X11: Frequently Asked Questions

[Phil St. Romain]

The following FAQs are valid up to/including Panther

- most content from sao -

NOTE: This is a closed thread. Please post questions and comments on threads about these topics on this forum, or start a new topic if none exists.

- - -

See also the following FAQs
X11 users group
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/x-faq/xfree86/
http://www.xfree86.org/current/

_________________________________

INDEX OF TOPICS (listed by post # in thread).

General info for getting started

1. Index
2. X11, Xfree86, X-Window: General information.
3. X11 installation
4. Locating software to run on X11
5. Installing software to run on X11
- 5.1 What is Fink?
- 5.2 Using Fink to install Software in Apple X11
- 5.3 Fink: Setting your PATH environment variable
- 5.4 (Miscellaneous - forthcoming)
6. Opening software using xterm or the application launcher.
7. The .xinitrc file

Tips and troubleshooting

8. How do I run X11 applications from a Terminal.app window?
9. The hide command actually destroys the X11 windows. Any solution?
10. True Type Fonts are working well under Apple's X11
11. The Mac menu bar coverup problem
12. Minimized windows
13. Events to the X11 root window

- Keyboard Issues -

14. Keyboard Problem
15. Delete key
16. To specify your Keyboard type (French Keyboard example)
17. Switching from USA to Italian Pro Keyboard in X11
18. Specific German keymapping Problem
19. Japanese keyboard input
20. Spanish Keyboard with X11


21. Hover events from underlying app
22. Cut and Paste Problem
23. Resize gadget completely covers the scroll
24. How to run apps at launch
25. Trouble getting ssh-agent working with Apple X11
26. Problem with zombies
27. Problem with KDE and Apple's X11
28. Problems replacing Fink Xfree86 with Apple's X11
29. Confusion with Fink 'system-xfree86' placeholder package
30. Reflections on Firewall rule for X11 usage
31. How to pause a Fink installation for X11
32. To tell Matlab to use Apple's X11 public beta
33. To make xterm in Apple's X11 behave more like Terminal.app
34. Apple's X11 won't start anymore
35. Apple X11 Library Warning
36. Integrating LyX for Apple's X11


Apple's X11 PUBLIC BETA for MacOS X v0.2

37. Upgrading to Apple's X11 Public Beta 0.2
38. New in X11 v0.2
39. Launch of twm instead of Aqua Quartz Window Manager issue
40. What does the "option for no-click-to-focus" do?
41. X11 0.2 crashing on launch
42. Apple's FAQs for X11 Public Beta v0.2 (2 Parts)
43. Fink Script to fix the library issues in Apple's X11
44. About x11 Extension
45. Keyboard shortcut to quit X11
46. To keep your .dmg files
47. Custom Xmodmap files
48. Windows not refocusing with WindowMaker - Codetek?
49. If the 'nph-x11.hqx' file doesn't expand
50. X11 for Mac OS X Beta 0.2.1 released
51. If you installed both, Apple's X11 and XDarwin
52. Print from X11 applications using "lp"
53. Configure a three-button mouse to work with X11.app
54. KDE window opens with it's title bar hidden underneath X11's menu bar
55. X11, Fonts, and OpenOffice
56. More on OpenOffice
57. AppleScript to launch Apple's X11 and The Gimp
58. Printing from Abiword


Apple's X11 PUBLIC BETA for MacOS X v0.3

59. Download Apple's X11 Public Beta v0.3 and SDK
60. What's New in X11 Public Beta 3
61. Apple's FAQs for X11 Public Beta v0.3
62. Fink and Apple's X11 v.03
63. KDE 3.1 in Fink Stable and Apple's X11
64. Pseudocolor (8-bit) visual plane support
65. xman from Apple's X11 v.03
66. Howto: Seamless Postscript printing
67. Trouble launching OOo with Apple's X11
68. OpenOffice + Fink + dlcompat libraries
69. To get xterm to support scrollback while in "screen"
70. If you are using Fink installed KDE and Apple's X11
71. Installing Matlab on Mac OS X With Apple's X11
72. To start OOo with Apple's X11
73. To activate the "font menu" in xterm
74. Application to launch gv in Finder
75. Instructions to download and compile X11-wwdc (v1.0) source code
76. Latest Apple Developer Tools Update and Fink
77. To install OpenOffice if you have already Apple's X11 and Fink installed
78. X11 for Mac OS X v1.0 to ship in Panther
79. Source code for the X11 v1.0 in the GM version of Panther


Apple's X11 1.0 for MacOS X 10.3 (Panther)

80. Installing Apple's X11 1.0 in Panther.
81. Installing Xcode and the X11 SDK package.
82. Fresh install of Fink on a 10.3 system (Panther)
83. Upgrading your previous Fink installation.
84. "Check for circular dependencies" error.
85. Can't find X11.app after installation of Apple's X11 in Panther.
86. Full screen mode in Apple's X11 1.0.
87. Cut and Paste if you don't use quartz-wm.
88. Fink keep asking to install xfree86 after installing Apple's X11 1.0 in Panther.
89. I upgraded to Apple's X11 in Panther and now my window title bars are missing
90. To remove your Fink xfree86 packages and install Apple's X11 1.0
91. Apple's X11 1.0 in Panther and CodeTek VirtualDesktop.
92. "The State of Fink"
93. Fink "Circular Dependency Problem" Solved
94. Official Apple's X11 1.0 FAQ
95. Is it possible to run Apple's X11 logging in as ">console" ?
96. To make Terminal.app and X11 boot in csh?
97. Using Apple's X11 1.0 "Applications" menu in Panther
98. The startx script in Apple's X11 for Panther
99. Problem with the "kde binaries" on panther
100. Double-click apps — Launch X11 applications directly in the Finder
101. Matlab - license manager doesn't start at startup
102. Apple's X11 Customization
103. Apple X11 Beta 3 alternatives
104. X11 1.0 for Panther
105. Display InsightII™ from SGI to Panther
106. X11 Forwarding on MacOS X
107. Sharing the Fink
108. Matlab and Apple's X11
109. Fink, the X11SDK and the Apple Installer
110. Using Xnest to run X11 sessions in a window
111. X11 Bug fixes in 10.3.4

[Phil St. Romain]

Q. What is X11 for Mac OS?

A. X11 for Mac OS X offers a complete X Window System implementation for running X11-based applications on Mac OS X. Based on the de facto-standard for X11, the open source XFree86 project, X11 for Mac OS X is compatible, fast and fully integrated with Mac OS X. It includes the full X11R6.6 technology including a window server, libraries and basic utilities such as xterm.
- from http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/


Q. What does "X11-based applications" mean?

A. These are applications that run in the X Window System, which is an open source graphic rendering engine used in Unix and Linux operating systems. Some of these applications include the popular Gimp graphic editing application, AbiWord word processor, and Open Office, which is a suite of applications similar to MS Office.
Learn more (http://www.x.org/X11.htm) about X11.


Q. What is Xfree86?

A. "The XFree86 Project, Inc is the "organisation which produces XFree86 , a freely redistributable open-source implementation of the X Window System which runs on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux, all of the BSD variants, Sun Solaris x86, Mac OS X (via Darwin), as well as other platforms like OS/2 and Cygwin."
from http://www.xfree86.org/


Summary: just as the Classic environment makes it possible to run classic Mac OS applications in Mac OS X, so does Xfee86 make it possible to run X11 applications in Mac OS X. Apple's X11 has radically simplified the process of installing this environment.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

A. Check http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/ for the most recent version of X11. The download is around 40 MB.

B. Check the bottom of that web page for Apple's SDK package and download it (3.8 MB)

C. Double-click the disk image of these downloads to install as with any other application.

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

If you have already XFree86 installed with Fink and want to install Apple X11

First make sure that you remove your existing Fink xfree86 packages, use dpkg with the --force-depends option from the Command-Line, like so:

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

Or,

If you are using 'FinkCommander' (GUI for the Fink software packaging system for Mac OS X)

Just select:

xfree86-rootless, xfree86-rootless-shlibs, xfree86-base, and xfree86-base-shlibs

and from the menu run:

Source -> Force Remove


Then install Apple's X11 and X11 SDK, and then run:

For binaries:
'sudo apt-get update'
'sudo apt-get install system-xfree86' (for binaries)

or

To get the latest system-xfree86 package from CVS:
'fink selfupdate-cvs'
'fink install system-xfree86'

[Phil St. Romain]

A. Check out http://opendarwin.org/ for available X11 packages, most notably Gimp. Download and install as you do OS X applications.

B. For Open Office, go to http://www.openoffice.org/

C. Installing packages with "Fink".
Fink currently lists a total of 2064 packages in 22 sections you could install in precompiled binary packages or build from source.
To download Fink:
http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php

D. Installing packages with "FinkCommander".
FinkCommander is a graphical user interface for the Fink software packaging system for Mac OS X.
To download FinkCommander:
http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

First, make sure you download and install "BOTH", X11 Public Beta (41.4 MB) and the Mac OS X Public Beta SDK. (3.8MB) from Apple X11 web page.

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

Then, download and install Fink from here:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php

Once Fink's is installed, make sure to install with it, the 'system-xfree86' package, version 4.2-3 or higher by running the following commands in terminal.app:

For binaries:
'sudo apt-get update'
'sudo apt-get install system-xfree86'

Or if you also installed Apple December 2002 Developer Tools (recommended) run:
'fink selfupdate-cvs'
'fink install system-xfree86'

to install the latest system-xfree86 package from CVS.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

Fink is a package manager and installer of Unix software for MacOS X. It uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management. You can choose whether you want to download precompiled binary packages or build everything from source.

Is free, fast and reliable and it offers the easiest way of installing software to run on Apple X11. Fink currently lists in its database 2062 packages you could install, including the unstable tree and the latest packages from CVS (as 1-14-03).

The fink packages seem to get updated fairly quickly to follow the updates in the basic unix source. Fink has support 24/7 through the fink-mailing lists. And it's extremely easy to uninstall, as it keeps all the things at one place (/sw).

For more information:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

To install the software Fink uses package managment tools ported over from Linux:

apt-get, dselect, dpkg

and it's own tool named ...'fink'

You can choose between two installing models:

1-Pre-compiled binary packages
When you install a binary package what you get is a ready to run program saving you the time for compiling. The packages are tailor-made for Mac OS X / Darwin. The tools Fink use to install pre-compiled binary packages are:

'apt-get' and 'dselect'


2-The source distribution
If you install from source you have the advantage to usually get newer software. You get to test the latest packages. With Fink, you can install packages from source, using its own tool named 'fink'.

So, if you run in terminal:

fink install 'packagename'

Fink will download the package, it will unpack it, apply any needed patches, auto-configure, compile, test, and install into a .deb file which gets installed for you by dpkg. Compared to binary installs, it's a slow process -- but it can be much more reliable in many cases.

To install packages from source with Fink, you need the latest version of Apple Developer Tools installed. After you register for free, you can get them from the ADC:

http://www.apple.com/developer/

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

If you use tcsh (the default on Mac OS X), add the following line to the .cshrc file in your home directory:

source /sw/bin/init.csh

If you don't have a .cshrc file, run these commands:

Go to your home directory:

cd

Open the text editor pico, and create a file named .cshrc:

pico .cshrc

When the text editor open, type:

source /sw/bin/init.csh

at the end of the line press Return once.

Then press Control-O, Return, and control-X

to save the file and return to the prompt.

Attention: If you use tcsh and happen to have a .tcshrc file in your home directory, this will be read instead of .cshrc .

It's then better to write 'source /sw/bin/init.csh' in .tcshrc .


If you are using bash, sh or zsh:

Type instead in .profile:

source /sw/bin/init.sh


The scripts also add /usr/X11R6/bin and /usr/X11R6/man to your path so you can use X11 when it is installed.

