Apple X11 and Fink...How To

[sao]

If you have XFree86 installed with Fink, and you want to install X11 from Apple, I believe the way to do it, is as follows:


1- Remove the Fink versions first:

dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base-shlibs

and if you installed the rootless packages, also run:

dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless-shlibs

And if you have installed the 'xfree86-threaded' packages, do the same with -threaded. (Note that if you have apps that require threaded XFree86, you may have trouble with your dpkg database if you force remove it and install a different XFree86 package or placeholder package)


2- Download and install X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta SDK from here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/

3- Download and install x11 from Apple from here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/download/


4- Install with Fink 'system-xfree86-4.2-3'

This is the version that will work. If you don't see it when you run 'fink list', then run:

'fink selfupdate-cvs'

or, if you are using binaries, run:

'sudo apt-get update'


*Do not download the "common toolkits" from OpenDarwin, they will likely interact poorly with Fink's installation.

And remember, if you don't remove the Fink versions first, the Apple installer will write over all your fink x11 packages with its own versions, as it says in the "README" - "Important Information":

<<"By default, the installer archives and then overwrites any
existing X11 configuration information. To preserve your
existing X11 configuration files, deselect the package named
X11 Configuration">>

Please, read the Fink site news on Apple X11 Binaries here:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/doc/x11/inst-xfree86.php#apple-binary


Any problems, let me know.


Cheers...

[ClarkGoble]

The thing I don't understand is from the following from the Fink web site.

Also, make sure you download BOTH the SDK (linked from the main site), and the public beta files.

What are the public beta files that aren't part of the SDK. I was running my Fink apps with only the public beta (the 40 meg file). I just downloaded the SDK (the 3 meg file) so we'll see what it adds.

[Glanz]

What is the "quartz-wm" interface supposed to look like? Is it that green widget thingy bar, and that's it? Really, I do not see where this X11 is an advantage. I do not notice the least difference in speed. The only difference I see is a widget set more stark than even the OroborOSX one, which at least uses real aqua widgets instead of default X11 widgets. So what's the advantage.?This lacks a real window manager, it seems. It seems like a step backwards to me.

[sao]

Tips about Apple X11 from different sources:

First, please understand that Apple X11 public beta probably have still quite numerous bugs. So don't expect a perfect behaviour.

The only README file provided in the distribution is within the .pkg installer. If you want to read it, before/after installing, just control-click the package in the finder and "show package contents", then /Contents/Resources English.lproj/ReadMe.rtf


1- Copy/Paste (text):

command-C to copy in X, and control-v to paste


2- You don't need anymore autocutsel.


3- To bring back your **** key for use inside Fink's Emacs21 with 'Apple X11 and Quartz-wm':

On Preferences, disable "Enable key equivalents under X11". Then Cmd can be used for ****.

And to force Emacs to use 'Option' instead of 'Command' for the **** key:

Try in .emacs (setq mac-command-key-is-**** nil)


4- Xemacs used to complain about the **** key. Now with the X11.app it's gone.


5- The path in the xterm in X11.app when using quartz-wm as the window manager doesn't have /sw in the path:

Kill that xterm and start another one from your .xinitrc or from the Terminal.app command line. This will then have the right path.


6- quartz-wm "doesn't fully support" Gnome/KDE window manager hints, so you may see some strange behavior on windows that shouldn't have decorations, but do.


7- Apple's X11 is rootless only - no fullscreen mode.


Cheers...

[sao]

Glanz wrote:
This lacks a real window manager, it seems.
I think you can use your own window manager. It will run a bit slower, that's all.

I didn't touch till now my main installation, it's too precious for me. I just installed Apple X11 Beta in my backup iMac, as I'm still testing. Let's see what I have left when the mud settles.


Cheers...

[sao]

ClarkGoble,

What I know is that if you don't install SDK, your installation with Fink of system-xfree86-4.2-3 will probably fail. So, it's important that people install both 'X11SDKForMacOSX' and the 'X11UserForMacOSX'


Cheers...

[sao]

Glanz,

This is a quite interesting post from Jeff Whitaker (Fink xfree86 packages maintainer) at the fink-dev list:

<<Apple's X11 will work with fink xfree86-4.2.1.1 on 10.2.3. I tested this by installing xfree86-base, xfree86-rootless (and shlibs), then copying over /Applications/X11.app, /usr/X11R6/bin/Xquartz, /usr/X11R6/bin/quartz-wm and /usr/X11R6/lib/libapplexp.1.0.dylib from an Apple X11 installation.

