdef statements in the source code. It did get to the point where for one project we simply had different source code for the Windows variant, and the platform-specific Makefiles copied the correct file into place before trying to compile the module in question...
Looking back at the posts I'm making on
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
If you are interacting with the CPU that directly then either the code is much too low level for the task or in no meaningful sense is it Unix code (i.e. the core code is so level that the OS becomes almost irrelevent).
Is that so many tech people who buy macs do it because they claim they like that its "based in UNIX" (who gives a shit, is my thought), but then never, ever touch anything. I have NEVER seen a modified OS X system. Ever.
If it could be made significantly better on the Mac with a few hours of work, somebody would do it. Hell, I would if nobody else did.
Pretty much anyone serious about OpenOffice on OS X has realized that the NeoOffice version that does not use X-windows (it implements the GUI with Java using the Cocoa APIs) is the way to go. It is fairly functional right now, and a year ahead of the X11 version, at least. It has it's own dock icon, and works with most of the rest of the OS X features. I usually think of X11 on OS X as a nice feature for running legacy UNIX software remotely and controlling remote servers, and an acceptable display set for quick ports. I don't think it is very good option for a large or serious project on OS X.
> I couldn't figure out how to enable the ssh daemon /etc/inetd
There is a checkbox-item named "Enable remote login (ssh)" or similar.
> For example, I tried adding it to the
> sshd how-to for OS
Well, I'm not really sure whether your question is real...
SSH on OSX Howto:
Take the MOUSE.
Navigate to
Apple-Menu->
System-Preferences->
Sharing.
Thats it.
You could enable apache there, too. Or Samba.
The root-account is not activated by default. Use sudo $COMMAND instead - it's much more save.
If you really really need it - activate it in directory services / do a sudo passwd. But sudo is safer and safety matters.
k2r
Yep, you're exactly right -- but have you considered the possibility that Apple wants it that way?
Of course, Apple wants it that way: they want to tie developers and users to their own, proprietary platform. And they know full well that if running X11 applications were easy, native Macintosh applications would disappear because there is just so much great X11 software out there.
The question is: do you really want to go Apple's proprietary route or not? And are you happy with the limited amount of native Macintosh software that is out there?
Not all of the Cocoa API is proprietary, you know -- a big chunk of it is the OpenStep API, an open standard. There's even a Free Software implementation called GNUStep. So, I really want to go with the intersection of the feature set of the Cocoa and GNUStep implementations of the OpenStep API. : )
By the way, the "limited amount of native Macintosh software" isn't really all that limited -- Abiword, BitTorrent, Frozen Bubble, LyX, Mplayer, Nethack, Neverball, Nvu, StepMania, VLC, etc. are all Free Software apps with native OS X implementations; Blender, Firefox, and Thunderbird are native to the extent that they don't require X11 (although they don't use the built-in APIs to draw their widgets either); and there are even Mac-only Free Software projects, like Camino, Adium and Fire (IM clients), and many others.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
OSX uses an advanced startup system and is able to determine which sequence is the best from some configuration files.
r /How To/Startup/index.wsc om/documentation/MacOSX/Co nceptual/BPSystemStartup/Tasks/CreatingStartupItem s.html
S X/in dex-date.html
:-)
...
Read more about it at
http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCente
and
http://developer.apple.
Actually, there's a LOT of useful information available at
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacO
But I doubt that there is an easy way to have a VNC server with the systems loginwindow. I remember that that's a problem on Windows, too. At least there must be _some_ things that are easier on Linux
Switching components on and off is done best using "Diablotin". Look for it at macupdate.com. And be careful, you can switch off some essential stuff using it
k2r
By the way, the "limited amount of native Macintosh software" isn't really all that limited -- Abiword, BitTorrent, Frozen Bubble, LyX, Mplayer, Nethack, Neverball, Nvu, StepMania, VLC, etc. are all Free Software apps with native OS X implementations;
You can't even tell native from non-native applications. I don't know about all of those, but Nvu uses the Mozilla toolkit (not native), Frozen Bubble uses SDL (a cross-platform gaming library).
Blender, Firefox, and Thunderbird are native to the extent that they don't require X11
As you are saying: they are not native applications.
Not all of the Cocoa API is proprietary, you know -- a big chunk of it is the OpenStep API, an open standard.
OpenStep has never been standardized and there is no open standards documentation of it (in fact, I know of no freely distributable, complete documentation). Furthermore, the Cocoa APIs are entirely under Apple's control.
So, it is simply incorrect to say that "the OpenStep API is an open standard"; it is nothing of the sort.
There's even a Free Software implementation called GNUStep.
Yes, and you can see how popular that is compared to the other choices.
In reality, Cocoa is only hanging on to dear life because it is propped up by Apple marketing and happens to ship with Macintosh. If it actually had to compete on its merits and performance with X11, it would just lose.
If you're talking about Aqua vs. X11, then maybe I agree with you. But if you're talking about Cocoa vs. the X toolkit, then WTF are you smoking? The inadequacies of the X toolkit are what caused this horrible mess of redundant libraries (CDE, GTK, QT, FLTK, etc.) that we have now. Cocoa is superior by the mere fact that it's reasonably complete, let alone it's "merits and performance!" Don't you realize that the single most important reason why some UNIX geeks get Macs is beacuse there's one single dominant API on the platform, and the desktop is consistent?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And practically speaking, it's not difficult to write an application that can run natively on OS X and on Windows or Linux with GNUStep.