[Phil St. Romain]

- space reserved for forthcoming tip -

[Phil St. Romain]

In Xterm, simply type the directory path of the Application and hit Enter.

- E.g. /sw/bin/AbiWord

or just type:

AbiWord &

and hit Enter.

-----------

In X11, follow these steps:

A. Choose Customize from the Application menu.
B. Click "Add Item"
C. Double Click under Name in the new item and type the name of the application.
D. Double Click under Command and type the absolute path to the application:
- e.g. /sw/bin/AbiWord

repeat steps B and C as needed.

[Phil St. Romain]

By default, Apple's X11 will execute the .xinitrc file if one is present. If not, it will launch the quartz-wm and launch an xterm.

If you want to run a bunch of apps at launch, add them to your .xinitrc file and add 'exec quartz-wm' if you want them to run with the Apple window manager. If you want Apple's X11 to run with another window manager, add 'exec wmanagername' to your .xinitrc file.

The .xinitrc file is a shell script that runs when you start the X11 system (or when it automatically starts for you).

This file contains the commands to define which applications are started when your X11 system boots up.

It contain for example, the commands to start the window manager, some xterms or a desktop environment (like GNOME or KDE), along with various command line options to control their behavior or appearance, such as setting sizes, background colors, fonts, etc.

What is typically done is to start applications in the background and then finally start the window manager in the foreground. In this way, when exit from the window manager, the .xinitrc script exits and the X11 system goes away.

When the .xinitrc script exits, the X11 system will close down and allow you to logout.

An example of a simple .xinitrc file that starts an xterm and the quartz window manager:

source /sw/bin/init.sh

xterm -geometry 75x34+687+40 &

exec quartz-wm

If you want to use another window manager, like blackbox-rootless and start other apps at launch, you could write for example, your ~/.xinitrc file like:

source /sw/bin/init.sh

xterm -geometry 72x34+100+40 &

multi-gnome-terminal --foreground Yellow --background Black --geometry 75x34+687+40 &

wmCalClock &
wmMoonClock &
wmSpaceWeather &
gkrellm -w &

exec blackbox

[Phil St. Romain]

To start X11 applications from Terminal.app, write in your .cshrc or .login or .tcshrc file:

if (! $?DISPLAY) then
setenv DISPLAY :0.0
endif

If you are using Bash:

if [ ${#DISPLAY} -eq 0 ]; then
export DISPLAY=':0.0'
fi


The 'standard' way to do it in the Bourne shells:

: ${DISPLAY:=':0.0'}
export DISPLAY

This also works with zsh.

[Phil St. Romain]

Workaround:
You should be able to revive all X11 windows after hiding. Just select X11 and then select "Bring All to Front" from the Window menu.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


To set-up True Type Fonts under XDarwin, write in your ~/.xinitrc file:

xset fp+ /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


Window title bars disappear under the Mac menu bar.

Workaround:

1- If you use wmaker instead of quartz-wm, one of the preference panels allows you to put a starting point for new windows (it works along with the automatic setting). You could start new windows at x=64 and y=64 for example.


2- Open your X11 applications with the geometry option:

To start them at launch, write them in your ~/.xinitrc file, for example:

multi-gnome-terminal --foreground Yellow --background Black --geometry 75x34+687+40 &

xterm -geometry 72x34+100+700 &

or write them in the X11 Application menu X11 (Application menu>Customize):

sw/bin/xemacs -geometry 70x30+100+40

sw/bin/gvim -geometry 80x30+687+40


The "units" in some programs are characters (xterm, emacs) and others use pixels.

For most programs the position +100+40 is in pixels.

To learn more about geometry check 'man X' (GEOMETRY SPECIFICATIONS)

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


Minimized windows sometimes become "passive": clicking doesn't maximize them and they can't be removed from the dock. Curiously, quitting X11 does not help: the minimized windows simply stay in the dock, do not respond to a click and still can't be removed. restarting X11 doesn't change this. Up to now I've seen this only with xterm windows.

Workaround:
logout - login helps

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

Greg Parker wrote 'xroot tool', it creates a small X11 window that routes input events to the X11 root window. In particular, you can click on it to get window manager menus.
You can get xroot tool from here:

http://sealiesoftware.com/xroot.c

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


In the 'X11 application Menu' the 'azerty' keyboard is properly recognized, in all 'xterm' windows it switches to 'qwerty'.

Apple is working on fixing this.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


To make the delete key in Apple's X11.app behave like that in XDarwin:

If the behavior of the delete key is different between XDarwin and Apple X11. This can be rectified by adding the following lines to the appropriate X startup files:

.Xmodmap:

keycode 59 = Delete


.Xresources:

xterm*.deleteIsDEL: true
xterm*.backarrowKey: false
xterm*.ttyModes: erase ^?


.xinitrc

xrdb -load $HOME/.Xresources
xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


The following example is for French Keyboard, adjust to your own language.

You have to start X11 from the terminal with:

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

and place this in your ~/.xinitrc:

xmodmap -e 'keycode 66 = Mode_switch'

xmodmap -e 'keycode 69 = Alt_L'


Or


There is a way to change that without modifying anything in /System:

mkdir ~/Library/Keyboards
cd ~/Library/Keybaords
ln -s /Library/Keyboards/Francais.keymapping USA.keymapping

and then restart X11.app.


Or


% startx -- -keymap Francais.keymapping &
% xterm &

In xterm :
% cd
% xmodmap -pke > .Xmodmap

exit xterm and quit X

Then add to your .xinitrc :

xmodmap $HOME/.Xmodmap
xmodmap -e 'keycode 66 = Mode_switch'

Also add to .tcshrc

stty -istrip

Then restart X11 by double-cliking the icon.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


Check the following site:

http://php.tevac.com/artview.php?art_id=5733

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


This is specific to the German keymapping and it's not just a problem with Apple's X11, but with XDarwin etc. as well.

If you launch X11 like this:

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

and use

xmodmap -e 'keycode 66 = Mode_switch'

You can use the German keyboard layout just fine.

But the @ character is mapped to Shift-Alt-1 (one), just like it used to be up to Mac OS 8.6.
With the introduction of Mac OS 9 Apple moved that character to Alt-L. The file Deutsch.keymapping does not seem to reflect that.


Some keymappings in /System/Library/Keyboards have not been updated from a long time. This could explain the problem with the German keymapping.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -

With X11 applications now, the way to get Japanese keyboard input is to run kinput2 and Canna (or some other back end). Keyboard switching and input is all done using the XIM protocol. The X11 application talks to kinput2, which in turn uses Canna to do kanna to kanji conversion.

OSX has a perfectly good keyboard layout and input method for Japanese already. What would be really nice is if Apple could write their own XIM server to replace kinput2. Apple's could use all the powerful stuff they already have to implement this.

[Phil St. Romain]

- posted by sao -

(Thanks to Artemio Gonzalez Lopez <artemiog@mac.com>)


The usual way to start X11 from the terminal with the command:

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

*doesn't work* with the Spanish ISO keyboard. Apple's Spanish.keymapping es very old and doesn't match the modern ISO keyboard.

The way to do it is as follows:

Write in your .xinitrc file:

xmodmap ~/.MyXmodmap
xmodmap -e 'keycode 66 = Mode_switch'

To create .MyXmodmap file:

Copy/paste the following to .MyXmodmap file in your home directory.

.MyXmodmap, is a simple keymap that works very well with xterm.

It has the necessary modification to the USA keymapping in order that all the characters that are drawn in the Spanish ISO keyboard will appear as indicated by the drawings on the keyboard. Including the characters like @#~ that are called with the option key.


.MyXmodmap file:

keycode 18 = masculine ordfeminine backslash backslash
keycode 22 = e E EuroSign cent
keycode 26 = 1 exclam bar exclamdown
keycode 27 = 2 quotedbl at oneeighth
keycode 28 = 3 periodcentered numbersign sterling
keycode 29 = 4 dollar asciitilde dollar
keycode 30 = 6 ampersand notsign fiveeighths
keycode 32 = exclamdown questiondown asciitilde asciitilde
keycode 33 = 9 parenright
keycode 34 = 7 slash paragraph doubledagger
keycode 35 = apostrophe question
keycode 36 = 8 parenleft
keycode 37 = 0 equal
keycode 38 = plus asterisk bracketright dead_macron
keycode 41 = dead_grave dead_circumflex bracketleft dead_abovering
keycode 47 = dead_acute dead_diaeresis braceleft braceleft
keycode 49 = ntilde Ntilde asciitilde dead_doubleacute
keycode 50 = ccedilla Ccedilla braceright dead_breve
keycode 51 = comma semicolon
keycode 52 = minus underscore endash emdash
keycode 55 = period colon
keycode 58 = less greater bar brokenbar
keycode 66 = Mode_switch

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


An X application in the background still gets hover events when it should not. Little tooltips pop up from the underlying app even though you are in the Apple Mail application for example or if you have a GTK+ app open, and then move a non-X11 window over the GTK+ app, then the GTK+ tooltips appear over the non-X11 window.

This is caused by the way in which the X server gets pointer events from the real window server. They have recently fixed most of these problems, but fixing all cases may have to wait for the next version of the operating system.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


Apple X11 currently does not support cut and paste between other window managers and Aqua in the current beta release. This may get resolved in the next release.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


For those X-windows that have rightside scroll-bars that are the full height of the window and have a bottom scroll arrow, the quartz-wm resize gadget completely covers the scroll arrow.

Workaround:
The only workaround at present is to use a different window manager.
Apple is aware of this problem and are trying to find a way to make the resize box less intrusive..

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


To run a bunch of apps at launch, add them to your ~/.xinitrc file together with 'exec quartz-wm' to run the Apple window manager.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


On other Unix-like systems I have ssh-agent launch the window manager, so I tried the following in my ~/.xinitrc:

exec ssh-agent /usr/X11R6/bin/quartz-wm

the agent is running...but the window manager isn't passing crucial env vars to its child processes, so trying to run ssh-add in an xterm results in "Could not open a connection to your authentication agent."

Workaround:
The problem is that quartz-wm has no child processes, it's the X server that spawns the commands in the Applications menu. So to make this work the way you want, you'll need to get the SSH_ variables into the initial environment of the X server, perhaps by starting it by hand from a shell

[Phil St. Romain]

- posted by sao -

(conversation I read at Apple's x11-users list)

When ever I exit from X, menu->quit, I get an X11 zombie that is left around.

-It's a known problem, and has been mentioned on this list a couple of times. I believe the suggestion is that it will be fixed in the proverbial Upcoming Release.

If I log out, all the zombies disappear.

-Yup. That's when zombies are reaped.

What does the system do to get rid of the zombies??

-"The system" doesn't do anything. The parent of the zombified children either exits, in which case 'init' collects them and disposes of them; or it calls (or should call) wait(2) or one of its friends to collect them. That's not happening right now. Logging out will cause the former to occur.

Can I kill off the zombies without logging out??

-They're already dead, Jim. As has been observed at least once before, zombies are fairly benign, unlike movies about them. They essentially take up a process slot, but no (or few) other resources. Unless you are churning out a lot of processes, you shouldn't have to worry. It's mostly a cosmetic deal (which will be corrected, in the fullness of time).

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


If you open up any window in KDE, it stays behind the current windows you have open in Mac OS X. If you put the mouse pointer over the window, it activates it, but does not bring it above the OS X window.

This is one of the known bugs of Apple's X11.app. They have promised to fix it in the next release. You cannot do anything about it, except hide the Aqua windows.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


If you had Fink's XFree86 installed, and you replaced it with Apple's X11, and now everything's crashing:

First of all, if you previously had the "threaded" versions of Fink's XFree86 packages installed, you may need to rebuild the application that is crashing. Some programs check for the availability of threading at build time, and then from then on believe that threading is available to them.

