Darwin

[BBenve]

Allright i dloaded and installed Xdarwin i lunched it ..and looks kinda wierd to me..i was expecting a "linux like" interface while instead i found myself with 2 terminal windows and a clock...now i saw the "linuxlike interface" in pictures...how do i get there???
Sorry if the question sounds silly ..but i am new to this "section" of OSX

Thanks

 

[scruffy]

X Windows is basically the unix equivalent to quartz/apple window server.

It just allows you to run standard unix programs that use graphical windows, like have quartz/aqua allows you to use mac programs. You have to get the programs elsewhere...

to see what you have installed already, try
ls /usr/X11R6/bin
to get a list of all Xwindows programs, and
whatis <program>
to find out what a specific one does.

to run one, just type the name of the program in one of the terminals running in XDarwin (not the Mac terminal, it's not associated with an X display, so the program won't know where to display). If you put a & after the name of the program it will not tie up the terminal till it quits, you probably want to do that.

By default there is not a whole lot of exciting stuff on there. If you have a shell account on a unix machine with some more fun programs, you can
ssh -X -l username computer.some.where
from one of the Xdarwin terminals. The -X tells it to forward X windows connections from the computer you log into remotely to the one you're sitting at.

Hope this answers some of your questions...

 

[BBenve]

well that sure help.. now another little question.. so now if i get software for unix .. i have to put it in that folder right? or it does not matter where it is?


Thanks

 

[billbaloney]

Any executable file is executable no matter where it is. In the *nix world, though, an app rarely runs just by itself. It refers to a whole mess of library and other reference files to tell it how to interface with your particular computer, and it may even need to call other apps (and thus know where they are).

Installing an application is rarely as simple as just copying a file from another computer to your own. In general, the whole package of related files needs to be installed and verified. This is generally taken care of by the application's built-in installation process.

Chances are, if you follow the installation instructions for an X Windows-related app, you will find that a whole bunch of files are put in a whole bunch of places, with the resulting master executable file (the one you are actually trying to install) placed in /usr/X11R6/bin/.

Hope that helps. If you don't understand any of this, you're better off waiting to find a particular program and then asking particular installation advice.

 

[slur]

To get a more "Linux-Like" interface you'll probably want to get one of the various window managers that are available. Sawfish is just about the simplest one you can get that enables live window-dragging. Others are enlightenment, fvwm, icewm, and windowmaker. You could go all-out crazy and install Gnome, but there's quite a lot of downloading and installing involved.

You can also get OroborOSX which wraps X-Windows in a pretty nifty Aqua-like window manager.

I used Fink to install X-Windows so I've been able to play around a little bit without worrying where things get installed or figuring out compiler errors. All the basic wm's I mentioned are available through Fink.