# XDarwin & Orobor



## chenly (May 12, 2002)

!@#$%^ XDarwin & Orobor don't work right! I installed Orobor, then XDarwin. Now, I can't use the Finder or the Dock to open applications; when I try, the X windowing system opens instead and does nothing. I can't even get basic X11 clients to run. IS THERE SOMETHING I'M MISSING?!?!!? I would really like to use X11 but, so far, XTools is the ONLY X11 windowing system that has worked for me. I won't turn my back on opensource programming because I KNOW XDarwin & Orobor function. Does ANYONE have ANY suggestions on fixing this?


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## lethe (May 12, 2002)

i m not positive, but aren t you supposed to install xfree86 first, then install oroborosx?


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## Javintosh (May 12, 2002)

I think that XDarwin is an XFree86 installation. OrobosOSX wiered out on me sort of like that once. I was using version .7. After upgrading to .8p2 everything returned back to normal. Sometimes it is easier and faster to reinstall than to figure out what's actually wrong.

not very satisfying, but it has worked for me before.


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## lethe (May 12, 2002)

yes, XDarwin is an sfree86 installation, and i think it has to be installed _before_ oroborosx, not after


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## chenly (May 12, 2002)

Same result. Am I misunderstanding X on OS X? To my way of thinking, X11 applications can run side-by-side with OS X applications. Why does XDarwin take over the entire interface? As I said earlier, neither the Dock nor the Finder work for launching applications when XDarwin is installed on the machine.


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## Valrus (May 12, 2002)

I think the newest version of OroborOSX has its own version of XDarwin included with it, so if you have a seperate version of XDarwin that might be what's screwing you up. If you're sure you have XFree86 installed right, you might want to trash XDarwin and try again, just using OroborOSX.

-the valrus


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## scruffy (May 12, 2002)

newer OroborOSX versions have an internal version of XDarwin_.app_ that they use - allows interleaved windows, and minimizing to the Dock, and probably a few other things the standard doesn't.

The whole XDarwin X11 install is a couple hundred megs, you still need that.


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## chenly (May 12, 2002)

What are the current revisions of each? I just downloaded OroborOSX  -  0.8p2 and XDarwin 1.0.6.1 from VersionTracker. Are there newer revisions?


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## rubberchicken (May 12, 2002)

I also had problems with OroborOSX, I eventually installed afterstep and it works just fine. Once you go to rootless mode every thing looks better anyway. If you can't see  your dock and screen try pressing apple, option and a. That should switch between xdarwin and aqua. If you run it as rootless you only see the windows you open in xdarwin i.e. abiword. Have you installed fink?

I installed fink then xdarwin then abiword then afterstep.

works fine for me.


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## chenly (May 12, 2002)

Fink is here. Everything, EVERYTHING, works FINE, EXCEPT the Dock & Finder--when ANY X windowing system OTHER than XTools is installed, neither the Dock nor the Finder can be used to launch applications. Attempting to do so results in the X windowing system being launched ONLY; nothing else happens.


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## BSDimwit (May 12, 2002)

From what you keep saying regarding this whole installation... something must be corrupt.  

I am running Xdarwin (loaded from Fink) an oroborosx(lastest release) and it works fine for me.  My finder works, my dock works, everything works... I can even open up xterms from my Freebsd box on my mac... I hate to say this, but you might want to erase the /usr/X11R6 directory and reinstall Xwindows.  Once you have done that, get the latest orborosx and instead of running Xdarwin.app that comes with the xfree86 install, run the one that comes with oroborox..  That one is what allows the interleaving... 

Now if you want to run just plain Xwindows with a window manager like blackbox or windowmaker, then run the Xdarwin.app that came with XFree86... 

Let us know how it goes.


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## chenly (May 12, 2002)

Thanks, BSDimwit, but no luck. I trashed the whole /usr/X11R6 directory and reinstalled, but the same problem cropped up. Am I misunderstanding what XDarwin does? To my way of thinking, it works a lot like the Classic compatibility layer does--all X applications are available from within the one OS X application (XDarwin). Is this not correct?