Secondly, you may have just hit an Apple X11 bug. As of the time of this writing, a number of bugs are known by the Apple team and are being worked on.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


Many people get confused between Fink's:

'xfree86-base' and 'xfree86-rootless' packages (used to install XFree86)

and Fink's:

'system-xfree86' package (actually empty)

which is just a placeholder package for an "outside Fink" installed Xfree86, in this case Apple's X11, which installs it's own version of XFree86.

So, if you want to work with Fink and you install 'Apple X11' be sure to install Fink 'system-xfree86' placeholder package version 4.2-3 or higher.

[Phil St. Romain]

- by sao -


What would be a good firewall rule on the Mac, so you can use x11 without having to switch off the firewall ?

IANA has ports 6000-6063 registered to the X Window System:

x11 6000-6063/tcp X Window System
x11 6000-6063/udp X Window System


If X11.app is like every other X server around, it listens by default on port 6000 for display :0. If you open up port 6000, you should be fine.

-----------

This works, of course, but pundits will be quick to point out that it's low on the security scale. A better scheme, if it works for you, is to use "X forwarding", via ssh. Cf the ssh man page for details.

-----------

You do _not_ need to change _any_ firewall settings to use X11 through ssh if ssh is already working. That's the whole idea of X11 forwarding in ssh -- everything will go through your ssh session on port 22.

It is a _bad_ idea to open ports 6000-60xx and connect directly through this. Anybody listening to you connecting will see all key presses in clear text. Just think of, what this means when you enter passwords.

BTW: Using X11 forward in ssh saves you a lot of trouble setting things up.

-----------

Ssh and Xauth:

Ssh does encryption and compression of the stream. The encryption is why it's secure, but it can make the connection very slow. In my experience, and that of pretty much everyone else I work with, the delays necessitated by ssh encoding make the connection tremendously slower than if you bypass ssh. You may want to try turning on compression in ssh (with the -C option or a config file setting). It will very much depend on the bandwidth of your network.

However, if you bypass ssh, you have to ensure security. If you do not secure your connection somehow, you've pretty much opened your machine to anyone who cares to listen. Even the keyboard "locking" that xterm provides does not protect you from snoopers.

X11 has a good per-user authentication mechanism called xauth. Do not use the older "xhost", as it only does per-machine authentication. If you use xauth authentication, opening ports 6000-6063 is not a security hole.

For setup time speed, use ssh to forward the connection. It's the easiest way to get going. It may also be the slowest network route, though. Run some tests and decide what's best for your setup.

----------

Xauth is very basic. When using the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 scheme the authentication is done by sending a random number known to both server and client across the network. If the numbers match, the connection is allowed. However, the number is sent unencrypted, so it's possible for anyone watching the network stream to capture the random number and
connect to your server.

Also, the data sent across the connection isn't encrypted either, so even if the authentication method is secure, eavesdroppers can still see everything sent between server and client, e.g. the keys you type.

In summary:

If you're connecting across an unsecure network use ssh.

[Phil St. Romain]

- posted by sao -


When you install a large package it can take up to several hours to compile it. If you want to do some other work in the meantime, the compilation in the background sometimes slows down the work which can be annoying. Is it possible to pause a compilation for a while and then after the other work is done to resume it.

If you started the installation manually in Terminal.app, you can just press Ctrl+Z while you're in the Terminal.app window that "contains" the compilation process. The process will be stopped and put to sleep in the background. You can then go and do the other work, and when you're ready to continue just return to the Terminal.app window where you stopped the process and type "fg" (without quotes). fg = foreground.

If you are not sure whether you have stopped jobs in a given Terminal.app window, just type "jobs" and you will get a list of jobs that you have put in the background. If there are several of them they will be marked with a number. Type for instance "fg 2" to continue with job 2.

You could also say "bg 2" to continue job 2 in the background. You are then free to type other commands on the shell prompt while the job runs in the background. Note that the background job will still send all output to the screen as if it were in the foreground. This can interfere with the output of another command that you have started in the meantime, or even with the command that you're typing right now. The interference is actually harmless - it will not affect how another command is executed, nor will the output mix with anything that you type. If you're not sure about this, just fool around with harmless commands such as "find" that generate lots of output.

If you find yourself in a situation where a "runaway" background job is wildly polluting your window with output and it seems you're helpless, just try the following

- blindly type "fg x" (where x is the number of the runaway job)
- now you have the job in the foreground and you can just type Ctrl+Z to put it to sleep, or Ctrl+C to abort it.


If you'd like to start a job in the background from the first moment, just type your command as normal and then append an & (ampersand) to the very end of the command.

If you started the installation with FinkCommander:

Just find the pid of the fink process (by 'ps aux | grep fink' or something) then 'kill -STOP thePid', which is similar to Ctrl+Z. And when you want to continue it 'kill -CONT thePid', which is similar to 'fg'. Make sure you don't close the shell though.

[sao]

From a terminal type: /Applications/MATLAB6p5/bin/matlab &


Or you can set things up so that you have a click-able icon, courtesy of John Iversen <iversen@nsi.edu>...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

To convert matlab to smoothly use Apple's X11 for OS X:

Go in to /Applications/MATLAB6p5/LaunchMatlab.app/Contents and you'll find a file called 'launch_matlab.sh'. Copy this to something else for safekeeping (e.g. 'launch_matlab.sh.oroborosx'). I then replaced the original launch_matlab.sh with the following, which works:
--------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
# $Revision: 1.1 $
# Copyright 1997-2002 The MathWorks, Inc.

#modification to work with Apple's X11
# 1/7/03 John Iversen (iversen@nsi.edu)

if [ "`ps xc | grep X11`" ]; then
# Bounce less if X11 for OS X is already started (starts up much
faster than oroborosx)
sleeptime=10
echo LaunchMatlab: Using previously started X11 for OS X
else
sleeptime=15
echo LaunchMatlab: Starting X11 for OS X
fi

open /Applications/X11.app

cd ../..

bin/mac/setsid bin/matlab -desktop -display :0.0 &

# Bounce to let user know MATLAB is starting up.
/bin/sleep $sleeptime
----------------------------------------

You can modify yours to match. The only important thing is adding the line reading "open /Applications/X11.app", and commenting out the line opening oroborosx. The rest is just to let you know what it's doing.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[sao]

Courtesy of Mathias Meyer <mathmeye@users.sourceforge.net>


If you want to make xterm in Apple X11 behave more like Terminal.app you can create a file called .Xdefaults in your home directory or just add the following if it already exists:

## XTERM SETTINGS
## see /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/html/xterm.1.html
## or man xterm
*XTerm*deleteIsDEL: true
xterm*saveLines: 10000
xterm*scrollBar: true
xterm*rightScrollBar: true
xterm*jumpScroll: true
xterm*cursorColor: grey30
xterm*colorBD: darkblue
xterm*colorBDMode: true
xterm*highlightColor: grey70
xterm*activeIcon: false
xterm*awaitInput: true
xterm*scrollTtyOutput: false
xterm*scrollKey: true

xterm*Background: DarkSlateBlue
xterm*Foreground: black

## TERMINAL KEY SETTINGS
## Adjust to OSX Terminal.app behaviour
*VT100.translations: #override\
<Key>Prior: scroll-back(1,pages) \n\
<Key>Next: scroll-forw(1,pages)\n\
**** <Key> K: send-signal(int) clear-saved-lines() \n\
**** <Key> P: print() \n\
**** <Key> minus: smaller-vt-font() \n\
**** <Key> KP_Subtract: smaller-vt-font() \n\
**** <Key> plus: larger-vt-font() \n\
**** <Key> KP_Add: larger-vt-font() \n\
**** <Key> C: select-cursor-start() \
select-cursor-end(PRIMARY, CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
**** <Key> V: insert-selection(PRIMARY, CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
**** <Key> M: iconify() \n\


## EXTRA SETTINGS FOR XAW SCROLLBAR
## see /usr/X11R6/include/X11/Xaw/Scrollbar.h
## for full reference of available recources
*Scrollbar.background: gray50
*Scrollbar.foreground: gray50
*Scrollbar.borderWidth: 0
*Scrollbar.shadowWidth: 0
*Scrollbar.thickness: 14
*Scrollbar.minimumThumb: 20
*Scrollbar.backgroundPixmap: gradient:horizontal?dimension=14&start=gray80&end=white
*Scrollbar.borderPixmap: gradient:horizontal?dimension=14&start=white&end=grey80

*Scrollbar.translations: #override\
<Btn2Down>: StartScroll(Forward) \n\
<Btn1Down>: StartScroll(Continuous) MoveThumb() NotifyThumb() \n\
<Btn3Down>: StartScroll(Backward) \n\
<Btn1Motion>: MoveThumb() NotifyThumb() \n\
<BtnUp>: NotifyScroll(Proportional) EndScroll()

[sao]

The console output would read something like this:

Fatal server error:
Could not create server lock file: /tmp/.X0-lock

Workaround:

If you don't quit X11 via "Quit" in its menu but by some other method then it leaves behind the lock file:

/tmp/.X0-lock

and maybe also a file:

/tmp/.X11-unix/X0

You have to manually remove these files first before you can start X11.app again.


To have this done automatically: (Thanks to wgscott)

Add a -LogoutHook switch to the console line of the /etc/ttys file. Then after -LogoutHook put in the absolute path to a shell script that contains the following:

#!/bin/csh
chmod a+w /tmp/.X0-lock
chmod -R a+w /tmp/.X11-unix
rm -f /tmp/.X0-lock
rm -f -R /tmp/.X11-unix
exit

You have to restart to get it to work.

The -LoginHook and -LogoutHook are documented here: (tip by Gary Kerbaugh)

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs...Procedures.html

[sao]

The following was posted on Fink's news on 2003-01-26:

<<While Apple's X11 works just fine with existing binaries, it has a bug in the install name of the libraries that can cause some software to build incorrectly, and will break forward-compatibility with future X11 releases.

Ben Hines has created a script that you can use that will fix the install_name entries in Apple's X11 libraries, but it will not repair software you have already built against the broken libraries>>.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use File::Find;
my $newlibrary, @liblist, $libdir = "/usr/X11R6/lib";

if(`id -u` != 0)
{
print "you must be root to run this!";
exit 1;
}

if (! -e "/usr/bin/install_name_tool")
{
print "can't run /usr/bin/install_name_tool";
exit 2;
}

find ({ wanted => \&process }, $libdir);
sub process {
if (/(.+)\.([0-9])\.([0-9])\.dylib$/)
{
push @liblist, $File::Find::name;
}
}

find ({ wanted => \&process2 }, $libdir);
sub process2 {
if (/(.+)\.([0-9])\.([0-9])\.dylib$/)
{
print "fixing $_ references... \n";
$newlibrary = "$File::Find::dir/$1.$2.dylib";
`/usr/bin/install_name_tool -id $newlibrary $_\n`;
foreach (@liblist)
{
/(.+)\.([0-9])\.([0-9])\.dylib$/;
{
`/usr/bin/install_name_tool -change $File::Find::name $newlibrary $_\n`;
}
}
}
}
The reponse from Apple via Haroon Sheikh (Manager Graphics Software, Apple Computer, Inc.) has been:

<<We are looking into this issue and hope to have it resolved in the next public release of X11ForMacOSX (no comments on when that will be).>>

[sao]

Ronald Florence wrote a HOWTO for LyX on Mac OSX, including installation, enabling drag-and-drop and double-click for LyX files with OpenLyX, configuring a **** key, DVI, PDF, and Postscript viewers, printing, faxing, and printing envelopes.