Double click on the X11 icon in /Applications, and voila, quartz-wm fires up. Not as fast as running the full Apple installation though, but I suspect once xfree86 4.3 is released there won't be a noticeable difference. Would be nice if someone would package up just those files from Apple's X11, as alternative to OroborusX. >>


Cheers...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao
Glanz,

This is a quite interesting post from Jeff Whitaker
Cheers...

Thanks... I found the problem! I have a development folder in which I am working on Open Office... not the one provided by OO for OSX, but source that I am porting differently after having ported to QNX. I had to eliminate some paths there and restart. After, I redid the paths and everything works fine. My system is a real labyrinth.

In any case, the Aqua widgets are now activated after the restart.. Everything works fine. Now all I have to do is make an app launching folder for this. One thing I can't figure out is why X11 is easier to work with on a mac than on Linux. That is to say, on Linux, each distro has its specifics, its glitches and its linkings. Now under OSX, this all seems to be more direct, easier to customize and more user controllable, like with NetBSD or FreeBSD. Oh well, I never thought I'd see the day when the BSDs, including Darwin became easier to customize than Linux, but this seems to be the case now.

There are several noticeable differences. The most striking of which is the scrolling. It is now much smoother. And yes...., certain applications launch faster.


[an hour later] In fact ALL applications launch faster. This is getting interesting! BTW... to use ROX, with this, you must create a "Choices" folder in ~/.... That's where ROX keeps configs.

[bluehz]

Still not completely understanding the whole PATH issue.

I reinstated my .xinitrc file for use with Apple-X11 and had it fire up an xterm - the path is correct in that ONE xterm. Anything else - for example if you launch another xterm with X11 reverts back to the stock Apple-X11 path - which does not work for most stuff. How do we get the systemwide path into Apple-X11?

[Glanz]

Originally posted by bluehz
Still not completely understanding the whole PATH issue.
How do we get the systemwide path into Apple-X11?

Don't worry too much about paths. You should have "/usr/X11R6/bin/quartz-wm" in the ~/.xinitrc file. ... no matter which line as long as the others are hashed out. For example, if you wanted to start another WM using Apple's X11, the path would go like this: "exec /sw/bin/wmaker" instead of quartz-wm.

If you want to add applications to the "Applications" menu on the top bar when running Apple X11, click "customize", then "add item". You will see two columns, one for "name" and one for "command". You must double click in the space reserved for "name" to open a cursor in the name field, likewise for "command". The only ones for which you do not have to write the full path are the inherent X11 apps such as xterm, rxvt, xedplus, xedit, etc. The others require full paths, for example "/sw/bin/eterm -e pine", "/sw/bin/nedit", "xterm -e /sw/bin/mc", "/sw/bin/galeon", etc, etc.

[bluehz]

Its not so much I am worried about it - but some things are broken without correct path. for example - the basic path for my bin ~/bin is not in the path. I keep a lot of custom stuff in there. I really don't want to have to type full-paths for everything. There must be a solution somewhere. I mean its getting/setting the path somewhere...

[sao]

Glanz,

You asked me in another thread:

must I delete the XFree currently on my system plus "xaw3d & xaw3d-shlibs" (to be reinstalled later)
No, in November last year, Jeff Whitaker updated the xaw3d packages, and since then, they dont live outside /sw anymore (they used to live in /usr/X11R6).

dpkg -L xaw3d
dpkg -L xaw3d-shlibs


Cheers...

[carl]

bluehz:

Have you put your alterations to the path in the configuration file for your term? (.cshrc/.tschrc/.bashrc/whatever)

This is how I have set it up here and it's working fine, both from launching a term in .xinitrc and from the Applications menu.

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao

dpkg -L xaw3d
dpkg -L xaw3d-shlibs


Cheers...
Thank you once again Sao...... I took a chance and everything went all right.

I now have my system configured on an "either/or" basis: XDarwin or Apple X11 plus a pure /"usr/local" Darwin that doesn't conflict with Fink. T'was Merv who pointed the way via the use of multiple shells.

I am sure glad you're around as this X11 thing gets ironed out for everyone. To me, this is really big news.

[sao]

bluehz wrote:
Anything else - for example if you launch another xterm with X11 reverts back to the stock Apple-X11 path
This is one of the bugs of this public beta. It just loves to start the xterm before reading the .xinitrc file.

Cheers...

[bluehz]

So is it necessary to alter the previous install of Xfree? I spent months getting that thing to work properly. Really kinda makes my skin crawl thinking of messing with it.

I just ran the Apple-X11 installer and other than the path issue - all is well. Although - I think I read that the Apple-X11 installer probably already overwrote some of my other stuff.

[sao]

Glanz wrote:
I now have my system configured on an "either/or" basis: XDarwin or Apple X11
Does it work well for you?

'Born to be wild'...have you tried running blackbox with four virtual desktops on top of Apple (rootless) X11?

