Leopard and X11

[sao]

*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.


Apple's X11 Frequently Asked Questions in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)

Please go to the following link for the "Apple's X11 and Tiger FAQs"


Note:
Many of the issues in the FAQs have already been resolved in updates available on the open source Xquartz Project . Although these updates are not official Apple releases, they are a convenient way for users to stay up to date with progress made in the open source community (in which Apple is participating). Official Apple releases will come from Apple (most likely through Apple Update).

Your best bet for staying current with bugfixes is to install the latest X11 package (at the moment X11 2.3.0) released by the Xquartz project, which contains Xquartz-1.4.2-apple5, and includes many fixes outside of Xquartz. Afterwards, just install the latest binary versions of Xquartz released periodically as fixes are being made. To see the complete list of changes in release X11-2.3.0, please go here

As of 2.2.0, you do not need to have Leopard's X11 package installed (but it is alright if you do).

OS-X Requirements
OS-X 10.5.4 or later is required to install this package

Warning:
Users have reported problems with this release when using some (but not all) non-US keyboards as well as wacom tablets. If you are such a user, they recommend using the 2.2.3 version until these issues are resolved. Additionally, if you are someone experiencing such problems, please join the xquartz-dev mailing list since they apparently need more testers with these devices.

Mac OS-X Updates:
You will need to re-install this package after future OS and Security Updates delivered through Apple's Software Update.

Logout Notice:
Because they have changed the way launchd starts the server, you will need to logout after installation.


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

General Info

-1- Leopard X11 Information.
-2- Installing X11 in Leopard.


Bugs, Tips and Troubleshooting

-3- "Fullscreen" support is broken.
-4- No middle button emulation (even though X11 Preferences say so).
-5- launchd support for X11.
-6- Do not start X11.app from the Dock.
-7- The interaction of Spaces and X11 doesn't work properly.
-8- Two ways to open an xterm without starting X11.app first.
-9- Fink initial support for Mac OS X 10.5.
10- The cursor color bug on Intel Macs is still there on Leopard.
11- Multiple Displays Problem.
12- X11.app Applications menu Problem.
13- Bringing All Windows to Front.
14- Incorrect characters on Japanese keyboards.
15- About xinitrc.
16- Top Twenty Bug Reports sent to Apple about Leopard X11.
17- To run another window manager.
18- ssh X forwarding.
19- Vim.
20- "X11R6 1" directory in /usr.
21- Weird issue with X11 via launchd.
22- Updated binaries at X.Org Wiki - XDarwin. Many bugs already fixed!
23- Sluggishness of redrawing windows in Leopard X11
24- "How to bring back Tiger's X11 to Leopard"
25- To connect to a remote linux station having X-forwarding properly set up.
26- To write Platypus droplets in Leopard.
27- To change the settings of the xterm that X11 displays at startup.
28- Sources.
29. Fonts.
30- X11 and TypeIt4Me in Leopard.
31- Expose Focus Bug.
32- Updated libX11 binary -- Gimp crash fix.
33- Xnest, Xvfb and Xephyr binaries.
34- Keyboard input when starting an XDMCP session.
35- To get rid of the inital xterm.
36- Troubleshooting checklist to see if DISPLAY is set.
37- Fake fullscreen support or Fake 8-bit color mode with Xephyr.
38- MATLAB R2007a, Leopard and X11.
39- Known issues and workarounds after the binary release of Xquartz 1.2a9.
40- To disable launchd support for launching X11.
41- Apple Installer Bug.
42- Last.fm focus stealing bug
43- What to do after you messed up your X11 installation?
44- X11.app/xterm does not launch
45- If you get the error "failed to bind to surface"
46- Font size in GnuCash, Inkscape, and Gimp
47- Running MATLAB from remote machine
48- Change the default X server DPI setting

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[sao]

X11 in Leopard syncs up with Xorg 7.2. The developers switched from the XFree86 codebase (based on, IIRC, X11R6.8) to the X.org codebase (X11R7.2).

Although it temporary adds many painful bugs, it's based on a much more modern codebase and the result in the long term once the bugs are ironed out, will make X11 in Leopard great to use (porting will become easier, we will see a more "Mac-like" behaviour, a better window manager, and a more up-to-date code base).

At the X11-users mailing list, Ben Byer (CoreOS / BSD Technology Group, XDarwin maintainer) wrote a brief "history of Apple's X11.app" and a casual "Leopard X11 release notes"

.......
Extracted from a post by Apple's "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Apple's "X11-users" Mailing list:

".....Those who are somewhat preemptively demanding that "Apple should do even more" are losing sight of both that fact and an even more important one: *X.org is the keeper and primary owner of these bits, not Apple.

Anyone wishing to inspect, build and hopefully improve X.org's support for MacOSX, or any other platform X.org supports, are always more than free (nay, outright encouraged) to go to X.org's git repository and check them out. *Ben (Byer) has even helpfully checked the Leopard support in on a branch as well as merging that same support into Top Of Tree, where it is*currently and*unfortunately somewhat less than functional due to other changes the X.org developers have made there. * Version skew is an engineering fact of life so there's not even any implicit blame in that statement, it's merely a statement of fact. * It's also a tacit reinforcement of my earlier statement that Apple does not own or exert significant control over the X.org bits and I doubt that anyone would wish to change that fact, least of all Apple. *It does, however, mean that you're all far more in control of your own "x11 destinies" than you might think and equating X11 to something like, say, Quartz in terms of setting support expectations would just be silly. *Apple bundles X11, Apple contributes what engineering resources it can to the X.org project, that's the long and short of it.

