Horrible X11 Problems on OS X (iBook)
Horrible X11 Problems on OS X (iBook)
- Subject: Horrible X11 Problems on OS X (iBook)
- From: Stephen Sebeny <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 04:57:15 -0500
Hi all,
What follows is my plea for help regarding getting X11 to work properly
on my iBook. Sorry its such a long message, but that¹s because its a long
story of my attempts and failure to get it working. I hope someone out there
might be able to point me towards a solution. And thanks in advance!
About 6 months ago I purchased an iBook at an AppleStore while attending
WWDC. Well, I've had the most unbelievably bad experience with this iBook.
The main, although not only, cause of my woes is having not been able to get
X11 to work on this machine at all.
Basically, on launch of the X11.app everything appears just fine. But if
I type in any command to run it, I get no results what-so-ever but just
another prompt back immediately. Even the most simplistic commands like ls,
echo, or sleep do not work. No errors are ever produced in the xterm, or in
the console, or in any of the logs. Now here is the laughable part,
selecting the xman or xlogo items from the X11.app Applications menu
actually works!
I have done literally dozens of OS installs. I have run everything from
like 10.3.2 through the developer build of Tiger from WWDC. I always do a
clean install, with a low-level (zero all data) format in-between OS
installs. And I have tried reinstalling the X11.app program dozens of times
as well. (I've even used different sets of install CDs in case one set was
somehow defective.) [Note, I've been somewhat fearful that it was running
Tiger in the first place at WWDC that caused this problem, but after
reformats I don't see how it could have any effect.]
I tried running your the open-x11 script as root by the suggestion of
others, but that had no effect. I have also tried a third party open-x11
script, and although it works fine on my G4 tower (which works fine all the
time) it doesn't even end up launching X11.app on the iBook. I also tried a
third party configure_x11 (or something) script and it produced a couple
errors about not being able to find the locate database. I then read the man
page on that and ran locate.updatedb script, but it still can't seem to find
the database when running a locate command. Unrelated?
Lately, I have resorted to deleting the installed X11 implementation and
using Fink (something I'm not very familiar with) to install xfree86. I was
able to get this running, and to my utter disgust as soon as I type a
command it has the exact same symptoms as did X11.app -- producing
absolutely no results what-so-ever.
Another symptom just occurred to me: if I hit the up arrow in one of the
X11.app xterm windows to scroll through the command history I see the
command history from Terminal.app and NOT the list of commands typed into
that xterm (which didn't work). This is not the behavior that I see on other
Macs which work (namely my G4 tower) and may be indicative of something, but
I don't know what.
I took the iBook into the AppleStore "Genius Bar" shortly after my 3
month AppleCare expired and was shocked at the lack of support I got. The
first "genius" I talked to didn't even know what X11.app was for. When I
found someone who knew something about it he tried to tell me that all they
support is that the X11.app launches, which it does, and they provide no
further support than that. But that if I wanted to purchase extended
AppleCare warranty he would look into it some more, or suggested I try
paying for Developer technical support (for what is completely a USER
issue!) This really ticked me off -- but I digress.
I have also looked into a package diff (receipt check) program that was
mentioned in some forum posts. And it seems to report that all the
components of X11 are there. Although it does say the dates are different on
lots of files (like a list 30 screens long). Regardless, I tried copying the
entire /usr/X11R6 and /etc/X11 directories from my G4 tower to iBook using
scp, but that didn't help anything either.
So, I hate to just post what is essentially my sob story and beg for
help, but that¹s about what its come to. I've just gone through so many
forum posts on X11, and different things, I don't have anything left. And I
was hoping someone on this list might have some clue as to what in the world
might be causing all of this. If so, I would really appreciate it if you
could take the time to write a little reply. Thanks in advance!
-----
Stephen M. Sebeny
email@hidden
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