Or, have you tried running both XDarwin rooted (fullscreen) and Apple's X11 which is only rootless?

(without destroying your system...:) )


Cheers...

[macmath]

I did as in the first post of this thread, removing all 4 items, and installing both the x11 sdk and x11 itself. Upon trying to install system-xfree86 I get the following

----
Information about 1986 packages read in 2 seconds.

pkg system-xfree86 version 4.2-3
The following package will be installed or updated:
system-xfree86
dpkg -i /sw/fink/dists/stable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/x11-system/system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb
(Reading database ... 7170 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking system-xfree86 (from .../system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb) ...

dpkg: error processing /sw/fink/dists/stable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/x11-system/system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb (--install):
subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/sw/fink/dists/stable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/x11-system/system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb
### execution of dpkg failed, exit code 1
Failed: can't install package system-xfree86-4.2-3
-----

How do I work around this, please?

Thanks.

[sao]

bluehz wrote:
I think I read that the Apple-X11 installer probably already overwrote some of my other stuff.
Before running the installer, did you remove the Fink versions first?

Cheers...

[bluehz]

Anyone else notice that you are not able to HIDE the Apple-X11 in the background. Hopefully this will be rectified in the final.

[macmath]

I installed the x11 sdk a second time, on top of x11 and this time I got:

Unpacking system-xfree86 (from .../system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb) ...

Looks like you've got Apple's XFree86.
Valid XFree86 installation detected.

Setting up system-xfree86 (4.2-3) ...

All's well.

[sao]

macmath,

Do you have all the compilation-log or that's all it wrote?

Edit: Just read your last post, glad it worked. :)


Cheers...

[bluehz]

Whats the purpose of the SDK - I mean I know what it is - but my install seems to be running fine without it.

[carl]

It allows you to compile program which use X11 (ie, things that aren't text only).

You don't need it unless you are planning on doing so.

As an aside, can anyone paste from Aqua programs into X11? I can't seem to.

[sao]

bluehz,

I would advice you to install it. It's symlinks to libraries and headers that get used by other packages, and also sometimes documentation.

I was also adviced to install it as Apple has a tendency to put a lot of things inside that they think the "ordinary Mac user" will ever need. So it's always better to install it.

Did you installed system-xfree86-4.2-3 with Fink?


Cheers...

[bluehz]

I just checked - this is what I currently have:

system-xfree86 4.2-1 Placeholder package for manually installed XFree86
i xfree86-base 4.2.1.1-4 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
i xfree86-base-shlibs 4.2.1.1-4 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
xfree86-base-threaded 4.2.1.1-3 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
xfree86-base-threaded- 4.2.1.1-3 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
i xfree86-rootless 4.2.1.1-4 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
i xfree86-rootless-shlib 4.2.1.1-4 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
xfree86-rootless-threa 4.2.1.1-3 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data
xfree86-rootless-threa 4.2.1.1-3 XFree86 libraries, utilities, clients and data

[sao]

bluehz,

You didn't remove the fink versions first, so this means that the Apple installer wrote over all your 'fink x11' packages with its own versions.

You would have to force remove the fink packages and install afterwards, system-xfree86. But as you have it now, the 'force removal' will remove the apple versions, because you didn't remove the fink versions first.

Maybe you post your problem at the fink-users list, and let me know what they say.


Cheers...

[bluehz]

Not very good they don't offer some README or something that tells you NOT to install over a Fink install...

Anyway - I did this:

dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base-shlibs
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless-shlibs

Installed SDK (I did not have it installed yet)
Reinstalled Apple-X11
Fink install system-xfree86-4.2-3

in that order and all seems to be fine now. As a matter of fact - I can all of the sudden use xmms again! Very odd....it was stuttering every 1/2 sec before. Now is smooth.

[sao]

bluehz wrote:
Not very good they don't offer some README or something that tells you NOT to install over a Fink install
The only README file provided in the distribution is within the .pkg installer. There, they inform that :

<<By default, the installer archives and then overwrites any existing X11 configuration information. To preserve your existing X11 configuration files, deselect the package named X11 Configuration.>>

They could have provided a ReadMe.rtf file outside the installer. (but, it's a public beta)

Anyhow, it seems you did the right thing. Glad it worked :)


Cheers...

[Dan Day]

What should the ~/.xinitrc file contain?

[sao]

Dan Day,

Try this:

source /sw/bin/init.sh

xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &

exec /usr/X11R6/bin/quartz-wm

Cheers...

[sao]

carl wrote:
As an aside, can anyone paste from Aqua programs into X11? I can't seem to
Option-clicking to paste works for me.

Cheers...