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## symphonix (May 12, 2002)

X-Darwin is only an X-windows client for Aqua, you still need to actually install X-Windows in order to use it, though. On Apple's downloads page, http://www.apple.com/macosx/downloads/ under Unix utilities you will find a distribution of X-Free86 that includes X-Darwin. Download this, and you will be able to run X-Windows apps. Then, you can install OroborosX, which is a very good window manager for X-on-MacOs-X.

If you need to run remote X-Windows apps, you will need to call them from your X-term, not from a terminal.app term. I'm sure there's a workaround for this, but with an X-term at least it should work automatically.


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## Javintosh (May 12, 2002)

At the risk of asking the obvious... Install XDarwin, install OroborOSX and then double click on OroborOSX. This will launch XDarwin or you with the OrobosOSX window manager. In my case, XDarwin booted rootless by default. Maybe for some reason your XDarwin is launching in Full Screen mode. 

After you launch OroborOSX, go to the options menu and select XDarwin Preferences. Click on the startup tab and make sure the Default Mode is set to rootless. You might have to quit and relaunch OroborOSX (which will always quit and launch XDarwin).

BTW>I tend to think of XDarwin as functionaly analogous to Classic.


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## BSDimwit (May 13, 2002)

When I was talking about Xdarwin, I was meaning the entire XFree86 installation for MacOSX.   What Symphonix was saying is completely true.  

Xdarwin was made so that Xfree86 could be run in rootless mode (It normally runs as root).  This enables people to run XFree86 on Macs without having to have the root user enabled...which its not by default.

As for what Xwindows is....

Xwindows is the graphical user interface to most UNIX based operating systems.... like Solaris, AIX, HPUX, FreeBSD, LINUX.  Companies like Sun and SGI have their own versions of X, but they all work the same way basically(Standards are nice aren't they).  Linux and FreeBSD rely on XFree86 as their version of X.  Anyway X works as a client/server model.  The Xwindows server typically runs as a daemon... and it basically acts sort of like a shell... its the layer between UNIX and the GUI.  The Xwindows clients are the actual gui things the user gets to play with.  To make this all work, your client has to have a Window manager running... like blackbox, windowmaker, fvwm, KDE, Gnome+Sawfish... etc.  The window manager takes care stuff like window placement, keyboard stuff.  It also is what takes care of what the actual windows look like.  Also, because of this client server model, the Xserver and the Xclients don't have to be running on the same machine.  In a network, you can have connect to an Xserver on one machine and display the gui on another.   So lets say I have a really fast machine as a server, but a slower one as a client... and lets say you want to run Gimp... the faster server can do all the hard work(number crunching, memory management, and other cpu intenstive stuff) while the client merely displays what its doing...  Keep in mind that the faster your network is, the better this works, but you can actually open an xterm over a 56k connection just fine.

Instead of thinking of Xwindows like its classic... think of it as another gui that macosX can run besides the Aqua gui.  The big difference between the two is that a ton of software has been written over years for X while aqua is relatively new.  If you have ever looked at FreeBSD's ports collection you see a ton of software that requires Xwindows... many of these ports have also been ported over to Darwin... 

Hope this clears things up for you abit.  I guess if you can make this work for your Mac, you will have a veritable plethera of software that can run on your mac that you couldn't before.  Many a useful tool has been developed for Linux and the *BSD's that will run just fine on MacOSX once you get X running.

One small side note.... I really hate that Apple started using X as its OS number.  It confuses things when there already exists another X as In Xwindows(which has been around since the early 80's).... sure makes talking about MacosX and Xwindows in the same conversation confusing.


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## chenly (May 13, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Javintosh _
> *At the risk of asking the obvious... Install XDarwin, install OroborOSX and then double click on OroborOSX.*



AHHHHH!!! CAN'T!!! Double-clicking ANYTHING in either the Dock or Finder results in launching whatever X-windowing/window manager is installed AND NOTHING ELSE.