Not if it actually uses a lot of Cocoa functionality. Cocoa is and remains controlled by Apple, which means it's proprietary. Furthermore, GNUstep just isn't a realistic choice for writing applications because almost nobody actually uses it on their desktop.
The inadequacies of the X toolkit are what caused this horrible mess of redundant libraries (CDE, GTK, QT, FLTK, etc.) that we have now
That's incorrect. The reason the standard X11 toolkit (Motif) didn't catch on more widely was that it was proprietary and commercial. Other than that, it was actually ahead of both Windows and Macintosh.
Qt, FLTK, and wxWindows are cross-platform toolkits. They are as much Windows and Macintosh toolkits as they are X11 toolkits. You might take their existence as evidence for the "inadequacy" of the Macintosh toolkits as well.
Don't you realize that the single most important reason why some UNIX geeks get Macs is beacuse there's one single dominant API on the platform, and the desktop is consistent?
I realize that Macintosh advocates often claim that, but it is technically false, and I suspect the number of "UNIX geeks" that actually do that is rather small.
It is technically false because the Macintosh has one of the most inconsistent GUIs of any machine out of the box: three APIs (Carbon, Cocoa, Java), and several inconsistent looks. Neither Windows, Gnome, nor KDE have that level of inconsistency out of the box. And it only gets worse when you start installing applications on it, because many Macintosh applications use cross-platform toolkits (Mozilla, Qt, wxWindows, FLTK, MFC, etc.)--far more so than a Windows, Gnome, or KDE desktop.
As for the number of "UNIX geeks" using a Macintosh, I think that's hard to tell. Many UNIX geeks (myself included) use a Macintosh laptop because PC vendors are so braindead when it comes to supporting Linux on laptops. A Macintosh laptop gives me a UNIX shell out of the box and can be made to run Mozilla and TeX fairly easily, which is mostly what I want to run when I travel. Don't kid yourself into thinking that that translates into a lot of enthusiasm for the Macintosh platform. I wouldn't dream of putting a Macintosh on my desk as my primary computing platform--it is way too limited and too much of a hassle.
Now, I admit that there are inconsistencies between Aqua and brushed metal, but at least they work the same way. You can't say that about the different toolkits on Linux, nor can you say it about X11 apps on a Mac.
You say Carbon, Cocoa, and Java are 3 APIs, but that's not entirely accurate either, since the Cocoa API has Java bindings as well as Obj-C bindings. Moreover, the Cocoa API actually calls Carbon functions for some things anyway.Well, that's why I got a Mac, anyway, and how I convinced one of my friends to get one as well (he's very happy with it, by the way; he was a big BSD fan before).How?? Aside from not being able to run WINE and having an underpowered graphics card, I have yet to find anything that my Linux PCs can do that my iBook cannot. And it's much less of a hassle than maintaining my other computers (that could be 'cause I use Gentoo, though).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Okay, here's the thing though: Nobody I know has a "GNOME desktop" or "KDE desktop!" [...] There's absolutely NO way you could possibly say that's more consistent than a Mac OS X desktop!
Gnome and KDE each provide a complete, consistent set of applications. Most non-hacker types stick to either one or the other without ever mixing anything. In fact, many distributions only install one or the other desktop.
In my experience, most people have a mix of QT and GTK,
Well, maybe most Linux users you know are hacker types. Even if they do, the two desktops are getting quite well integrated, so that if you run a Gnome application under KDE, it will pick up the KDE L&F.
Now, I admit that there are inconsistencies between Aqua and brushed metal, but at least they work the same way. You can't say that about the different toolkits on Linux,
Actually, some of the most serious inconsistencies on the Mac are between Carbon and Cocoa, which handle files and key bindings differently, and between UNIX and HFS file systems. But, yes, appearance wise, the differences between Aqua and metal are jarring and confusing.
How?? Aside from not being able to run WINE and having an underpowered graphics card, I have yet to find anything that my Linux PCs can do that my iBook cannot. And it's much less of a hassle than maintaining my other computers
Installing packages like TeX, TeXMacs, Gnome, Mono, X11, etc. is a royal pain on the Mac. There isn't even a consistent way of installing software on the Mac: almost every software install is different, and most packages need to be downloaded and updated by hand. Then you have the problem that software like TeX or Gnome may have been packaged multiple times and conflict when you install it. Software installation and maintenance on the Macintosh is a bloody mess, worse even than Windows.
On a distribution like Debian or SuSE, software installation isn't even an issue: you tell it at startup what kind of machine you want to install, and everything else is automatic, including updates and maintenance.
Of course you have to write your code in a cross platform manner in the first place...
And therein lies the rub! It's rather easy to tell who is the Unix and Linux developers apart, by who has the easiest code to port to a different flavor of Unix. When even their shell scripts have a hardcoded "#!/bin/bash", it's quite clear that portibility is a non-requirement.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Even with incredibly complicated programs (I think OpenOffice was one), it has been reported that telling make that you're running FreeBSD is sufficient to compile on a mac . . .
hawk