[bluehz]

Well now my xmms has returned to the terrible stuttering again. Very werid. first time I launched it was beautiful - smooth as glass. Now I can not even launch from within Apple-X11. Tells me that something else is using the sound output. Launching via open-X11 xmms - actually tsarts playing but its stuttering so bad its unlistenable, Note this is not even a stream - these are standard MP3's that are skipping!

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao
Does it work well for you?

'Born to be wild'...have you tried running blackbox with four virtual desktops on top of Apple (rootless) X11?

Or, have you tried running both XDarwin rooted (fullscreen) and Apple's X11 which is only rootless?

(without destroying your system...:) )


Cheers...

Yes everything works!... I can still launch X-Darwin for the standard BB and Wmaker and KDE widgets, BUT I can launch all that with the AppleX11 also... no problem..... The individual window widgets show up as the original GTK, etc choices, the main window widget is Aqua.. HOWEVER.... The Apple X11 won't launch apps that haven't been pathed fully in the Blackbox, Wmaker, or KDE menu system. In other words, only full paths are recognized, such as "/sw/bin/nedit" instead of just "nedit"...because I do not dare source "/sw" in "~/.xinitrc" as per usual because of my parallel Darwin. This, believe it or not is an advantage for me, because I can launch Fink's nedit, for example, with a "/sw/bin/nedit" and the pure Darwin nedit with a "/usr/local/bin/nedit"...

This is even better than before because one is sure to keep apps that are not specifically "X11" (makes no diff there) from interfering with each other. This is great!!!!! It's really no different than Open Office or AbiWord depending on the "/Applications" lieu for their paths. This opens up a whole new can of glorious, squiggling worms. I am now convinced that I can keep everything from interfering with the Fink install and v/v. I even placed the whole system on the tcsch shell.

[bigbambo]

i have been trying with the command-c command-v, and i even read control-v from someplace, but i cant get it to paste from like my web browser to my console window. Anyone have any luck?

[sao]

Glanz wrote:
This opens up a whole new can of glorious, squiggling worms
:D And LOL I call it a night now. It's quite late in Singapore.

Cheers...

[justinp]

Anyway to ignore the Aqua wrap in certain applications?

XMMS looks silly with each window appearing separately...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao
:D And LOL I call it a night now. It's quite late in Singapore.

Cheers...
Nighty night Sao..., and don't let the X11 bugs bYte.;)

Here's a little something to ponder over your morning tea; compared to XDarwin , it seems to be lacking a few thingies. The display has to be set manually to implement changes, but that's not a biggie. It's a click focus affair, not a cursor focus as in XDarwin. Some widgets are accepted and some are simply not while running window managers other than quartz-wm. But this is not a bug, as the functions of certain apps that depend upon libraries not offered by OpenDarwin.org. In other words, Fink has more and more up to date libraries and applications. This probably won't affect those with a standard Fink install and have their systems pathed properly.

There is a difference in path syntax between XDarwin, XDarwin window managers, and quartz-wm (some wm's have a built-in compensation for shortened syntax). These sequences have been "embedded" in Apple X11, however these can be readily corrected "on the fly" at their occurance by the average Fink user.

There is also a permission conflict between Fink apps and folders, XDarwin folders and files, and OSX Applications and folders. These too can be adjusted on the fly, but with extreme care and foreboding.

Other Window Managers such as BlackBox, FluxBox, Windowmaker, have an inherent pathing to necessary libraries for graphic rendering. KWM and Sawfish also. Xfce however, is the WM the most "hooked" to X11 because of its many "X" apps, so it seems to have fewer problems. Yet the pathing in it and in its menus must be literal for the Apple X11 to take them into account, at least on my system, which as I have explained, is a veritable can of worms.

It's all much, much good fun. It has been a long time since I have enjoyed myself so much playing around with a system.

I am sure, you will be called upon to rescue many poor souls wandering in this latest maze proffered by Apple to the unsuspecting.

:p :p

[sao]

bluehz wrote:
Well now my xmms has returned to the terrible stuttering again
I checked the fink archives, and found nothing. But in a google search found some posts that mentioned the same problem. It seems to be a buffering/blocking bug in esd, according to some postings on linux-kernel.

Have you checked the options with esd -h

What 'esound' version? (esd -v)


Cheers...

[sao]

Glanz,

Thanks for the feedback. I have no problems in my iMac installation, but in my desktop G4 (main Fink installation) I have installed Fink xfree86-threaded before, so I have to do some juggling to use Apple X11. I posted what I learned in another thread.

Cheers...

[bluehz]

sao - I moved the xmms topic to its own topic as it was getting a bit off topic in this thread. Also - if others are having the problem it might be easier to find for them.