Please read the section integrating LyX FOR APPLE X11.


http://www.18james.com/lyx_on_osx.html

[sao]

1- Download the new installer 'X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta v0.2' from Apple. (41.8MB)

2- Download and Reinstall 'X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta SDK' as it was also updated (from the bottom of the page). (3.9MB)


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

[sao]

* Support for Gnome, KDE hints

* Application windows now cascade instead of piling on top of each if they do not have an explicit placement policy

* Added /usr/include/X11 and /usr/lib/X11 symlinks

* Menu in the Dock now shows a list of X11 windows.

* Support for Copy & Paste working with other window managers.

* No-click-to-focus option : defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true

* Support for move window events from CodeTek's VirtualDesktop

* Support to respect the Mac OS X's International keyboard mapping.

* Keymappings from /System/Library/Keyboards.

* Support for -iconic. E.g. xterm -iconic now puts the xterm into the Dock on launch.

* New preference options to control xauth usage

* Bug fixes and other feature enhancements

[sao]

(By Haroon Sheikh at Apple's x11-users list)


"If you install Beta 2 on top of an existing install of X11 for Mac OS X, then you may notice that your window manager is twm instead of quartz-wm. This happens because Beta 2 now uses /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc if a .xinitrc is not present in your home directory.

By default, the X11 installer does not install the 'X11 Config' package by default, if /etc/X11 is already present, because people may have customized their /etc/X11 configs. If you select the 'X11 Config' package by customizing the installation, then your existing /etc/X11 directory is backed up as X11.AppleBackup and a new /etc/X11 is installed".


Workarounds:

- Select the X11 Config package by customizing the installation. By default this package is not installed and it contains the new /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc that launches quartz-wm

- Modify /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc to launch quartz-wm instead of twm.

- Add a ~/.xinitrc file to launch your xterm and the quartz-wm window manager.

- Do a clean install, i.e. wipe out the previous install of X11 and then install Beta 2 on top. To just fix this problem, you can also move aside /etc/X11 elsewhere before installing Beta 2. You can uninstall the previous version by deleting (or moving aside) the following files:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/X11.app /usr/bin/open-x11 /private/etc/X11 /usr/X11R6 /Library/Receipts X11* /usr/include/X11 /usr/lib/X11

[sao]

"This option allows you to focus an X11 window by just moving the mouse to the window. This is different than the rest of the Aqua UI behavior where you have to click in the window to focus the window".

How do we activate the option?

To enable it, enter the following from an xterm (with out the quotes) and relaunch X11:

"defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true"

Make sure you write:

wm_ffm

(ffm = focus-follows-mouse)

This adds the wm_ffm key to the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.x11.plist".


To undo it enter:

defaults write com.apple.x11 delete wm_ffm

[sao]

If it's installed, try by disabling the Unsanity "Application Enhancer" hack or exclude X11.app from the FruitMenu Application Enhancer module.

[sao]

The official "Apple's X11 for MacOS X PB v0.2 FAQs" are here:


http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/x11-users/msg01319.html


You can subscribe to the "x11-users: X11 for Mac OS X discussion list" here:


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

[sao]

The script is not needed anymore with version 0.2 of Apple's X11.app

[sao]

It provides a handy tool that allows you to switch between sessions like gnome and KDE, and window managers (icvewm, enlightenment, fvwm, fvwm2, blackbox, wmaker etc) and it has a drop down that lets you select these.

It also comes with some fink scripts for installing these windows managers (also gnome, KDE). And it has a check box which lets you turn on/off quartz-wm.

http://www.macfworks.tk/

[sao]

Thanks to Michèle Garoche (michele.garoche@easyconnect.fr)

(You need the Developer Tools installed)


1- Simply Ctr-I (i like ice) on X11.app (not running evidently).

2- Click on the column presentation in the toolbar
(to see the folders inside it).

3- Click on Contents.

4- Click on Resources. Click on English.lproj

5- Double-click on main.nib

6- Go to menu Tools, Show Info

7- Double on MainMenu in the main.nib window
(insist until you obtain it, and also search all you screen as sometimes it can be hidden under other windows)

8- Click on X11 in the main.nib - MainMenu window

9- Click on Quit X11

10- Go to the NSMenuItemInfo window.
You should have Attributes in the scrolling menu at the top of the window, if not change it.

11- Enter Q in the Key menu equivalent box and uncheck the up arrow modifier which is automatically checked
(you should not have any modifier box checked).

12- Quit Interface Builder,
save the document main.nib when asked for.

13- Launch X11. You have a nice shortcut now (Cmd-Q as usual).

[sao]

After installing Apple's X11 and the X11 SDK your .dmg files are moved to the trash but the thrash icon isn't automatically updated, so you will not see the full trash can icon.

If you like to keep the original .dmg files in case of future problems, click on the trash to open it and retrieve your files.

[sao]

With v2 of the X11 beta, custom Xmodmap files are no longer necessary.

[sao]

Once you have focused an Aqua window, you can no longer bring a WM window to the front - it is focused, but the Aqua window still stays visible above it, even as you drag the other one above it (so the X11 window ends up disappearing under Aqua).


It also happens with other window-managers. It's a bug in X11.app that survived from beta 1.0.

[sao]

Change ".hqx" to ".dmg", and use Diskcopy.

If you download with Safari 1.0 v51, the file it's called 'x11.dmg'.
But if you download with Internet Explorer 5.2 it's called 'nph-x11.hqx'.

[sao]

From the x11-users mailing list:

>>>>>>>>
An updated release of X11 for Mac OS X Beta (v 0.2.1) has been
released. You can download it here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/download/

The only change between 0.2 and 0.2.1 is that now the installer
defaults to installing the X11Config package. This should help address
the problem where people were seeing the twm window manager instead of
the quartz-wm window manager after a default installation. Even though
there have been workarounds and explanations posted, a lot of users
were unaware of the reason why they were not seeing the quartz-wm
window manager with the default install. Advanced users (those that
have made changes to /etc/X11) can either deselect the "X11 Config"
package during install or restore their /etc/X11 directory from
/etc/X11.AppleBackup.

From the Readme:
WARNING:
By default, the installer archives and then overwrites any existing X11
configuration information. Your existing /etc/X11 directory will be
backed up as X11.AppleBackup and a new /etc/X11 will be installed. To
prevent your existing X11 configuration files from being archived and
overwritten, deselect the package named "X11 Config".

Thanks for the feedback. Please report any new bugs at
http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter.
>>>>>>>>

[sao]

If you installed both Apple's X11 and XDarwin and sometimes you want to use Xdarwin with blackbox window manager for example, and sometimes Apple's X11 with quartz-wm, you can put this at the bottom of your ~/.xinitrc file to start the correct window manager (courtesy of Russell Stephany).

xdar="`ps xo command | grep XDarwin.app | grep -v grep | wc -l`"

if [ $xdar -eq 1 ]; then
exec blackbox
else
exec quartz-wm
fi
'ps xo command' is a bit of a nifty one.

The 'x' option: "Display information about processes without controlling terminals."

The 'o' option: "Display information associated with the space or comma separated list of keywords specified. Keywords may be appended with an equals (``='') sign and a string. This causes the printed header to use the specified string instead of the standard header."

'command' is the relevant header here; others include pid, nice, lstart, logname, poip - there are a lot, so read man ps! For a small demonstration, trying typing 'ps xo pid,command'.

[sao]

(Thanks to Francois Rigaut and Haroon Sheikh)

You can print from the command line using:
(from an xterm or equivalent, or Terminal.app)

lp filename

this will print to your default printer.

and:

lp -d cups-printer-name filename

will print to another printer.

From other X11 applications, you can usually print from the app menus. xfig, gv, openoffice, xemacs all include a "print" in their own menu, sometimes configurable (you generally have to specify the "print" command -lp- and the destination printer).

Check out gimp-print. The following links may be useful:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3
http://www.macwrite.com/criticalmass/x-print-on-mac-os-x-jaguar.php
http://developer.apple.com/printing/

[sao]

(Thanks to Greg Parker, Andrew Hartung, Michael, and Nick Zitzmann)

There are two ways to configure a real three-button mouse to work with X11.app and XDarwin:

1: Enable X11's "mouse button emulation" and configure the mouse software to send option-click and control-click for buttons 2 and 3.

2: Disable X11's "mouse button emulation" and configure the mouse software to send "middle click" and "right click" for buttons 2 and 3. This is the preferred configuration for a mouse with three physical buttons.

Make sure you have the most recent version of your mouse software.


For the ability to have different sets of mouse configurations on a per-application basis, the current versions of USB Overdrive and Kensington MouseWorks work great.

MouseWorks from Kensington, works great with X11, though you need one of their products.

USB Overdrive. It works fine with Logitech 3-button mouse, and it allows you to customize mouse configurations on a per-application basis. Tip: You can set up USB Overdrive so the "clicked wheel" actions are turned off and the scroll wheel works as the middle mouse button just for X11.app, and it works fine.
http://www.usboverdrive.com/


Is there any way to enable the scroll-wheel?

XDarwin looks for standard Cocoa scroll wheel events and turns them into X11 buttons 4 and 5. (not sure what X11.app does.) Some X11 apps like xterm understand this out of the box, but other X11 apps might need to be configured to recognize buttons 4 and 5 as scroll wheel motion. Use the xev program to check whether your X11 server is actually generating any X11 events when you move the wheel.


Tip for Logitech Wheel Mouse Optical:
Logitech Control Center configuration for the "Wheel Button"
should be set to "Advanced Click"
with the "Configure Advanced Click" tab settings
"Click Type" = Click and "Button number" = 3.

[sao]

Here's a possible workaround: call up the control center under KDE and activate Enable Desktop menus in the Behaviors page of the Desktops section. Every time a window goes underneath X11's or KDE's menu bar, just middle click (option click on some system) on the desktop and select Unclutter windows in the pop up menu and everything comes back within reach (Thanks to Edward Lichtner).


Or try this other way to make all the windows open at the center of the screen:

Control Center-->Window Behaviour-->Advanced

-->Enable Xinerama support
-->Enable window placement support

And then:

Window Behaviour-->Moving-->Placement-->Centered

[sao]

OOo does not yet support MacOS X fonts 'directly', but you can easily convert most MacOS X fonts via fondu and install them for use in OOo. But, not all of the your MacOS X fonts are usable by OOo. So you will need to do some manual clean up prior to installing them in OOo.

Full instructions are available in this thread at the "OpenOffice.org MacOS X Testing forum" at:

http://www.ooodocs.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=366&sid=b59f



Also, some people reported success using the "nativefonts" package advertised in the thread " Native Mac Fonts v3. Please Test!" here:

http://www.ooodocs.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=455&sid=3f822b4ab3d5975f422cdbd90170100c

Download the 'nativefont3.tar.gz' package (3.9 MB, instructions in the file) from here:

http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default?user=oootesting&fpath=FinalBetaPlus&templatefn=FileSharing1.html

[sao]

You can only Copy/Paste "plain text" between OOo and MacOS X apps using Apple's X11.

The import/export of JPEG, TIFF, GIF, etc works fine between OOO and other Mac apps.

The OOo Final Beta running in Apples' X11 ( both 0.1 and 0.2) supports font smoothing of _truetype_ fonts.

To see antialiasing in menus:

Choose the 'Tools/Options' menu item. Expand the 'OpenOffice.Org' section of the left-hand list and choose 'View'. Set the 'Scale', second from the top, to 109% or larger and clidk 'OK' to close the window and the menus should now appear antialiased.

You can download PC Truetype fonts (.ttf) from:

http://gimmefonts.com/

Be selective and download fonts you know and remember to get the whole family. The fonts you download need to go in the '/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/share/fonts/truetype' folder.

[sao]

(Thanks to Martin Costabel and Marcelo Camperi)


Write a script in AppleScript Editor that looks like this:
tell application "X11"
activate
end tell
do shell script "export DISPLAY=:0 && source /sw/bin/init.sh && gimp"
Then save as Application.