I also realize that this is a mailing list devoted to users of X11 and users by almost categorical definition are somewhat demanding. *That's fine. *We're all used to that and, as engineers of any stripe, are genuinely happy to see users using our stuff (without which there wouldn't be much point to it). * I only hope that those developers also lurking on this list will get the not-at-all-subtle point I'm trying to make about how to really advance the cause of X11 on MacOSX or any other platform for that matter. * X.org has some lofty goals, the loftiest of which may be X12 (see*http://www.x.org/wiki/Development/X12), and they're not going to get there on MacOSX or any other platform without significant community involvement. *That's you. :-)"

- Jordan

...................................


To all developers out there, please get involved, be brave and start submitting the first patches!
(Note from sao)

.

[sao]

Apple's X11 in Leopard now installs by default. You can choose not to install it by clicking customize during the Leopard installation process and deselect it before installing.

[sao]

At the moment "fullscreen" support in Leopard's X11 is broken.

------------------------
Extracted from a post by Apple's "Ben Byer" at Apple's "X11-users" Mailing list:

..."Put bluntly: Fullscreen mode won't happen if I'm the one that has to write the code. Why?

X11 is a complicated beast. The people who wrote the fullscreen and rootless code in the Tiger X11.app had years of experience in graphics- related coding -- I had very little before I started working on Xquartz a year ago. My team focuses more on things like perl, tcl, top, apache, launchd, etc. However, we have more experience with dealing with the open-source community, so my team agreed to take on responsibility for most of X11.app so that we could try to integrate back with X.org and get where we are today. (BTW, that did not include quartz-wm and libXplugin.)

I spent at least a month trying to hack fullscreen support back into the X.org codebase, and a couple of my teammates tried, too. We failed. If I hadn't spent that time on fullscreen, I probably would have been able to fix most of the issues I've fixed in these patches over the past three days, but hindsight is 20/20 and it seemed like a higher priority, since that was the most common complaint we received during Leopard's development.

Given another six months, I could probably learn enough to make this work. Maybe. On the other hand, the people who are really into "this graphics stuff" would probably be able to get something working with a weekend of work. Those people are out there -- I know some of them are even reading this, right now, and they know who they are. This message is partially to them.

To the rest of you who would like to help -- dive in! The only difference between me and the other developers here, in terms of ability to contribute to X11 on the Mac, is that I've spent slightly more time banging my head against the wall, and I've gotten paid for it -- but that doesn't automatically translate into our ability to fix every bug.

I'd rather spend my time doing things that only I can do -- merging patches to X.org git. Trying to push patches out in Software Updates. Lobbying for better interfaces. Sorting through Radar bug reports. Coordinating efforts to improve integration. Meeting with the Spaces folks to figure out those bugs."

Ben Byer
CoreOS / BSD Technology Group, XDarwin maintainer

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

If you really need this functionality Apple developers let us know that we should be able to use in Leopard the X11 package from Tiger instead.

If you have a copy of Tiger's X11 (you can download Tiger's X11 Update 2006 from here ), please read:

"Bring Back Tiger's X11 to Leopard in 3 Steps"
or
easier instructions to install Tiger's X11.app

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

For the moment, another possibility would be to fake fullscreen support with Xephyr. Please read:
#37- Fake fullscreen support or Fake 8-bit color mode with Xephyr.

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

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[sao]

No middle button emulation (and no tablet support yet). If it's any consolation we can say that it does work with a 3-button mouse.

Already fixed in the updated Xquartz binaries 1.2a3.
"fake mouse button support" -- e.g. Option-click to middle-click

.

[sao]

(Thanks to Ben Byer)

"New launch-on-demand support, courtesy of launchd. If you start a program that tries to open your X $DISPLAY, launchd will check to see if X11.app is running. If not, it will automatically start it for you.

The only situation where you should need to manually start X11.app is if you are only running remote X11 applications. So on Leopard, just run a command like xterm or start an application that needs X11, and X11 will start up automatically".

"In brief, don't run X11.app from the Dock. Or, at all, manually. Ensure that you are not explicitly setting $DISPLAY in any configuration files, verify that 'echo $DISPLAY' in Terminal.app reports something that starts with '/tmp/launchd', and then just run 'xterm &' from Terminal. This will work with any X11 client application that links with the standard libX11.dylib."

.

[sao]

It will do strange things, like a weird double X11 icon with one bouncing endlessly and eventually ending up with Application not Responding.

The strange behavior with X11 and the dock in Leopard is a known issue by Apple. The workaround is to not put X11.app in the dock. In Leopard, X11.app will automatically launch whenever you try to open an X11 application, so just directly run your application.

The /Application/Utilities/X11.app on Leopard is in reality just a little wrapper around the command:

/usr/bin/login -fp $USER /usr/X11/bin/xterm

Starting xterm then triggers the startup of the the real server, which is now located at /usr/X11/X11.app.

[sao]

Getting xterm windows to spread over several Spaces buffers makes you cross-eyed at best.

X11 windows don't focus, freeze up, start frozen.

If you have an xterm on each of your 4 Spaces desktops, then when you go to Desktop 2, 3 or 4 and click in the xterm found there in order to try to get focus, instead of getting focus it switches you back to desktop 1.

One way that works to place focus safely is by selecting the right window with <cmd>+arrow key.

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

Fixes in the updated Xquartz binaries 1.2a7:
The "offset-pointer"/"ghost window" bug with Spaces has been resolved correctly. This means you can now use the F8 function to zoom out and drag a window from one Space to another with your mouse. Unfortunately, due to a known issue in Spaces itself, you can not drag X11 windows to the edge of the screen to move them to the next screen.

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

[sao]

(Thanks to Martin Costabel)

a. Open a Terminal.app window and type "xterm" at the command prompt.
b. Open /usr/X11/bin in the Finder and double-click on the xterm icon.