If possible would you mind going there for replys on the xmms subject:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8378

[sao]

Till now I found the following problems with Apple X11:

Is missing "threaded" support.

Problems with window focus.

Difficulties running as a different user.

To get the "delete" key to really be a delete key.

Lack of cut-and-paste support for wm's that aren't quartz-wm.


If you want to send feedback about Apple X11 you can do it to the following Apple List:

http://www.lists.apple.com/x11-users


Cheers...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by bluehz
Anyone else notice that you are not able to HIDE the Apple-X11 in the background.

What exactly do you mean bu "hide"? I don't understand.

[bluehz]

Hide - as in put it in the background and "hide" (hide all the windows, etc) same as you can do with any other app.

[Djibouti]

I can't get x11 to work no matter what I do. I was working fine before with fink and XDarwin, but I really wanted to try this out.

So, I tried following all of the directions fink gave to switch to X11, but it didn't work. the SDK and program installed fine, but when I double clicked the icon nothing happened.

Then I tried completely removing everything. I rm -rf'd /sw, /X11, X11R6 and XDarwin.app.

I tried deleting .xinitrc, tried replacing it with something somebody suggested on page 1 or 2 of this thread, and still no luck.

What am I doing wrong?

Please help me!

Thank you,

--Jeremy

[bluehz]

Ooooooooh - I hope you didn't delete your /sw dir. Thats your Fink dir and pretty important. Although I don't think you need it to run the Apple-X11.

[Djibouti]

I know that it's my fink dir. I can deal with re-installing fink, it's not a big problem. I'm just trying to get rid of anything that could possibly have a conflict with X-11. Any ideas?

[WillyT]

I did some speed comparisons using glxgears.

Using the threaded fink install with Gnome and Enlightenment I was getting about 102 fps.

Uninstalled the fink XFree86 and installed Apples X11 and got 78fps with quartz-wm.

Moved back my old .xinitrc so using Gnome and Enlightenment and got 147fps. (had to launch from X11 Menu (glxgears > speed))

Had some probs with not being able to get to the surface when starting from Gnome and Enlightenment probably because they were built against the threaded version.

My opinion is Apple's X11 is faster than XFree86 without HW acceleration and Enlightenment is faster than quartz-wm.

It seems the wm makes more speed difference than the HW acceleration.

Now if they just fix the (0,0) coordinates and path and .xinitrc fall through (it should stop X11 when it exits shouldn't it. I remember OroborOSX had a kludgey script to fix that at one time)

Maybe I'll just wait for XFree86 4.3.
I never thought XFree86 was slow after I started using Enlightenment.

Willy

ps 400MHz G4 1.2GB
ATI Rage 128 AGP 16MB

[Glanz]

Originally posted by WillyT
I never thought XFree86 was slow after I started using Enlightenment.

ps 400MHz G4 1.2GB
ATI Rage 128 AGP 16MB

Have you tried Blackbox? I find it even faster than Enlightenment. The slowest of them all however, remains KDE......... I agree that the wm has more to do with speed than the XFree version or the X11 tweaks.

[maclaxguy]

I'm trying to install the system-xfree86, as instructed from Fink's site, and I'm getting this error:

dpkg: error processing /sw/var/cache/apt/archives/system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb (--unpack):
subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/sw/var/cache/apt/archives/system-xfree86_4.2-3_darwin-powerpc.deb
E: Sub-process /sw/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)


Can anyone tell me how I can get this installed? Thanks in advance

[sao]

maclaxguy,

Did you installed the 'X11 SDK' besides Apple X11?

I you did, reinstall it and after try again:

'fink install system-xfree86'


Cheers...

[sao]

More tips for Apple X11:


1- If you want more choices with fonts in Apple X11:

'fink install applesystemfont'


2- You can actually run both XDarwin and X11 side-by-side if you issue this command:

defaults write org.xfree86.XDarwin Display 1

(for the very brave)


3- If your delete key works in terminal.app but not in an xterm, try any of the following to see if it works for you:

"stty erase ^H"

xmodmap -e "keysym Delete = BackSpace"

xmodmap -e "keysym 59 = Delete"


4- For those who have a different keyboard and want to get it back in Apple X11, just lauch X11 from a terminal with:

/Applications/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11 --xquartz-be-xinit -keymap /System/Library/Keyboards/Francais.keymapping

(change to suit your 'language.keymapping')



Cheers...

[agvaughan]

Hey there,

Has anyone gotten this running with Matlab R13? I'd love to use this, but don't really understand what I might break if I try.

Thanks!
Alex

[sao]

agvaughan,

Testing Matlab with the new Apple X11:

In principle it works, as Apple X11 is not threaded. But the result will depend on your video card. It was tested on an iBook (clam shell, fall 2000, ATI Rage video). There it works, and it is amazingly fast. The hardware acceleration is real.