Works the same way for any program that uses Apple's X11, was installed by fink, and can be started from the command line.

You can also write a regular shell script to start an application, and then use "DropScript" to generate an application that will run the shell script. The way to activate Apple's X11 by these means is to use the line:

osascript -e 'tell application "X11" to activate'

at the start of your shell script.


About DropScript:

"DropScript is an application for Mac OS X which lets you create new applications from any BSD program which takes files as command line arguments. Typically, these are scripts written in sh, perl, or other scripting languages". (freeware - OSX downloads):

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/dropscript.html

[sao]

(Thanks to Martin Costabel)

"The problem is that Abiword and other X11-based Unix programs send Postscript files to the printer. This works, of course, if your printer is a postscript printer. It doesn't work for the usual USB inkjet printers, because Apple's version of CUPS does not include a filter for postscript files.

It contains filters for all kinds of files, but not for postscript. One possibility is to print to a file and then convert this postscript file to pdf using ps2pdf from a ghostscript package. The pdf file can then be printed using Preview or Acrobat Reader or simply by "lpr" from the command line.

The other possibility is to install gimp-print and eps-postscript, download from http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 . This includes a postscript filter for cups. You can then define a second version of your USB printer using a driver from gimp-print. This will then probably work with Abiword".

[sao]

1- You can download Apple's third public beta for X11 (41.7MB) at:

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

"This third beta is available as a free download for anyone using Mac OS X 10.2.x. It contains a wide range of bug fixes and feature enhancements"


2- Download and install the X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta SDK (4.0MB)

"The optional software developer's kit contains headers and other support files for X11 Beta 3, enabling you to compile your own X11 applications. All SDK users should upgrade to this new version".

You will find the download link at the bottom-right of the same page:

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

[sao]

Changes in Beta 3:

Added Pseudocolor (8-bit) visual plane support so applications requiring 8 bit support should find the visuals by default. You can also add " -depth 8 " (see Xquartz man page) when starting the X Server if you want to run it only in 8 bit mode, which is unrecommended as OpenGL support is not available in 8 bit mode.

Added an option to quit X11 without presenting warning dialog: " defaults write com.apple.x11 no_quit_alert true ". See man page for Xquartz for more details.

Added Command-Q keyboard shortcut to quit X11. Can be disabled from preferences.

Added Command-, to bring up preferences dialog. Can be disabled from preferences.

Added customization of fake buttons while emulating mouse. See man page for Xquartz for more details.

Fixed problems with dead keys on certain keyboard mappings.

OpenGL: Fixed problem with linking against libGL resulting in multiple definitions of glGetColorTableEXT.

Fixed problem where non-admin users could not start X11 because lock files were being left behind in /tmp.

Fixed problem where quartz-wm lost ConfigureNotify events.

Fixed problem so that windows can be resized by user to any size and not be limited by the Dock's height.

Fixed window focus problem when un-minimizing X11 windows from the Dock.

Fixed a crash that could occur when dragging remotely hosted windows.

Dialog windows can now be resized.

Fixed a problem with hardware accelerated scrolling in 16 bit mode.

Fixed a bug where emulated middle-button-raise fails when Alt/option is not Mode_Switch.

Fixed a bug where cursor would jump on multiple monitor systems if application tried to manage the cursor's position.

Fixed a bug that crashes the X Server if application tried to retrieve data back from the framebuffer using XGetImage.

Fixed a bug when quitting from the Dock that would result in the Quit Dialog being presented behind the current application.

Fixed a bug where windows are created offscreen if (0,0) maps to an offscreen location.

Fixed a bug with undecorated and modal windows having a titlebar because the window manager hints were not being interpreted correctly.

[sao]

The official "Apple's X11 for MacOS X PB v0.3 FAQs" are here:

http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1232.html

[sao]

At the Fink site they recommend that all Fink users who are using Apple X11 upgrade to v0.3. After installing Apple's X11 beta3 you need to install with Fink, system-xfree86-4.2-11 or higher.

"It fixes a number of bugs including a few that can cause problems with building Fink packages. It is recommended that all Fink users who are using Apple X11 upgrade. A new version of the system-xfree86 package has been released that takes the new Apple X11 v0.3 into account".

The Fink package system-xfree86-4.2-11 has been committed to stable, so you should be able to do a:

'sudo apt-get update'
'sudo apt-get install system-xfree86'

Or, if you have the December 2002 Apple Developer Tools installed you can also run:

'fink selfupdate-cvs'
'fink install system-xfree86'.

[sao]

KDE 3.1 is now in Fink stable.

"Improvements over 3.1 beta1 include an updated audio driver, faster startup times, cleaned up fink package info, support for Apple X11's window manager, and manybugfixes. Binary packages will be available in the next Fink binary distribution release".

Apple X11 Support:

'startkde' now detects if you have Apple's quartz-wm (from the Apple X11 release), and runs with it instead of kwin if available. If you don't want to use Apple's window manager, you can get the old behaviour by putting:

export KDEWM=kwin

...in your ~/.xinitrc file before the startkde line.

[sao]

(Thanks to John Harper and Toshimitsu Tanaka)

It means that starting the server with "-depth 8" will only create a PseudoColor visual, normally you get the TrueColor visuals plus a single PseudoColor visual that can be used by applications that want it.


To use it try the following command from terminal:

% /Applications/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11 -depth 8

[sao]

(Thanks to Martin Costabel)

xman is an X11 program that provides a gui interface to the manpages.

If you want to use xman from Apple's X11, you have to run:

setenv GROFF_TYPESETTER latin1

before starting xman.

Because Apple's xman has a bug which it's still not yet fixed.

To start it, type in an xterm window:

xman &

[sao]

By Eric Dahlman at the x11-users mailing list

"A while back there was some talk about how to make X11 applications easily print under Jaguar and I promised to send on my solution. I got a free second so here it is.

The problem with printing Postscript is that the printing system (CUPS) does not know how to convert a Postscript document into a PDF which is what many OSX print drivers take as input. So I wrote a little filter that uses ps2pdf from Ghostscript and the configuration file to tell the printing system how to use it. Once the filter is installed then you can send Postscript to lpr and print to your hearts content.

This is particularly nice because there is no need to install the gimp-print printer drivers an you can just use the drivers you have currently working on your printer".

You can grab the two little files you need and the directions from:

http://www1.twincitizen.net/~dahlman

[sao]

At the "OOo - Testing -Mac OS X forums" at the thread "Trouble launching OOo with Apple's X11", they report several problems:

http://www.ooodocs.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=553&sid=a3330df77ed0bd8cfd0b5a1a6543f4b6

"From the crashlogs above, it appears that the crash *may* be related to changes in their OpenGL implementation. What may help is removing any of the X11 OpenGL libraries in /usr/X11R6/lib. When using Apple X11, /usr/X11R6/lib must *not* be contained in the path as loading or attempting to load the GL libraries from that directory will fail. They unfortunately have the same names as the OpenGL.framework libraries against which OpenOffice.org is linked".


And

"Some problems seem to related to...
* Locale (NULL)
* Java versions (1.3.3 vs 1.4.1)
* Installer graphics (jpg vs gif)
Of course, it doesn't help that several people have reported 'spontaneous recovery' after reboots etc. Well, it does help them:) but it makes figuring out what went wrong a little tougher:( "


And regarding,

* Installer graphics (jpg vs gif) :
"apparently on some systems those premature end of JPEG messages may be related to the installer crashes. I've never had a problem on my system (latest Java VM 1.3.1/1.4.1 and QT6), but others have. Interestingly enough, if the JPEG based installer is run off the 1.4.1 VM on my system, it segfaults inside of code that parses the JPEGS in the VM (very bad, very bad) but it doesn't crash under 1.3.1, only barfs up those messages from the console. So even if it seems to be harmless on my box, it may be wise to replace them in order to work around a potentially very serious bug in the JVM".


One post advices that people having weird problems like this, should back up important data, do a clean install of Mac OS X 10.2.x, apply any Mac OS X updates, install OOo and X11.app, and if things work, then start modifying the environment, restoring applications and data etc.

[sao]

OOo wants you to have dlcompat libraries in /usr/local/lib.

Make links in /usr/local/lib to your fink-installed dlcompat libraries, otherwise your fink installation will stop working. This seems to work fine.

[sao]

(Thanks to David Brown)

This problem is with screen and not with xterm.

Add a line such as the following to you ~/.screenrc

# Do not use xterms alternate window buffer (won't add lines to
# scrollback bfr)
termcapinfo xterm|xterms|xs|xterm-color ti=\E7\E[?47l

[sao]

KDE Security Advisory

On April 10, Benjamin Reed posted the following at the 'fink-announce' mailing list:

-----------------------------------
Overview
--------

KDE uses Ghostscript software for processing of PostScript (PS) and PDF files in a way that allows for the execution of arbitrary commands that can be contained in such files.

An attacker can prepare a malicious PostScript or PDF file which will provide the attacker with access to the victim's account and privileges when the victim opens this malicious file for viewing or when the victim browses a directory containing such malicious file and has file previews enabled.

An attacker can provide malicious files remotely to a victim in an e-mail, as part of a webpage, via an ftp server and possible other means.

More specifics can be found in the KDE security advisory at:

http://www.kde.org/info/security/advisory-20030409-1.txt

Solution
--------

Updated packages for kdelibs, kdebase, and kdegraphics have been checked into Fink unstable:

kdelibs3-ssl-3.1.1-6
kdebase3-ssl-3.1.1-6
kdelibs3-3.1.1-6
kdebase3-3.1.1-6
kdegraphics3-3.1.1-5

All users of the unstable tree are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. After an initial smoke test, the KDE 3.1.1 packages will be moved to stable tomorrow, the morning of the 11th (EST). New binaries will be built as soon as possible, most likely within the next two weeks.

Users of the stable tree are encouraged to update as soon as these packages are available to help find any remaining problems that might come up so that we can get binaries built.

Users of the unstable tree can update immediately by running:

fink selfupdate-cvs; fink update-all

Users of the stable tree will be able to update tomorrow morning after 10:00 EST.
---------------------------------

[sao]

Thanks to Nathaniel Grady

http://www.ece.rice.edu/~ngrady/install_matlab_osx.html

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

Installing Matlab on Mac OS X With Apple's X11

If you don't want to use the bundled X11 for whatever reason, this guide is for you.

Method one: Edit install script
* Right click on the "Install for OS X" in the mathworks jag update and hit "show contents"
* Open runme.txt
* Change reference at the top pointing to where X11 is to /Applications/X11
* Remove all references to OroborOSX in the rest of the file
* Run and it won't try to install X11 anymore. You may have to manually start X11

Method two: Install manually
* Run X11 and open an xterm
* Make a directory to install into and cd to it (ex: mkdir /Applications/matlab ; cd /Applications/matlab )
* Copy license.dat to the directory you just made
* Run sudo /Volumes/MathWorks_R13_N/install, where N is the cd #
* Run MATLABR13_Jaguar_Patch:
-It doesn't sudo before running automagically. Really dumb. Fails due to this.
-Mount disk image
-sudo /Volumes/MathWorks_Jaguar_Updater/MATLABR13_Jaguar_patch.app/Contents/MacOS/MATLABR13
-Point it to your actual matlab instillation
-Repeat for CD's 2 and 3.

Final Steps
* go to matlab/bin (the bin directory under the directory you installed it to)
* right-click on LaunchMATLAB and select "Show Package Contents"
* right-click on the file "launch_matlab.sh" and select "open with" and "other." At this point you can select any text editor, such as "TextEdit" or whatever is your favorite.
* Change the "grep OroborOSX" to read "grep X11" -- "ps xc" lists running programs, and "grep X11" searches the list for the phrase "X11". If it's not found, then the return will be blank and the if goes to the else.
* after "sleeptime=60" in the "else" block, insert "osascript -e 'tell application "X11" to activate'" so that it starts X11 if it is not already running.
* Finally, comment out "osascript Contents/launch_oroborosx" further down by placing a "# " in front of it.
* The LaunchMATLAB icon should now try and start the right X11 and open matlab for you!
* Have, um, fun with Matlab. I highly recommend trying Python with the Numeric and Scientific extensions. Also glance at SciPy . Much more pleasant!

