Recommendations on X Windows on OS X?

jutus

Hullo.



Just wondering if the AI crowd has opinions on the various X windows implementations for X.



Which ones do you use as daily drivers?



I am switching from a Solaris machine to my OS X machine for my X Server/Client needs. XonX any good? iTools worth the moolah? I'm looking for an easy install and functionality.



cheers,



- j

brian j.

[quote]Originally posted by jutus:

<strong>Just wondering if the AI crowd has opinions on the various X windows implementations for X.

</strong><hr></blockquote>



I've used <a href="http://www.xdarwin.org"; target="_blank">XDarwin</a> (aka XonX) and <a href="http://www.tenon.com"; target="_blank">Tenon's</a> Xtools. Both are kind of slow and buggy right now.



XDarwin's best feature is that it is free (which closed the deal for me). However, it takes more effort to install and configure it.



Xtools has much a nicer interface and is easier to install, but is also kind of expensive ($200 commercial, $100 educational). Supposedly, Xtools performance and reliability will be improved substantially in the next release (free upgrade for current users). You can download a 15 day demo from the Tenon site.



<a href="http://www.powerlan-usa.com"; target="_blank">Powerlan</a> also offers a demo of their X Server for OS X. But it's $300 for the licensed version, so I did not even consider it.



EDIT: IE always screws up the formatting.



[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: Brian J. ]</p>

noahj

I use Fink to install XWindows and all the applicaitons that I use in XWindows. It works well for me. No hassle configuring it either. That is the easy way to go.



<a href="http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php"; target="_blank">http://fink.sourceforge.net/download/index.php</a>;

guitarbloke

The new installer from <a href="http://www.xdarwin.org"; target="_blank">http://www.xdarwin.org</a>; - version 4.20 - is an easy solution.



After that, go to <a href="http://fink.sourceforge.net/"; target="_blank">http://fink.sourceforge.net/</a>; and get the latest distribution of Fink, a debian package managment utility. Remember that, if you've used the installer for XonX, you need to install the X11 placeholder package from Fink to sort the dependencies out.



Alternatively, you can go straight to Fink and install from there.



I use openstep (windowmaker) as a front end, and it works great. I've had more trouble with Gnome, but it's such a lousy interface I've mostly avoided it anyway.



I don't think KDE is supported.



[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: Guitarbloke ]</p>

stimuli

Alternatively, you could just download it from xfree86.org... the people who make X.

<a href="http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/binaries/"; target="_blank">http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/binaries/</a>;

Download all the files and run Installer.sh or whatever it's called by doing (as root):

chmod +x Installer.sh

./installer.sh



[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>

stimuli

Heh... kind of sad, but it's probably the only way to get hardware acceleration out of ATI mach 64 graphics chips...

guitarbloke

[quote]Originally posted by stimuli:

<strong>Alternatively, you could just download it from xfree86.org... the people who make X.

<a href="http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/binaries/"; target="_blank">http://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/binaries/</a>;

Download all the files and run Installer.sh or whatever it's called by doing (as root):

chmod +x Installer.sh

./installer.sh



[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



You don't get the Xdarwin app that way, though.

disgruntledqs733owner

For the love of God, it's X Window or the X Window system, not X Windows.



-DisgruntledQS733Owner

guitarbloke

[quote]Originally posted by DisgruntledQS733Owner:

<strong>For the love of God, it's X Window or the X Window system, not X Windows.



-DisgruntledQS733Owner</strong><hr></blockquote>



Or x11r6, if you're going to be a pedant about it.

razzfazz

[quote]Originally posted by stimuli:

<strong>Heh... kind of sad, but it's probably the only way to get hardware acceleration out of ATI mach 64 graphics chips... </strong><hr></blockquote>



Dunno if they changed that, but in the 3.x versions of XFree86, the documentation for the Mach64 server basically said "unsupported, meaning almost no hardware acceleration" or something along the lines of it.



Bye,

RazzFazz

stimuli

Yeah, but I'm running XFree 4.2 on linux right now, and my PBG3 has better acceleration than under OS9! Rock solid stability too (4.1 was pretty unstable).