According to Martin Costabel (Fink developer), who did the test, in 3D hardware accelerated graphics as measured by matlab's benchmark, Apple's X11 (when it doesn't crash) is actually about 25% *slower* than the xfree86-4.2.99 cvs snapshot and only twice as fast than xfree86-4.2.1.

Go to Apple X11 web site page:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/

Look closely at the screenshot. Do you notice which program is running? Then, look at the dock. Notice the icon with the 3-D Graphic?


Cheers...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao

defaults write org.xfree86.XDarwin Display 1

Cheers...

That's beautiful! hoodathunk anyways?
:) This is getting really interesting!

[maclaxguy]

Originally posted by sao
maclaxguy,

Did you installed the 'X11 SDK' besides Apple X11?

I you did, reinstall it and after try again:

'fink install system-xfree86'


Cheers...

sao,
I remember having installed the SDK, but I went ahead and reinstalled it. Worked like a charm! Thanks.

[julianwai]

Hi,
I seems to have successfully installed fink. But when I tried to install a package (e.g. abiword), after downloading a whole bunch of packages, it says it cannot find cc. Have I missed something? I have already downloaded and installed X11 and the apple SDK.
Thanks

[maclaxguy]

Originally posted by julianwai
I seems to have successfully installed fink. But when I tried to install a package (e.g. abiword), after downloading a whole bunch of packages, it says it cannot find cc. Have I missed something? I have already downloaded and installed X11 and the apple SDK.
Thanks

Did you install the Apple Developer Tools that came with Mac OS? It sounds like you didn't, as cc is the compiler, which is part of that package.

[maclaxguy]

Well, even though Fink went actually installed the xfree86 package, X11 is stil not working right.:mad: To run programs, I must type the entire path. ie:
to run ethereal:
% /sw/bin/ethereal

to run nmap:
% /usr/local/bin/nmap

instead of just
% ethereal
or % nmap

Thanks,
Ben

[sao]

maclaxguy wrote:
Did you install the Apple Developer Tools that came with Mac OS
Actually, he needs to install the latest Apple Developer Tools from December 2002.

Released to online ADC members (free registration) from here:

http://connect.apple.com/


Cheers...

[sao]

maclaxguy,

Why don't you use the Applications menu...'Customize'

Glanz posted in page 1 of this same thread:

"If you want to add applications to the "Applications" menu on the top bar when running Apple X11, click "customize", then "add item". You will see two columns, one for "name" and one for "command". You must double click in the space reserved for "name" to open a cursor in the name field, likewise for "command". The only ones for which you do not have to write the full path are the inherent X11 apps such as xterm, rxvt, xedplus, xedit, etc. The others require full paths, for example "/sw/bin/eterm -e pine", "/sw/bin/nedit", "xterm -e /sw/bin/mc", "/sw/bin/galeon", etc, etc."


Cheers...

[sao]

maclaxguy,

This FAQ explains quite clearly the problem:

--------------------

Q: Why can I launch let's say gimp from the apple's x11 terminal withouth giving the direct path, but not from the Application menu after starting X11 by double clicking?

A: When you use the Applications menu, the PATH and the other environment variables are the ones X11.app has inherited. If you start it by clicking on the icon, you have the absolute minimum set of environment variables. You can test this by creating a simple script containing only one line

printenv > /tmp/printenv.log

and then running this from the Applications menu. The PATH, for example, is

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/you:/usr/X11R6/bin

It will not find gimp in this PATH, I suppose.

Apple's X11 Terminal, OTOH, if called by its default 'xterm' command, reads some of your shell startup scripts,

namely ~/.cshrc or ~/.tcshrc

if you are with the default tcsh. If you set some PATH there, it will be known inside the X11 Terminal.

So if you have, as Fink recommends,

"source /sw/bin/init.csh"

inside ~/.cshrc or ~/.tcshrc, you will have a full PATH there and gimp will be found.

If you set your shell up differently, for example with the old clean pre-Jaguar setup in

~/Library/init/tcsh {path,environment.mine,etc},

it will not be read by the xterm from the Applications menu. This is what was bothering me and others.

You can, however, have it read *all* your shell startup scripts if you declare it to be a "login shell", that is, instead of the simple command
"xterm", you call it as "xterm -ls" (change it via "Customize...").

Then you have all your environment variables available.

---------------------

Cheers...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao
maclaxguy,

This FAQ explains quite clearly the problem:

--------------------

Then you have all your environment variables available.
[somewhere over the rainbow.....]:)
---------------------

Cheers...

