What is Xquartz, and why...

T

The Grimace

Registered
...can't I now launch X11 without it running?

I was messing around with the apps in /usr/X11R6/bin/ and came upon an app named 'Xquartz'. It wouldn't launch while X11 was running, so I killed X11 and launched it. Now, X11 won't launch at all without Xquartz. So I opened a Terminal window, ran 'top', launched Xquartz, and launched X11. As soon as X11 launched, another instance of Xquartz also launched. I quit Xquartz via the Dock, and one instance of it disappeared according to top. I then quit X11 via the Dock, and it and the other instance of Xquartz quit. However, X11 won't launch without Xquartz.

This is the error message that the console displays:
----------------------------------------------------------
Fatal server error:
Could not create server lock file: /tmp/.X0-lock

OsVendorFatalError
AbortDDX
Quitting XDarwin...
----------------------------------------------------------

I can't make any changes to the '/tmp/' directory from the Finder->Show Info; its a link to /private/tmp/, and the permissions on the link are read-only for me, even as an Admin. However, the /private/tmp/ directory permissions are read-write-execute.

Unfortunately, I know just enough about UNIX and the terminal to be dangerous. Anyone know what Xquartz is, and what I did? Gonna try a reboot and see if it helps...



(tig)

[edit] Ok, so I rebooted and now X11 works fine. Strange days indeed.
 
Well, close... X11.app is a front-end to easily use and configure X11, and Xquartz is the window server Apple wrote to blend X11 apps into the MacOS X Window Manager. X11 uses window servers to handle the GUI, as does MacOS X... so Apple wrote a light-weight window server for X11 that talks to the already existing Window Server in MacOS X... confusing, yes? This problem you are having can probably be solved by a reboot and not mucking with the X processes again in that fashion.
 
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