I'm done with X-windows for the moment. Obviously, there is something wrong. I'm buying a new machine this year; when I do, I will apply everything I've learned about UNIX to it. Until then, I'll hurry up and wait. Thanks, everyone.


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## buc99 (May 13, 2002)

Does the finder and dock work when Xfree86 is not installed?

Just a question. Maybe the problem is not related to Xfree86 at all. Maybe something else is buggy in your system. Reason I ask is because it seems odd that thousands of people have been able to install this and this is the first time I've ever seen anyone talk about the finder and dock crashing out.

Is the finder and dock actually visible when Xfree86 is running?

Good Luck.
SA


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## rubberchicken (May 13, 2002)

One thing perhaps that I overlooked earlier is your operating system. I am using 10.1.4. What version are you using?


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## chenly (May 13, 2002)

10.1.4.


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## chenly (May 13, 2002)

EVERYTHING works FINE...UNTIL I install X-windows. XTools worked ONCE, but I uninstalled it to install XDarwin. Now NOTHING works. WHEN any X-windows system is installed, the Finder and the Dock no longer function for launching applications--double-clicking on an application in the Finder or clicking on an application in the Dock causes the X-window system to launch, unless its running already, and then NOTHING else happens. Everyone, there is a problem with this system. I can't fix it now because I have ~35GB of stuff I need to back up first. And, yes, I've completely deleted the /usr/X11R6 directory and all its contents; it didn't change a thing.

I'm sure that with a virgin installation of OS X everything will work just fine. I've hacked this installation to hell; I've lost Software Update (errors out at end of each download) and X-windows, but everything else is fine. The only modifications I want, now that I've made pretty much all of them, are TransparentDock, the double scroll arrows at both ends of windows, a dedicated swap partition, and extra large (256x256 for Hassie chrome previews!) icons. None of these things should interfere with X-windows, so, when I can get my stuff backed up, I'll do it. Until then, thank ALL of you for your help with this.


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## xyz (May 14, 2002)

chenly,

I know practically nothing about *nix, so I took the easy route.  I installed Xfree86 and oroborosx in less than 10 minutes (not counting download) using the following double-clickable installers:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/xonx/XInstall_10.1.sit
http://wrench.et.ic.ac.uk/adrian/software/oroborosx/OroborOSX-v0.8preview2.tar.gz

Works like a charm!


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## chenly (May 14, 2002)

OK, OK, OK--XDarwin is up and running, the Dock works, and so does the Finder. Orobor doesn't work, but what the hell does it do, anyway? Also, the X11 Clients that install with XTools don't work, but this is because they're programmed to look only for Tenon's proprietary system, not standard X-windows, right?


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## chenly (May 14, 2002)

I rebooted and the Dock/Finder don't work anymore. Trying to launch an application from either just launches XDarwin. I give up. It was so neat for ten minutes. I just don't care anymore. Thanks, everyone.


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## buc99 (May 14, 2002)

The only thing I can think of is something is lurking about from Xenon's Xtools. Some library or something it installed that you missed on uninstalling may be whacking your Xfree86 installation everytime you install it. 

Also, you may have accidently deleted a critical file. It seems that you may have somehow muffed your OS if the updater is no longer working. Xdarwin should not be "That" tied into your dock and finder. It should work as any other app and call for Xfree86 to start up from the Unix portion of the OS. (If that makes sense?)

I'm begining to feel that a new OSX install may be necessary. But you can keep asking, there may be someone here that knows better. One other thing, if there are missing libraries, you could try a fink install of Xfree86 and see what libraries it claims you are missing.

Just my two cents.
Good Luck. 

SA


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## chenly (May 14, 2002)

I know. I lost Software Update about six weeks ago. It errors out at the end of every download. If I run the OS X installer, it won't touch the directories it doesn't create, and will update, but not completely overwrite, say, /Applications, right?


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## sao (May 14, 2002)

Chenly,

 Please try this:

 sudo rm -rf /usr/X11R6 /etc/X11

 Also, if you can open the console, could you post the last 30 lines?