Great summary Sao. Now I have some great news. Some Russian friends have created a really good mail client called "StupHead" (evidently they did it just for me)...;) It is on the Fink Lists unstable.

Stuphead complains on first run that the command "ispell -a -drussian" cannot be run. All you have to do is to change the Russian to English by going to the "Other" tab (the last one in the setup config interface) and change that to 'ispell -a denglish'... Then you're set. I mention this because this application has a newsreader better than the one in Evolution, and for speed in everything, it's got Kmail and related apps really beat.
Now because of the name of the app, every time you use it you'll think of your friend in coooold snowy, icy Montreal, Quebec, Canada..... Looking out of his window at McGill University.

http://stuphead.asplinux.ru/stuphead/

Stuphead includes following features:

* Full character encondings support, based on iconv library
* Full NNTP support, including NNTP authorization
* SMTP authorization support
* Optional compiled-in support for viewing image and html attachments (via CscHTML or Mozilla widgets)
* On the fly spell checking

Stuphead is small and fast graphical e-mail client based on GTK+ library. The project was born as a fork from Sylpheed MUA by Hiroyuki Yamamoto.

[sao]

Glanz,

Thanks for your tip. I'm already installing Stuphead. Will test and let you know. :)

Cheers...

[bluehz]

sao - my problem with paths is exactly what you describe - I use the pre-Jaguar method setup. My Terminal command in the X11>Application menu reads:

xterm -j -rightbar -sb -sl 1000 -bg black -fg green -geometry 80x35+584+20 &

(should look familiar - you told me about that one)

When I first launch Apple-X11 and the default xterm appears - if I check the $PATH I get:

/sw/bin:/sw/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/me:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

but if I then use the Application menu to open a new xterm (using the command line above) and check the $PATH - I get this:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/me:/usr/X11R6/bin

What am I doing wrong here?

[sao]

bluehz,

It seems that environment variables, and specifically PATH set in ~/.xinitrc don't seem to get inherited by apps started by the Application menu in quartz-wm.

I don't know exactly how to solve this except by doing as it says in the FAQ above:

<<You can, however, have it read *all* your shell startup scripts if you declare it to be a "login shell", that is, instead of the simple command "xterm", you call it as "xterm -ls" (change it via "Customize...").>>

I found another post with a possible solution, but I haven't tried it myself, and not sure it works:

<<I assume that they're not child processes of the wm, so I've added the fink path(s) to ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist which solves the problem.>>

If anyone wants to go further with this method, you can check the following info at the ADC:

http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1067.html


Cheers...

[WillyT]

Neato. Some of my fink stuff will run if I add a PATH environmental variable to the command.
T.E.G. PATH=/sw/bin:/sw/sbin:$PATH tegclient This passes the new PATH variable to the shell which executes the command.
Now tegclient is able to start the tegserver and launch tegrobot(s)

Now if I could figure out how to get python working with tcltk from the menu, I wouldn't need xterm as much.

HTH
Willy

[bluehz]

The command is actually:

'fink install applesystemfonts'

with an 's' on the end. Also - before running this command you might want to check out info about this at Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/package.php/applesystemfont) especially noting the warning. It is a minor issue regarding the size of this install and how it relates to the fonts you have installed in your system but it may have adverse impact on some users.

Originally posted by sao
More tips for Apple X11:

1- If you want more choices with fonts in Apple X11:

'fink install applesystemfont'

[sao]

bluehz,

Nice catch! Thanks. :)

The package name was getting chopped off because of the width of my terminal. I corrected now:
i applesystemfonts 1.0-1 Make Apple system fonts available to X11R6


So, everybody:

just type "fink use applesystemfonts"

with a trailing "s". Or, you can also use FinkCommander!


This package will extract the TrueType fonts from your
Apple System and Library directories and make them
available to X11R6.


Warning: This package can get *VERY* large depending on
how many fonts you have in your system. TrueType fonts
will get symlinked, so they won't take much space, but any
dfont files in the /Library or /System/Library directories
will get converted to TrueType and copied to your fink
tree.


Cheers...

[Glanz]

Originally posted by sao
bluehz,

It seems that environment variables, and specifically PATH set in ~/.xinitrc don't seem to get inherited by apps started by the Application menu in quartz-wm.

Cheers...
I solved a lot of this by simply executing apps via literal paths in menu systems, yet there are still probs with apps in /sw referring to libraries in /sw on which they depend. This is not general however so it isn't a really big deal.

[bluehz]

Yes - the libraries that are in your normal path are the things that are causing me minor problems. This is what I was referring to in my query about syncing the normal path variable between Mac and X11. I guess it might be easier if I used a .cshrc or .tcshrc but I prefer the old-style inits and really don't want to change.

