Apple yesterday released “X11 Update 2006” which addresses several issues in the X11 for Mac OS X package, enabling it to better handle:
• GLX stereo visuals
• offscreen rendering to GLX Pbuffers and Pixmaps
To tell X11 to take advantage of stereo visuals, enter:
$ defaults write com.apple.x11 enable_stereo -bool true
X11 for Mac OS X offers UNIX users the ability to run thousands of X11 applications concurrently with other Mac OS X applications.
System Requirements
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later
• X11 1.1 or 1.1.1
More info and download link (51MB) here.
More info about Mac OS X and X11 here.
This is sweet. X11 has been unable to run a few of my unix programs, and it’s been really annoying to have to swithc computers. Hopefully this will resolve that:)
What are some of the standout UNIX apps us NIX newbies ought to take a look at?
Spark,
In my experience, there are none. It is nice when I have something I need to use Unix for, because then I can feel like a true nerd and I like that. However, I have yet to find a Unix program that is fun to use and isn’t for some sort of math research I am doing.
However, if you are just tring to break away from using standard stuff and nerd yourself up a little, you could start word processing with open office. In my experience it runs a little slow, and I would rather just shake hands with the devil and use word (not quite as slow), but a lot of people swear by open office.
correction: plenty of unix apps are fun, but not as fun as their OSX counterparts in my experience
Spark. X11 is mainly useful for those of us who work in science research, where a lot of the apps are UNIX based. I use X11 every day, but for the normal user, its not that useful. The only X11 App I can think of that an “ordinary person” might be interested in using on OS X is OpenOffice, and there are non-X11 versions of that either coming soon or in Beta. X11 apps rarely play nice with the OS X GUI, so look pretty out of place.
Personally I can’t live without X11 right now, but for most its just a curiosity.
Interesting feedback. Thanks.
I only use the X11 in OSX to pipe output from Solaris boxes to, but it’s nice to see Apple are still updating it to stay current.
MatLab is the only app I use under X11. Its really important across many research fields and the stability under OSX has been crappy.
the gimp is just about the only x11 app i use. i use neooffice specifically because i hate running OO.o in x11.
Wow, i just re-read the above, and it doesn’t make sense at all, unless you’re a nerd…
“the TAB” runs in X11. It’s a great animation program:
http://www.the-tab.com/
But as stated on this page from their website …
http://www.the-tab.com/htm/product/requirements.htm
“Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later may experience some running problems, because the TAB was released before those Mac OS upgrades were released. Please install the trial version available for download to check if the TAB can run on the Mac OS version installed on your computer.”
I’m wondering if this X11 update from Apple may help alleviate this problem. I haven’t been able to run this software since upgrading beyond 10.4.3.
Hey, don’t forget about about Gimp. Its runs in X11
There are many X11 applications that offer good value – all Linux applications need it (see Fink). Several people have mentioned OpenOffice (I personally find it very “windows 95” in generation, but it gets the job done). However, the other two applications well worth a look include:
– The GIMP – an opensource Photoshop equivalent. Very good.
– Inkscape – an opensource Adobe Illustrator equivalent. Also excellent.
I use Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org) under X11. It’s a nice open source vector drawing program. It’s also free.
I used to use OpenOffice under X11, but now I use NeoOffice.
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I use X11 to play Mahjongg. That’s the only application I ever use in X11.
From Wikipedia:
“In computing, the X Window System (commonly X11 or X) is a protocol and associated software to provide windowing on bitmap displays. It provides the standard toolkit and protocol to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on Unix, Unix-like operating systems, and OpenVMS, and almost all other modern operating systems support it.”
…
“X features network transparency: the machine where application programs (the client applications) run can differ from the user’s local machine (the display server). X’s usage of the terms “client” and “server” reverses what people often expect, in that “server” refers to the user’s local display (“display server”) rather than to a remote machine.”
MW: students … as in CS students often first get exposed to this at university
X11 is kinda slow on my system though, running a 1.5GHz PB connecting to a p3 800MHz running debian and kde 3.5 using an airport extreme and it usualy takes about 1.5 seconds for it to update the screen. Why not use all available bandwidth? 🙁
Well, nice, but it broke my OpenOffice, so I had to change to NeoOffice and all ok now.
Wow. This update significantly speeds up Xastir.
Spark,
Just in case the dead horse needs another hit … X11 on the Mac is more about running programs on the Sun or HP server in the back room than it is about running Unix programs on your Mac.
As an IT guy, I’ve used X11 on local workstations to display network monitoring tools on my local system, to access graphic server output locally, and a bunch of similar tasks.
Log on to remote system
Tell it how to display my information
Run graphic-display program
Why This Is Important … did you note the recent article about how much the Mac market share has grown? The one with the pointy comment about the fact that Apple’s Enterprise presence is only growing slowly? Well, X11 is one of the tools that will help drive a wedge into that market. IT guys everywhere now have an excuse to look at Macs again – if only for use in their own departments. Apple’s current market share is based primarily on Consumer purchases and gaining a percent or two of Enterprise market share would provide significant growth to Apple’s over-all market share. Remember, a 1% growth in market share represents a double-digit growth rate for the company. It may not kill #1 Dell or #2 HP, but it could pick off currently #3 Gateway. Or it may haul Apple into the Top 5 in the world market. Either would add to Apple’s credibility in the marketplace. Lots of managers remember that a mere decade ago Apple was in sharp decline and had little to offer any non-graphics-centric Enterprise. Today the situation has changed, but the memories linger.