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

[sao]

Thanks to Richard Gill ( http://www.math.uu.nl/people/gill )

To get OOo to work (I have Apple's X11): one must start up the program from the command line (not from the launcher supplied by OOo). You follow OOo's instructions (which flash by on your screen at the end of installation), but you must remove /usr/X11R6/lib from the path for dynamic libraries.

So it goes like this:
setenv DISPLAY localhost:0
setenv DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program:/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program/filter
cd /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program
sh soffice
Right now I have the following: I wrote a little unix script:
#!/bin/tcsh
setenv DISPLAY localhost:0
setenv DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program:/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program/filter
cd /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program
sh soffice
This is saved in a file which is in my $PATH and made executable by doing chmod +x
Call it myoffice, say. Then I can put it in Apple's X11 "Applications" menu, as well as calling it from the command line.

[sao]

Thanks to David McNett

"Ctrl-Apple-Click on the xterm window. (Assuming default mouse button configuration). xterm contains a variety of menus similar to the font menu, all accessable through a variety of chorded clicks (or alternate button clicks if you've got a multibutton mouse)"

[sao]

Kazuhumi Murakami has made a small application called "Open GV.app" to launch gv in Finder. It launches gv and preview a postscript file with double-clicking in Finder.

It requires OSX 10.2.6, X11 and gv and you can download it from:

http://homepage.mac.com/droppedgreentomato/

[sao]

(Thanks to Toshimitsu Tanaka)

1. Download X11-wwdc source code from:
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/X11/index.html .

2. Get Xplugin.h and install as /usr/include/ Xplugin.h.
( http://lists.apple.com/archives/x11-users/2003/Jun/26/x11sourcecodeupdate.006.txt )

(Also, Torrey T. Lyons informed that the current Xplugin.h (minus gremlins) is now checked into XFree86 CVS in xc/programs/Xserver/hw/darwin/quartz/xpr)

3. Create the symlink /usr/lib/libXplugin.dylib->libXplugin.1.0.dylib.
( http://lists.apple.com/archives/x11-users/2003/Jun/25/xpluginhrequired.001.txt )

4. % tar xzf X11ForMacOSXSource-wwdc.tar.gz
% cd X11ForMacOSXSource-wwdc/xc

5. % make World
% sudo make install
% sudo make install.man

6. Launch /Applications/Utilities/X11.app.


Important: You cannot use quartz-wm with X11 v1.0 in Jaguar. It's just not open-source so it's not available to those who are building it themselves from source on jaguar. X11 v1.0 final does have quartz-wm, on panther.

So, in Jaguar to use X11-wwdc, you will have to install another window manager, like oroborus, blackbox, etc...

If you follow these instructions carefully, what you will get is a clean build in MacOSX v10.2.6 of X11 v1.0 and XFree86 v4.3.0 from the source you downloaded in "X11ForMacOSXSource-wwdc.tar.gz"

And, in the X11 "About box" you will read the inscription "X11 1.0 - XFree86 4.3.0"

Note: Be aware that Fink does not recognize this X11 installation at the moment, since it is based on XFree86 4.3 rather than XFree86 4.2.x. Fink's "system-xfree86" packages assumes that your non-Fink install of X11 was based on 4.2.x. I believe there is already a *not fully tested* system-xfree86 package in fink's CVS repository which might work with the self-compiled X11.

8/18/03: (Thanks to Benjamin Reed and Martin Costabel)
Benjamin Reed has committed to Fink unstable branch a new version of the system-xfree86 package. system-xfree86 is now a placeholder for the placeholder which depends on either system-xfree86-42 or system-xfree86-43.

This new package system-xfree86 in "unstable" works well for a first time install of Fink with an installation from source of Apple's X11-wwdc (v1.0).

Just enable "unstable" in the /sw/etc/fink.conf file by adding: unstable/main unstable/crypto to the beginning of the Trees: line and after run the command 'fink index'. Then run 'fink selfupdate-cvs' till you see the package, then run 'fink install system-xfree86'

*It doesn't work for an update. To make it work for an update you have to use force (and dpkg) to install the update. Either:

sudo dpkg -r --force-depends system-xfree86
fink install system-xfree86

or

sudo dpkg -i --force-all
/sw/fink/dists/unstable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/x11-system/system-xfree86-42_4.2-1_darwin-powerpc.deb
fink install system-xfree86

Don't try the update remotely via ssh while you are not logged in at the console because it will hang.

FinkCommander:
If you're using Fink Commander, you can select system-xfree86, use Source->Force Remove, then reselect it and use Source->Install.

[sao]

If you use Fink to install packages in Apple's X11, be aware that Fink won't work with the latest Apple Developer Tools version (2003-06-26) Fink does not yet support compiling with gcc 3.3.

It is recommended that if you update your Developer Tools with the new patch, you should be careful to run sudo gcc_select 3 prior to any "fink build" or "fink install" commands.

Or, if you want to remove the updated Dev Tools to reinstall Apple's Dec 2002 Developer Tools tools on a clean system, there should be a Perl script called /Developer/Tools/uninstall-devtools.pl. If you run this, that should clear everything out, and then you can reinstall.

[sao]

1-Install OpenOffice, it will try to install its own version of dlcompat, so in order that it doesn't make your Fink installation completely dysfunctional, you'll need to do the following:

For dlcompat:
sudo ln -s /sw/lib/libdl.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/libdl.0.dylib
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libdl.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/libdl.dylib

And similarly for fondu:
sudo ln -s /sw/bin/fondu /usr/local/bin/fondu

2-Install gimp-print and esp-ghostscript (these are installed into the /usr/local tree) with the packages from:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3

OpenOffice looks for libfreetype in /usr/X11R6/lib, so there is no need to symlink it in /usr/local/lib; the freetype libraries in /usr/X11R6/lib are installed by X11.

[sao]

At the x11-users lists, Haroon Sheikh wrote:

------
"At Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference, Apple announced that the 1.0
version of X11 for Mac OS X will ship as part of Panther, Mac OS X
v10.3. The X11 SDK will be an optional install as part of Apple's new
Xcode developer environment.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/xcode.html

Version 1.0 includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes, including:

- Based on XFree86 4.3
- Full screen mode, enabling X11 root window
- Pseudo-color support - can now run X11 in 256 color mode
- Improved Aqua User Interface
- Launch X11 applications from the finder
- Improved keyboard shortcuts
- Improved Dock Menu
- Works with Panther's Expose and Fast User switching
- /usr/bin/open-x11 will start X11.app if not already running

Panther is currently available as a Developer Preview for Apple
Developer Connection members with a seed key. All future X11 for Mac
OS X releases from Apple will only support Panther or later.

A big thank you to all the beta testers of X11 for Mac OS X Public
Beta. Developers with access to Panther can continue to log bug reports
at http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter.

Yours truly,
The X11 for Mac OS X Team

Other high-level changes include:
- NEW: X11.app is now located in /Applications/Utilities
- NEW: X11 and the SDK are currently optional installs in Panther
- NEW: command line preference to set option as **** key (see man Xquartz)

- FIX: X11 leaves orphans and zombies
- FIX: X11 presents quit warning even when all windows closed
- FIX: X11 won't recognize 2nd screen if already started
- FIX: geometry problems introduced in Beta 3.
- FIX: X11 does not properly quit"
------

[sao]

The source code for the X11 v1.0 in the GM version of Panther will be made available as soon as Panther is publicly available.

There are bug fixes between the source code for "X11.app v1.0 wwdc" and "X11.app in the GM version of Panther", but it might be safer to recompile software that depends on libraries in the X11 directories.

[sao]

Apple's X11 for Mac OS X 10.3 is available as an optional installation when you install Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), meaning that the Panther installer does not automatically install Apple's X11 1.0.

You need to click "Custom" in the Easy install pane then select X11. If you forgot to select it while installing Panther, you can install it later by opening (double clicking) the X11User.pkg file on the Mac OS X Install Disc 3 CD.

[sao]

Install XCode from the XCode Tools CD.

The X11 SDK is not installed by default when you install Xcode, you must click the "Customize" button, as this will allow you to select the "X11 SDK" checkbox also, which is by default not selected.

If you forget to press the "customize" button, you can install the X11 SDK later by double-clicking on the X11SDK.pkg file in the Xcode Tools CD.

[sao]

* First install Apple's X11 1.0 from the Panther CD, XCode from the XCode disk, and the X11SDK.pkg also from the Xcode cd.

* Is recommended bootstrapping from source, (http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/srcdist.php) starting from fink-full-0.6.0.tar.gz available on fink's sourceforge download page (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=17203).

* Since Fink version 0.15.0 or higher, you do not need to install system-xfree86 anymore. Fink is capable of automatically determining your system-xfree86 version if you don't already have any fink x11 packages installed. If you currently have an old system-xfree86 package of any kind installed, please run the following commands:

sudo dpkg -r --force-all system-xfree86 system-xfree86-42 system-xfree86-43; fink selfupdate; fink index

[sao]

If you installed Panther with the 'archive and install' method, and then installed Apple's X11 1.0 and the X11 SDK, be sure to install XCode from the XCode disk before upgrading Fink.

Then, running "fink selfupdate" should perform the upgrade for you. The latest version of the fink package manager will automatically detect which version of OS X and which version of gcc you have installed, and will adjust itself accordingly.

[sao]

When you run 'fink selfupdate' you might get the following error:
The following 17 packages will be installed or updated:
apt apt-shlibs bzip2 bzip2-dev bzip2-shlibs debianutils dpkg gettext
gettext-bin gettext-dev libiconv libiconv-bin libiconv-dev ncurses
ncurses-dev ncurses-shlibs tar
The following additional package will be installed:
fink-prebinding
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Failed: Problem resolving dependencies. Check for circular dependencies.
Some people have resolved this problem installing 'fink-prebinding' separately.

If you get the above error, try running:

'fink install fink-prebinding'

and then running:

'fink selfupdate' again.

If doing "fink install fink-prebinding" and then doing update-all again doesn't help, your only recourse is to start over with a bootstrap of 0.6.0 from source, or wait for the bindist which should be coming shortly.

[sao]

After the installation of Apple's X11 1.0 on Panther, you will find the X11.app in /Applications/Utilities/

(If you install the new X11 with Panther's "archive and install" method, it will not remove your old X11.app from /Applications)

[sao]

Open X11 preferences, and in the Output section there is an option for enabling full screen mode. After enabling it, use the "Command+Option+A" keystroke to enter and leave full screen mode.

[sao]

If you're not using the quartz-wm, you should install autocutsel with Fink:

Merges two X11 cut buffers.
It provides a working cut and paste between Aqua and those X apps that only check one cut buffer. Usage Notes:

just write 'autocutsel &' in your ~/.xinitrc file.

[sao]

Install the X11 SDK, which is on the Xcode CD (double click the X11SDK.pkg), and is not installed by default.

Also note that you do not need to install system-xfree86 anymore, fink is capable of figuring out your X11 version automatically in cases where you would have installed system-xfree86 previously.

If you still have an old system-xfree86 package installed, run the following commands:

sudo dpkg -r --force-all system-xfree86 system-xfree86-42 system-xfree86-43; \
fink selfupdate; fink index

[sao]

You didn't upgrade X11 to version "X11 1.0 - XFree86 4.3.0" included with Panther. Apple's X11 for Mac OS X 10.3 is available as an optional installation when you install Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), meaning that the Panther installer does not automatically install Apple's X11 1.0.