[bluehz]

I noticed at the end of the applesystemfonts install it noted:

Setting up applesystemfonts (1.0-1) ...
All done. You may need to restart X to get antialiased fonts
in some applications.

I have restarted X - but I am not really seeing any difference in xterm even after using xfontsel to activate a font. Is there something else need be done - or is xterm out of the question. Antialiased fonts would be really nice in X11.

[Glanz]

Originally posted by bluehz
I noticed at the end of the applesystemfonts install it noted:

Setting up applesystemfonts (1.0-1) ...
All done. You may need to restart X to get antialiased fonts
in some applications.

I have restarted X - but I am not really seeing any difference in xterm even after using xfontsel to activate a font. Is there something else need be done - or is xterm out of the question. Antialiased fonts would be really nice in X11.

I had the same experience in both XDarwin and Apple X11. Nothing changed, nothing improved, and fonts weren't even listed.... and I couldn't figure out how to "activate" or use that so I just did a "fink remove applesystemfonts"....... Nothing changed. Back to normal.

In fact, the only things that changed after I installed "applesystemfonts" were endless and hopelessly esoteric warning messages in Console concerning keyboards and rendering. After uninstalling, I get no more warnings or hesitations that cause system slowdown.

[bluehz]

Hmmm ... I am actually seeing the fonts available in xfontsel - but choosing them seems to have no effect. I am not seeing any errors in the console relating to fonts, although I am seeing these errors in the console:
NFS Portmap: RPC: Port mapper failure - RPC: Timed out

NFS Portmap: RPC: Port mapper failure - RPC: Timed out

NFS Portmap: RPC: Port mapper failure - RPC: Timed out
Not sure if those were there previously or not. I don't remember seeing them.

[Glanz]

Originally posted by bluehz

Not sure if those were there previously or not. I don't remember seeing them.
I had all kinds of errors listed as a direct result of installing those fonts. None of them had to do with fonts either. I know the errors were caused by applesystemfonts because after the "remove" command, they no longer appeared. BTW, you may "remove" and reinstall later. The "remove" command only uninstalls the file, then stores it. So if you decide to reinstall, you won't have a download to do. The alisases for "remove" are: disable, deactivate, unuse, delete, and purge.

[sao]

bluehz,

With XDarwin:

I add these lines to my ~/.xinitrc file before I call the window manager:

xfontpath install /sw/lib/X11/fonts/applettf/

xfontpath enable

to pick up more fonts.

You can check all the fonts available in:

/sw/lib/X11/fonts/applettf/

or

sw/var/lib/dpkg/info/applesystemfonts.list


With Apple X11, although I read a tip at Apple x11-users list, of someone who recommend to install them, I'm not sure you can use them. I suspect now that Apple's X11 might do it's own font handling.


Cheers...

[sao]

homer wrote:
What about this command, to which you referred in the FAQ:

xset fp+ /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF
It should work with no problem.

From man xset: xset - user preference utility for X

+fp or fp+
This +fp and fp+ options prepend and append elements to the current font path,
respectively. They must be followed by a comma-separated list of entries.

Cheers...

[homer]

Okay, I think I was getting confused about something else. Thanks for the info.

[Glanz]

This in one of the fifty error messages I get because of those apple fonts.
xfontpath: directory `/sw/lib/X11/fonts//sw/lib/X11/fonts/applettf/' not found
xfontpath: can't open `/sw/etc/xfontpath.conf.new'
The XKEYBOARD keymap compiler (xkbcomp) reports:
> Error: Can't find file "unknown" for geometry include
> Exiting
> Abandoning geometry file "(null)"
Errors from xkbcomp are not fatal to the X server

[sao]

Glanz,

I can confirm that. I'm getting the same errors in Apple X11.

With xfontsel I get this list of fonts:

american typewriter
apple casual
baskerville
charter
clean
clearlyu
clearlyu alternate glyphs
clearlyu arabic extra
clearlyu devangari extra
clearlyu ligature
clearlyu pua
courier
cursor
fansong ti
fixed
gill sans
gothic
helvetica
herculanum
lucida
lucida bright
lucida sans
lucida sans typewriter
lucidabright
lucidatypewriter
luxi mono
luxi sans
luxi serif
mincho
new century schoolbook
newspaper
nil
open look cursor
open look glyph
song ti
terminal
times
utopia
zapf dingbats
Do you get approximately the same list?

Cheers...

[sao]

Glanz,

Just got a tip by John Harper from Apple.

Try this:

Add fonts to /Library/Fonts or /System/Library/Fonts, then run xftcache
as root

Any applications that use Xft for font management should automatically
pick up the native fonts.

Also check man 'xftcache'

Cheers...