FAQ on Apple's X11 server

[crash]

quick question for the X11 geniuses:

i use VNC to admin a remote linux box that has KDE as the desktop environment. VNC by nature is a little sluggish, even on a local network. sure, i could use ssh to compress it, but then it's only slightly sluggish but choppy.

it occured to me a few minutes ago that i can use ssh to forward X winodws to my local X server. (ssh -X username@remote_machine) this is handy for running apps like gaim, rythymbox, etc but those are all apps that run inside the mac desktop environment, albeit as X-windows.

i tried running kde from with xterm, and it actually worked, but not quite how i expected: it ran alongside OS X and the other aqua elements. this makes sense, as kde is really just an application after all. this leads me to my question:

is there a way to run some kind of container window for x apps? a container window such that all of my x-windows apps are imprisoned? this way, KDE could take over this whole container window, and all of the x apps could run inside of it.

does that make any sense? if not, then nevermind.

[Falcon040]

The links in this thread are old and go nowhere.

The link http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11 goes nowhere stating: "Looking for something on the Mac OS X site?", "The page you tried was not found." (The same link in the page http://www.misplaced.net/fom/X11/5.html is also old.)
The link http://search.lists.apple.com/x11-users also goes nowhere.


So, here we go:

DOWNLOAD PAGE: http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...formacosx.html

Just one question, it currently states "Mac OS X 10.3 through 10.3.9". Does this work with Mac OS 10.4.x (Tiger)?

[lurk]

No it doesn't work on Tiger. However, X11 is included with Tiger. Look for the installer on the Tiger disk, I would be more specific but I just don't remember where it was.

[inigo45]

Following your procedure my x11 is still in the international keymapping and not in the german. Firstly I found that the path is correctly /Applications/X11.app/Contents/MacOS/X11. Yeah the "s"! Well, unix is even case sensitive! I wouldn't get the glue.
Any ideas?
Juergen

Originally Posted by rhg

I say "thank you", too!

I extended your suggestion about how to enable a foreign keyboard mapping a bit.

Instead of manually invoking
/Applications/X11.app/Content/MacOS/X11 -keymap Deutsch.keymapping
from the command line you can manipulate the X11 executable so that it starts with your keyboard mapping:

1) in Terminal, become superuser:

sudo bash --login

2) change to the X11 executable directory:

cd /Applications/X11.app/Content/MacOS/

3) rename the original executable

mv X11 X11.bin

4) create the following shell script, e.g. with the vi editor:

#! /bin/sh
$(dirname $0)/X11.bin -keymap Deutsch.keymapping

This will invoke the original X11 executable with the appropriate keyboard mapping (which is the german mapping in my case).

5) name this script "X11" as the original executable name and make it executable:

chmod +x X11

This way you can conveniently double-click the X11 icon in /Applications or put it into the dock. X11 will then start with the appropriate keyboard mapping.

If you want the ssh-agent to run this is also very simple, just prepend the 2nd line in the shell script with /usr/bin/ssh-agent, such as:

#! /bin/sh
/usr/bin/ssh-agent $(dirname $0)/X11.bin -keymap Deutsch.keymapping

[tomdkat]

Hi! I'll be installing my first Mac mini over the weekend and I had a qucik question about X11, window managers, and the Aqua UI.

I'm not a Mac person, so please be patient with me.

I'm interested in running the X server in anticipation of getting OpenOffice 2.0 up and running. Ideally, the users of this Mac mini will "live" in the Aqua interface and be able to double-click some kind of OpenOffice icon which will start OpenOffice and that will connect to the X server that would be presumably running silently in the background.

If X is running, will the user be required to use a window manager as the UI or can my "idealistic" scenario above work?

Thanks!

Peace...

[ex2bot]

Welcome to MoacOSX.com!

You can do this quite easily. Apple's X11, which should be on your mini's installation DVD, has its own window manager. The nice thing about this window manager is that its windows look like regular OS X aqua windows AND they're accelerated using the 3D card. The windows co-exist alongside OS X windows. Having said that, you can change the wm if you want.

OpenOffice.org 2.0, which I looked at for about 20 minutes, has an icon to start it automatically IIRC. I believe it even automatically starts X11.

Doug

[tomdkat]

Great! Thanks for the info! Do you know where I can see screenshots of X running on OS X and where I can see windows displayed alongside OS X windows?

Peace...

[tomdkat]

Well, I got the X11 server installed on the Mac mini. Piece of cake. Just went right in.

One question, how can I configure it NOT to open an xterm window when the server starts? I think that's been asked so I'll start a searching.

Peace...