You can install it from the X11User.pkg file on the Mac OS X Install Disc 3 CD.

[sao]

sudo dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless xfree86-rootless-shlibs xfree86-base xfree86-base-shlibs
sudo rm -rf /usr/X11R6 /etc/X11 /Applications/XDarwin.app
Then install Apple's X11 1.0 (including the X11 SDK from the XCode CD).

You don't need to install system-xfree86 anymore. It's automatically generated if fink detects a valid x11 install.

[sao]

You can use it by making Virtual Desktop put all X11 windows in a single desktop. Exposé also works fine.

Posted at the x11-users list by Matthew S. Klahn, (CodeTek developer) :
"Hi, everyone; friendly neighborhood CodeTek developer here. We are currently working on CodeTek VirtualDesktop 3.0, which we plan to include full X11 support, regardless of X11 implementation used (i.e. XDarwin, OroborOSX, Apple X11, etc.). We have decided that this was a bigger issue that just Apple X11/CTVD compatibility, and that we will need to work with X11 windows themselves, and thus support all X11 implementations. We are working on this feature now, and hope to have a public beta available by the end of the year for people to test this out. This is one of the top two requests for us, and we realize how important it is for our users.

In the meantime, we have worked with Adrian Umpleby of OroborOSX to get both of our apps working together, and compatibility between OroborOSX and CTVD is very good. I realize that choice is good, but since we don't have the information and API for X11 manipulation in the 2.x version of CTVD, and adding it will take re-engineering the product to a great extent, we cannot provide a fix for this by ourselves in the 2.x product. I hope that everyone understands, and that this information helps. Please let us know if you have any questions; I do monitor this mailing list, but did manage to miss this message. I will pay close attention to my digest messages, though, and shouldn't miss any futher mails".
----
Matthew S. Klahn
Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc.
http://www.codetek.com

[sao]

This is important information for all fink-users, please read carefully and follow what's necessary to do for your system.

The following was posted by Benjamin Reed (Fink Project Leader) at the fink-users list, on Oct 24th :

http://news.gmane.org/thread.php?gr...le.fink.general

In some parts of the world, Panther is already out, so I wanted to give
an update on where things are. A more formal announcement will come
when we're ready for a "real" release.

How This Will Work
------------------

First of all, unlike the transition from 10.1 -> 10.2, we will continue
to support the previous Mac OS X release. It may not be updated as
quickly as the 10.3 tree, but we now at least have the resources in
place to make it reasonable to support both. It would be nice to have
volunteers from the community to help "backport" 10.3 changes, but that
is something that will probably have to be worked out later. If you're
interested, drop a line to fink-core <at> lists.sourceforge.net.

The Transition to GCC 3.3
-------------------------

HOWEVER, to ease keeping things in sync between 10.2 and 10.3, our
continued support for 10.2 will *only* be if you are using the gcc 3.3
update, since the differences between gcc3.1 and 3.3 are reasonably
large as far as how porting happens.

If you've been following the fink-devel list, you know that for the past
few months we've been working on a tree dubbed "10.2-gcc3.3", which
currently contains most of the packages in the 10.2 tree, updated to
work with the new compiler. Even now more packages are getting moved
over each day, and tools have now been written to make it easier to
track changes between the different development trees.

The 10.2-gcc3.3 tree is perfectly usable right now, although a little
incomplete in unstable. David R. Morrison is working incredibly hard to
finish putting together the first binary distribution for 10.2-gcc3.3,
and it is expected to be coming any day now.

The Transition to Panther
-------------------------

The initial target for Panther users will be for you to use the
10.2-gcc3.3 binary distribution. This tree is binary-compatible with
Panther and should provide a smooth upgrade path to the "real" 10.3 tree.

The 10.3 tree is currently based on a subset of 10.2-gcc3.3, and is,
like it's predecessor, continuously getting updated and is getting
closer to parity with the other trees as time goes on. There's still
plenty of work to do, but almost all of stable is there, and ready, and
developers are diligently getting packages moved over to the unstable tree.

What You Can Do
---------------

Please help us test the 10.2-gcc3.3 and 10.3 trees.

10.2:

If you're running 10.2, install the December developer tools if you
haven't already, and then install the August updater. You can get them
both at the Apple Developer Connection (http://developer.apple.com/).
It does require registration, but is free.

10.3:

If you're already running 10.3, be warned that if you installed fink's
X11 package (instead of a system-xfree86 package), you may need to
force-remove them, and then re-install Apple's X11 (make sure you also
install the X11 SDK from the developer tools!)

Everyone:

Download the 0.15.1 beta of fink here:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/...tar.gz?download

...and follow the instructions for the rsync upgrade (which are good
general instructions for upgrading your fink package manager to the beta):

http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/rsync-upgrade.php

The beta will set you up for 10.2-gcc3.3 or 10.3, depending on what OS
version you are running.

*Please* keep in mind that you shouldn't use apt-get or dselect to
install things until we have a binary distribution (or if you do, make
sure you do "fink update-all" afterwards so that any 10.2-gcc3.3 fixes
or upgrades get built and installed). Once the 10.2-gcc3.3 bindist is
ready, we will make an announcement and it will be safe to use binary
tools again.

Also keep in mind that for now, 10.2-gcc3.3 and 10.3 are still
considered "beta". Expect the occasional problem. Generally, things
are working pretty well, though.

We'll let you know as soon as something official is available.

[sao]

Posted by Benjamin Reed at the fink-users list:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.apple.fink.general/10265

"fink-prebinding was "Essential" in the bootstrap, but not in the actual fink package tree. Since essential packages depended on a non-essential package that wasn't installed yet, fink got confused and gave up, since essential packages must always be installed first.

This is fixed in all trees, and a "fink selfupdate" should solve circular dependency issues if you have been unable to upgrade".

Note:
Make sure, before you run 'fink selfupdate' , that you are using cvs or rsync to get the latest package descriptions. (you shouldn't have your selfupdate settings to "point release", check in /sw/etc/fink.conf the "SelfUpdateMethod:" should be set to cvs or rsync)

[sao]

http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1232.html

[sao]

X11 for Mac OS X cannot be run without the window server.

If you log in as ">console" it stops the Quartz Window Server which is required for Apple's X11 to operate on MacOS X.

[sao]

You'll need to change your default shell. Assuming you want tcsh (the default shell for Jaguar) all you really need to do is issue the 'chpass' command in a terminal window, the NetInfo database will be updated to reflect the change:

chpass -s /bin/tcsh

The 'chpass' command doesn't work prior to 10.3. But, it does work in 10.3.

[sao]

If you launch a process fron the Apple's X11 "Applications" menu in Panther and your Applications commands are explicitly sent to the background via '&', the process is launched and it maximizes cpu usage that can only be killed with a -9 option. Remove the '&' and this may fix the problem. In x11 v1.0, the applications are backgrounded and there is no need for the '&'.

[sao]

The startx script in Apple's X11 for Panther is broken. It does not work if you try to use it from a tcsh command line. In bash, it works. From a post by Martin Costabel to the fink-beginners list:
The common reason for these problems is that the build system for
xfree86 (also used by Apple) creates scripts like startx (or xmkmf, or
all the man pages) using the C preprocessor. This preprocessor should
among other things replace all occurrences of "XCOMM" by the comment
sign "#".

Now cpp on Panther is broken. It writes a line "#pragma GCC
set_debug_pwd..." into its output, and this line is found as a first
line of startx and about 800 other text files in Apple's /usr/X11R6.
Just try "man X" with Apple's X11 installed. I am curious how long it
will take Apple to fix it. My guess is in the order of 1 year.

For the Fink xfree86 package, the maintainers tried to replace the call
to the buggy "cpp" by a supposedly working "cpp3", but apparently this
doesn't work correctly either, as witnessed by the remaining unreplaced
"XCOMM"s.
% man X

#pragma GCC set_debug_pwd "/pri-
X(7) XFree86 X(7)

vate/var/tmp/X11/X11-0.30.obj~2/xc/doc/man/general"

NAME
X - a portable, network-transparent window system

To make it work you can either remove the first line from the "startx script" or run it as "sh startx".

'more /usr/X11R6/bin/startx' gives:
#pragma GCC set_debug_pwd "/private/var/tmp/X11/X11-0.30.obj~2/xc/programs/xinit"
#!/bin/sh

# $Xorg: startx.cpp,v 1.3 2000/08/17 19:54:29 cpqbld Exp $
#
# This is just a sample implementation of a slightly less primitive
# interface than xinit. It looks for user .xinitrc and .xserverrc
# files, then system xinitrc and xserverrc files, else lets xinit choose
# its default. The system xinitrc should probably do things like check
# for .Xresources files and merge them in, startup up a window manager,
# and pop a clock and serveral xterms.
#
# Site administrators are STRONGLY urged to write nicer versions.

etc.etc.etc.

"The effect on a shell script like startx is that the line #!/bin/sh that defines the shell under which this is to run, is not seen, because it works only when it is the first line. So when you run this script from your tcsh command line, it tries to execute everything in tcsh which fails, because the syntax is made for sh".

[sao]

The only problem with the "kde binaries" on panther is that after installing them, you need to do:

fink remove qt3

fink install qt3

to fix qt3's linking against freetype libraries, and then it will work.

[sao]

(Exchange by Ernest Prabhakar and Torrey T. Lyons at the x11-users list)

-----------------------
Post by Ernest Prabhakar:

This is a feature of Launch Services in Panther. It works with any UNIX binary. The process is:

a) When Finder is trying to associate an icon with a file, it checks if (i) it has the execute bit set, plus (ii) it does not already have an extension. If both are true, it tags it as a UNIX executable.

b) When you actually double-click the file, it sniffs the binary to see if it links against X11. If so, it assigns the virtual extension '.x11app'; otherwise, it assigns it as type '.command'.

c) Based on that extension (which you could also assign manually), Launch Services searches for the appropriate application.

d) Apple's X11.app claims the .x11app extension, and thus it treats X11 binaries as one of its documents. Other X11 GUIs could also claim that extension, and handle binaries similarly. You can change the default application by using Get Info on a file with that explicit extension.

Hope this helps. I believe this is also explained in the UNIX Tech Brief for Panther.


-----------------------
Posted by Torrey T. Lyons:

Unfortunately, this does not work in practice. Here are some of the problems you run into:

1. Everything in /usr/X11R6/bin and most other places you are likely to find X11 binaries will be in a directory owned by root. You can't use "Get Info" to change the default application in a directory owned by root.

2. If you have OroborOSX installed, the popup menu for "Open with:" will show OroborOSX and only OroborOSX. X11.app or XDarwin do not even appear. Of course, you can't actually select OroborOSX because of #1, but its an interesting glitch. I believe the problem is that OroborOSX has decided it is important enough to be an "Editor" of X11 executables rather then just a "Viewer", which X11.app and XDarwin register as.

3. Because X11.app lists itself as "LSIsAppleDefaultForType" and the "Open with" preference is unchangeable, you always get X11.app if it is installed on your system.

4. One thing that works reliably is that you can drag an executable onto the icon of your X server of choice.

This new idea of treating binaries as documents is very cool. However, for it to be useful #1 has to be fixed.

-----------------------
Posted by Ernest Prabhakar:

I suppose that might be a problem, but I was actually talking about something quite different. In particular, I was talking about setting the default for -all- X11 binaries. To do that, you need to change a file that has an -explicit- extension of '.x11app'. Since UNIX binaries can implicitly be either Terminal or X11 binaries, Launch Services won't know which until after it is double-clicked, so that information can't be used in Get Info.