 If it works, then you can just re-install XFree86 with Fink. 

 Let me know.


 Cheers...


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## buc99 (May 14, 2002)

> If I run the OS X installer, it won't touch the directories it doesn't create, and will update, but not completely overwrite, say, /Applications, right?



It kinda depends. Because , if you have your User directory installed on another Volume you can do this and then just use the USer volume you created. It should overwrite /Applications. However, I'm not a hundred percent sure if it will overwrite any added files if you do not reformat the drive. Never really tried it myself. You may want to send a message out to Testuser. He is a member of this forum and has experience seeting up partitions. So he might know how the OSX installer affects your directories.

Also, have you tried booting into "single user" mode and running fsck -y to check you directory structure? I'm not sure how beneficial this would be for you, but it definately would not hurt.

If all else fails, you could backup the important stuff and start anew.

Good Luck.
 
SA


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## sao (May 14, 2002)

chenly,

 If you enter into single user mode as suggested by buc99:

 Run *fsck -y*  
Be sure to do this one first, it will check the boot volume's file system, and repair if necessary. This probabaly may not be able to fix all problems in a single pass, so if it finds and fixes anything, it'll tell : 

"***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****" 

Run it until it doesn't find any more errors. 

 Other commands to know if you are there:

*mount -uw /*   Remount the boot volume, enabling write access. 


*SystemStarter*   Start up more of the system, basically running all of the StatupItems, including networking, NetInfo, NFS, and many background daemons. Doesn't start the Aqua interface; it leaves you with the single-user command line when it's done. 

(After running SystemStarter, do not continue the boot with the 'exit' command.) 


*pico, vi, emacs* are available to edit text in single-user mode, although with some minor problems. 


*nicl -raw /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb* For editing the local Netinfo database. Quite handy if the system can't boot properly because of a Netinfo configuration problem. 


*exit*   Continue the boot process (go to multi-user mode). But, if you've made any significant changes it's much safer to 'reboot' instead. 


*reboot*   Reboot the computer. 


*shutdown -h now*   Shut the computer. 


In single user mode, the default shell is zsh, while the normal default is tcsh, but you probably will not notice the difference. 

Apple's default command aliases arent's set up. 

The keyboard is not fully configured in single-user mode. So you get no arrow keys for command line editing or in text editors. 

You can use instead, command characters : 

^p - previous line, equivalent to up-arrow 
 ^n - next line, equivalent to down-arrow 
 ^b - back a character, equivalent to left-arrow 
 ^f - forward a character, equivalent to right-arrow 

(Hold down the control key+ the letter)

Added by a friend:

Also, in single-user mode, you can 

% exec tcsh 

and get the baseline functionality of the tcsh shell


 Cheers...


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## Javintosh (May 14, 2002)

that last post would make a great HOWTO.


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## buc99 (May 14, 2002)

Nice work Sao. I would have to agree with Javintosh. That would definately make a nice little howto.

Thanks.
SA


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## sao (May 15, 2002)

What I was concerned about, was to explain to a beginner, what to expect when he would decide to enter single user mode. I hope that now, the process is better understood.

 Anyhow, fsck is run at boot time automatically, as a sanity check. (When it says "Checking filesystems...", etc.etc., the machine is actually running fsck.)

 Cheers...


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## chenly (May 15, 2002)

Actually, I just reinstalled OS X and now XDarwin works just fine. I think maybe the frame buffer setting I changed impacted X-windows performance.


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## sao (May 16, 2002)

Most problems can be solved if you reinstall OSX.  


 Cheers...


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## chenly (May 16, 2002)

Right! Plus, I've got my list of modifications ready:

1.     TransparentDock (http://www.versiontracker.com or http://www.download.com)

2.     Double-ended scroll bar arrows.

3.     Dedicated swap-file partition.

4.     Remove the annoying volume change beep associated with the Pro Keyboard.

5.     Frame redraw buffers. Note: this might be what was f*ucking up X-windows before. Must be able to completely undo if necessary.

And that's all!


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