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Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up
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Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up


  • Subject: Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up
  • From: Bill Campbell <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:18:00 -0700
  • Mail-followup-to: email@hidden

On Sat, Oct 27, 2007, Ben Byer wrote:
>On Oct 27, 2007, at 4:29 PM, Martin Costabel wrote:
>
>>
>>Thus double-clicking X11.app (the one in /Applications/Utilities) is
>>basically equivalent to running the command "open-x11 xterm" in Tiger.
>>
>>Your ~/.xinitrc is executed, but only after the xterm command.
>>
>>On Leopard, you often don't need to start X11.app yourself. Just run
>>a command like xterm or start an application that needs X11, and X11
>>will start up automatically.
>
>Thanks.  I've been meaning to get some real release notes out there,
>but instead, let's have some casual, off the cuff ones!
>
>Biggest architectural change in Leopard for X11:  Switched from
>XFree86 codebase (based on, IIRC, X11R6.8) to X.org codebase (X11R7.2)
>
>Biggest user-visible change:  launchd support for X11.  The only
>situation where you should need to manually start X11.app is if you
>are only running remote X11 applications.
>
>The way that this is accomplished is by some slight-of-hand with the
>$DISPLAY variable -- if you look, it should be something like "/tmp/
>launch-vbXRyu/:0".  If an X client connects to this, it will actually
>connect to launchd, which will start Xquartz if needed and pass the
>client's socket to the server.

What if one wants to run another window manager such as xfce?

Does XDroplets still work?

>All of that should be invisible to you; the X client library
>(libX11.dylib) was modified to support this, and all X11 applications
>link against this library.   "DISPLAY=:0" would still work if X11.app
>is already running, but it will not trigger X11 to launch.
>
>Two biggest bugs:
>* Fullscreen support is broken.  I know many of you will hate me for
>this -- it stopped working when we switched codebases, and I was
>unable to get it working again.  I'm hoping that some of you
>developers may be able to help me us fix this.  Until then, those of
>you who need this functionality should be able to use the X11 package
>from Tiger instead.  (Yes, I know you can't officially download that
>from www.apple.com -- I would like to see that change and am working
>on making that happen; no ETA.  You may be able to find a copy of it
>lying around somewhere.)

I would put the inability to use Option-Click to paste when using
a laptop is far more major, and may well keep me from getting
Leopard until this is fixed.

Speaking of ETA, I get the impression that fixing X11 issues is a
very low priority at Apple given the length of time things like
the cursor color bugs on Intel Macs was (is) have taken to fix.

>* Do not start X11.app from the Dock.  It will do strange things --
>you'll get two icons.  This is due to the aforementioned "launcher"
>in /Applications/Utilities/X11.app not being the same as the real
>server, which is now located at /usr/X11/X11.app.

It sounds like a fair amount of effort went into this launcher
thing, which, in my mind at least, is fixing something that
wasn't broken.  The first thing I do after logging in to my Macs
is to start X11, do an ``exec ssh-agent bash'' in the default
xterm, then launch other processes from that bash session (since
I've never been able to get ssh-agent support from hacking my
~/.xinitrc file).

I do use XDroplets to allow me to drag-n-drop files into the
gimp, and an ``xterm -e vim'' or use ``Open With'' X11
applications.  XDroplets checks for the presence of a running
X11, and will start it if necessary.

>I sincerely hope that you all will like the new X server -- while it
>may look the same, it's based a much more modern codebase, and I hope
>to be able to facilitate more rapid development on it so that we --
>the X11.app-using community -- can make it the best X server possible,
>on any platform.

Bill
--
INTERNET:   email@hidden  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676

UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that
would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn
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  • Follow-Ups:
    • Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up
      • From: Ben Byer <email@hidden>
References: 
 >X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up (From: Robert Tillyard <email@hidden>)
 >Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up (From: "Chris Linstid" <email@hidden>)
 >Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up (From: Martin Costabel <email@hidden>)
 >Re: X11 in Leopard: xterm on start-up (From: Ben Byer <email@hidden>)

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