Since nobody (currently) ships binaries with an explicit extension, I believe you need to do something like the following:

1. Create a simple file which ends in '.x11app'

$ touch foo.x11app

2. Open that with Get Info in the Finder

$ open .
Command-I or Control-Click

3. Select the application

4. Set that as default ("Always open" or 'Change All").

That should make every X11 binary run with the launcher of your choice. Perhaps a little convoluted, but that's the price we pay for stretching the paradigm.

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

[sao]

(Thanks to Mike Coleman)

"Installed the Matlab for Panther. Of course it doesn't work. It all went on fine. However, the license manager doesn't start at start up - and if you try ./lmstart in the right /Applications/MATLAB6p5p1/etc directory it won't start - Attempting to start gives a -15 error, the fixes on the Mathworks site are for 10.1 and 10.2 for this problem. They don't work".

You can clear it by running in terminal.app:

sudo rm -f /var/tmp/lm_TMW.*

[sao]

Run "man quartz-wm" and "man Xquartz" to get a list of all the defaults-based options.

From man Xquartz:
CUSTOMIZATION
Xquartz can also be customized using the defaults(1) command. The
available options are:

defaults write com.apple.x11 enable_fake_buttons -boolean true
Equivalent to the -fakebuttons command line option.

defaults write com.apple.x11 fake_button2 modifiers
Equivalent to the -fakemouse2 option.

defaults write com.apple.x11 fake_button3 modifiers
Equivalent to the -fakemouse3 option.

defaults write com.apple.x11 swap_alt_**** -boolean true
Equivalent to the -swapAltMeta option.

defaults write com.apple.x11 keymap_file filename
Equivalent to the -keymap option.

defaults write com.apple.x11 no_quit_alert -boolean true
Disables the alert dialog displayed when attempting to quit
X11.

defaults write com.apple.x11 no_auth -boolean true
Stops the X server requiring that clients authenticate them-
selves when connecting. See Xsecurity(7).

defaults write com.apple.x11 nolisten_tcp -boolean true
Prevents the X server accepting remote connections.

defaults write com.apple.x11 xinit_kills_server -boolean false
Stops the X server exiting when the xinitrc script terminates.

defaults write com.apple.x11 fullscreen_hotkeys -boolean false
Allows system hotkeys to be handled while in X11 fullscreen
mode.

defaults write com.apple.x11 enable_system_beep -boolean false
Don't use the standard system beep effect for X11 alerts.

defaults write com.apple.x11 enable_key_equivalents -boolean false
Disable menu keyboard equivalents while X11 windows are
focused.

defaults write com.apple.x11 depth depth
Equivalent to the -depth option.


From man quartz-wm:
CUSTOMIZATION
quartz-wm can be customized using the defaults(1) command. The avail-
able options are:

defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm -bool true
Enables focus-follows-mouse mode. Windows belonging to the X
server may then be focused by moving the pointer over them, as
well as the default mode of clicking in them.

defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_click_through -bool true
Disables the default behavior of swallowing window-activating
mouse events.

[sao]

The following info was posted by Torrey T. Lyons (XFree86.org) at the x11-users list:
In the discussion of the Apple X11 Beta 3, there was some confusion about the available X11 options for Jaguar. To clarify, Apple's X11 1.0 is based on XFree86 4.3.0. (Beta 3 was based on the earlier XFree86 4.2.1, which is now over a year old.) There are several easy-to-use and free installers for XFree86 4.3.0 on Jaguar available from:


Fink: http://fink.sourceforge.net
XonX: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx

In particular, a standalone, pre-compiled binary of XFree86 4.3.0 for Jaguar, with a GUI installer based on InstallAnywhere, is available for free download at:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xonx/XFree86_4.3.0.dmg?download

Apple's X11 does include improvements in two areas over XFree86 4.3.0, which represent real work by Apple engineers:

1. The proprietary quartz-wm offers good integration with Aqua. For Jaguar a similar solution is available with the OroborOSX window manager. <http://oroborosx.sourceforge.net/>

2. Apple's X server is faster then XFree86 4.3.0. XFree86 4.4.0 will be released at the end of this year and will contain the performance improvements from Apple's X11. Apple should be commended for making these available to the open source community rather then just leaving Jaguar with an unsupported beta. On Jaguar XFree86 4.4.0 will be faster then 4.3.0, and on Panther XFree86 4.4.0 will have identical performance to Apple's X11.

--Torrey

[sao]

The following info was posted by Ernest Prabhakar (Product Manager, UNIX & Open Source) at the x11-users list:
Dear X11 Users,

We are pleased to announce that X11 1.0, the GM version, is available as part of Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther."

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

This marks a major milestone for Apple. Not only is X11 1.0 a complete, highly-optimized implementation of the X Window System R6.6 specification, plus the Aqua-compatible quartz-wm window manager, it is bundled in the box as an optional install for Mac OS X. It is also available as a free download for Panther Server customers, or customers who purchase Macs pre-installed with Panther:


http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/download/
Note: This version requires Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" or later

X11 1.0 includes a range of new features, including Finder integration for double-clickable applications, support for full-screen mode, and an improved Applications menu. It is one of the 150+ new features available in Panther <http://www.apple.com/macosx>, including added UNIX functionality such as NFS performance improvements, updated scripting languages and command-line utilities, and additional POSIX and Linux APIs.

The release of X11 1.0 marks the end of our highly-successful beta process. We would like to express our appreciation for all of you who helped us by participating in the X11 for Mac OS X beta process. We made a wide range of improvements to the product based on your feedback, the bulk of which have been released as Open Source <http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/X11/index.html> and will become part of XFree86 4.4. Please observe the terms of the beta license agreement and do not redistribute private copies of that beta.

I hope this information is helpful to you, and I apologize for not getting it out sooner. Feel free to forward this to other people who might be interested in X11 1.0. If you have any questions or comments, please email me directly.


Sincerely,
Ernie Prabhakar
-----------
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D.
Product Manager, UNIX & Open Source
Mac OS X Product Marketing
(408) 974-3075 <ernest@apple.com>

[sao]

(Thanks to Mengjuei Hsieh)

Now you can display InsightII™ from SGI to a Mac.

Please, read more at:

http://rayl0.bio.uci.edu/~mjhsieh/Library/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=114


Screenshot:

http://rayl0.bio.uci.edu/~mjhsieh/screenshot/11032003.gif

[sao]

Jerry Talkington wrote detailed instructions about X11 Forwarding on MacOS X on his web-site:

http://tinyurl.com/tbkf

[sao]

(How to share software between more than one fink installation)

Thanks to Benjamin Reed (Fink Project Lead).

http://ranger.befunk.com/blog/



October 29, 2003
-------------------------------------------
Sharing the Fink

I was recently asked how to share software between more than one fink installation. This is usually because the person has 2 (or more) machines, only one of which is fast. =) It's pretty easy to share binaries you've built on one system with another. Here's how (keep in mind these instructions will generally only work if each system is running the same major version of Mac OS X):

1. Install Fink on the "master" (build) system.

2. (If the clients already have fink installed, you can skip this step.) Copy /sw to the "client" systems. First you must enable "Remote Login" on the "master" box. Then, run the following on each of the "client" machines:

sudo rsync -avzr -e ssh user@otherhost:/sw/ /sw/

Just replace user@otherhost above with the username and hostname of the system to copy from.

This will make a clone of the fink installation on your "master" box on each of the clients.

3. On the "master" box, build something, and then run "fink scanpackages". This will make fink generate apt indexes for all of your enabled trees.

4. On the "master" box, enable "Personal Web Sharing" in the Sharing section of System Preferences, and then set up httpd to expose your /sw/fink directory externally. I do so by making an /etc/httpd/users/fink.conf file that contains:
Alias /fink /sw/fink
<Directory /sw/fink>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
</Directory>
..and then run "sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl graceful" to (re)start.

5. On the "client" box(es), edit /sw/etc/apt/sources.list, and add the lines representing your fink trees. For example, if my IP address of my build box at home is 192.168.42.7, the client would add:
deb http://192.168.42.7/fink stable main crypto
deb http://192.168.42.7/fink unstable main crypto
deb http://192.168.42.7/fink local main

6. On the "client" box(es), run "sudo apt-get update". If all goes well, you should see something like:
Hit http://192.168.42.7 stable/main Packages
Hit http://192.168.42.7 stable/main Release
Hit http://192.168.42.7 stable/crypto Packages
...and so on

7. You should then be able to do "sudo apt-get install <package>" for anything that's been built on the "master" box. Any time you build more stuff there, you will need to re-run "fink scanpackages" on the master, and "sudo apt-get update" on the client(s).

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

[sao]

Thanks to Martin Costabel (Fink Developer).

There is a common misconception about Matlab requiring oroborOSX, which needs XDarwin. Matlab works very nicely with Apple's X11 (as far as this bloated <at> #?!# <at> is able to work nicely). There were basically two problems between Matlab and X11, both are solved, and you can find information about this even on the mathworks web site, for example at:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/data/36012.shtml

The first problem is one I never found important, because it does not appear if you start Matlab from the command line: The "LaunchMatlab" clickable starter has to be taught about Apple's X11 instead of OroborOSX. This is done by simply editing a text file and replacing names. Mathworks' PantherUpdater does this for you.

The second problem is a longstanding binary incompatibility between Matlab and xfree86-4.3 (which concerns Apple's X11 on Panther, because it is a variant of xfree86-4.3.0) because of libraries compiled with thread support. This is fixed, too, by the PantherUpdater.

The file to download is called MathWorks_Panther_Updater.dmg

[sao]

Several people had to install the "X11SDK" twice until they got it recognized because sometimes the Apple installer forgets to install some files and needs a second run. Good news is that if you're 'only' installing binary packages, and you have fink-0.17.0 or later installed, system-xfree86 no longer requires the "X11SDK".

Anyhow, Martin Costabel has written a small script to compare the bom of an installed package with what is really on the disk. If you run it as "sh bomcheck X11SDK", it tells you whether the installation of that package is complete.

You can download the script from here:

bomcheck (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/fink/experimental/costabel/bomcheck?rev=1.1)

[sao]

Thanks to Detrius.

Hint posted at the MacOS X Hints web site. (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040131222238684)

If you follow this hint you will be able to run Apple's X11 in rootless mode as well as KDE or GNOME (or both) in Xnest sessions in rooted mode windows.

I tried the hint in the following way:

1- Wrote a ~/.xinitrc file with:
source /sw/bin/init.sh
exec quartz-wm

2- Then created a .xinitrc.fluxbox file for fluxbox:
source /sw/bin/init.sh
exec fluxbox

3- And one for icewm called .xinitrc.icewm:
source /sw/bin/init.sh
exec icewm

4- Then in Apple's X11 menu -->Applications -->Customize wrote two entries:

Name= fluxbox
Command= xinit ~/.xinitrc.fluxbox -- /usr/X11R6/bin/Xnest :3 -geometry 800x600

Name= icewm
command= xinit ~/.xinitrc.icewm -- /usr/X11R6/bin/Xnest :4 -geometry 800x600


Screenshot (http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/PhotoAlbum9.html)

[sao]

.
Haroon Sheikh posted the following at the x11-users list:

.
Everyone,

There were a small set of bug fixes in 10.3.4 for X11 for Mac OS X
v1.0. The list of fixes isn't documented anywhere, but here's a quick
rundown of the fixes.

- A common quartz-wm crasher (crash in x_input_register).
- xterm window would open on a secondary screen in multi-monitor
situations.
- Paste into Aqua environment (where the copy originating in X11) would
not succeed on first paste.
- xmkmf was broken so many scripts contained a bogus first line (note:
man pages still contain the bogus line).

Please upgrade to 10.3.4 if you haven't. As usual, report bugs, request
features, feedback to http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter

Note that I cannot comment on when the next set of X11 for Mac OS X
changes will be released (bug fixes or major upgrades).

haroon
.