Advice please - the UNIX X Windows Environment (specifically, X11 for Mac OS X)

**Chris** · 09-05-2004, 17:52

I'd really like to have a go at installing OpenOffice on my Mac (OS X.2.8) but at the moment there is no Aqua (the Mac OX GUI) interface for it. It relies on X11, which until recently was available from Apple for OS X as a Beta only. I was always shy of playing with the Beta as UNIX frankly scares the pants off me

and I didn't want to risk anything going wrong.

Now they've gone to full version 1.0, and I guess it's safer to have a go - but now I appear to need OS X.3 in order to run X11.

Anyone who thinks M$ is naughty should take a look at the way Apple gets away with forcing people to upgrade to the latest version of its OS!

Anyway, can anyone advise:

Is it still possible to get a version of X11 that runs under X.2 (Jaguar) anywhere?

Anyone who has used X Windows on a Mac (or in any UNIX environment for that matter) - advice, hints, tips, what to expect and so on?

I really would like to use OpenOffice, but the team that's developing it estimates it won't deliver an Aqua verson for OSX until Q1 2006. Good on them for even bothering, but 2 years is a long time to wait!

Lew · 09-05-2004, 20:05

Try using Fink. It allows easy installation of UNIX programs ported to Darwin/OS X. IIRC they have their own implementation of X11 that can run rootless (ie: the windows are interleaved with OS X windows). For more help you could try posting at the Mac forum at Ars Technica as there are a lot of posters there who know what's what with running X11 on OS X

philip.j.fry · 09-05-2004, 20:15

I don't know if this is any help, it's a port of XFree86 http://mrcla.com/XonX/