Re: Questions about X11.app
Re: Questions about X11.app
- Subject: Re: Questions about X11.app
- From: Jeremy Huddleston <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:26:26 -0800
On Feb 22, 2011, at 23:07, Kevin Veroneau wrote:
> Hello everyone,
Hi Kevin,
> I come from a heavy Linux(Debian to be exact) background and have used
> X.org for many years. I have a few questions regarding the implementation
> of X.org in Snow Leopard.
Welcome!
> Does the X.org server support the following extensions: GL, Xdamages, and
> Xcomposite? I know it doesn't support XRendR(or at least remotely).
You can get a list of supported extensions by running xdpyinfo. COMPOSITE is the only modern extension that is not supported in XQuartz due to some yet-undiagnosed crashes when enabling it.
> Is it possible to run a specialized X Nested server within X11.app such as
> Metisse or Compiz?
XQuartz is just like any other X server in this regard. You can run any X11 client as long as it doesn't require missing extensions. Metisse and Compiz are not nested X servers; they are compositing managers. Assuming a nested X server (like Xnest or Xephyr) support COMPOSITE, you could certainly run a composite manager within the nested server.
> Does X11.app support the XDMCP protocol over a private subnet?
Yes.
> If so, how
> does one send special Xorg command-line arguments to X11.app?
The same way you would on linux. The recommended way to start the server is by launching X11.app or just running an X client and letting trigger its start via launchd, but you can execute the server directly using /usr/X11/bin/X
> Is it
> possible to create a custom launcher bundle with these specialized commands
> to automatically connect to a specific system
Yeah, just search the list archive.
> and is using a chooser
> possible?
You mean a display manager? Like xdm, gdm, kdm? If that's what you mean, then yes.
> Will applications such as x2x or x2vnc work on OS X using X11.app, or
> would they act strange?
You'd be better served using a native VNC client (like Screen Sharing.app), but those will work.
> Why doesn't Apple ship with any default toolkits for X.org, such as GTK
> and Qt4?
If we shipped those, we'd have to support them (as well as all their dependencies). We wouldn't be able to just "drop" them. We're already seeing this problem with things like libXaw, libpng, libXevie, libXfontcache, libkbui, libXTrap, libXxf86misc, ...
If we pulled in popular toolkits since when we first shipped X11.app, we'd be shipping Motif, QT2, QT3, QT4, GTK1, GTK2, and a ton of unnecessary libraries just to support binary compatibility across OS versions. We don't have the luxury to just stop shipping something or changing API.
> This would make porting software from *NIX much more easier. At
> the moment, I need to use MacPorts to manually compile GTK and/or Qt4 before
> I can compile my GTK/Qt4 app natively.
Yeah. MacPorts is great.
> The other fault to this, is if I
> download Gimp(which uses X11.app) it comes with it's own copy of the GTK
> libraries. Then I go download another program which also uses GTK
> libraries.
Well, I come from a FBSD, Slackware, and Gentoo background ... so there is no way I'd download someone else's gimp if I could just build my own. You're half way there already on MP, so why not just use MP to build everything?
> I am now using twice the space for two copies of the GTK
> libraries. Apple needs a native package management system to install
> system-wide *NIX binary libraries.
I agree. It would certainly be nice if there was a native package management system.
>
> At the moment, to run custom *NIX software, I am using VirtualBox with no
> X.org server installed. I then connect the X clients to the X11.app, which
> mind you works great with no performance issues seen thus far. In fact, I
> am astounded by the performance that I run many applications this way, and
> avoiding the entire MacPorts routine. I even got an entire KDE4 desktop
> working under X11.app with very little performance issues, that's
> incredible! Of course the performance would be better if KDE4 were running
> natively on Mac OS X. It works both in the full-screen mode, and out of
> full-screen mode. If full-screen is not enabled, the plasma desktop takes
> over the Mac OS X desktop and wallpaper while X11.app is shown.
That is a bit excessive, but I understand your frustration. I'd recommend using MacPorts and filing bug reports for problems that you encounter. MP has wiki pages for installing Gnome and KDE, so that would be a good place to start.
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