X11 Full Screen Support broken in Leopard, other changes, using Tiger’s X11…
October 29th, 2007 by Marcos
Updated at the bottom | Second Update
So, here’s the quasi-official word from Ben Byer, one of Apple’s x11 developers on Apple’s x11-users list.
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.
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.)
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.
I should also note that the DISPLAY variable mojo doesn’t seem to play nice with darwin ds9, since it looks like the ds9 launch script is checking the DISPLAY variable for something it likes.
You can use Tiger’s X11 on Leopard, and instructions for that have been written up here. Not too complicated but you’ll need a Tiger DVD of some kind.
Scott Michael Says
This is a great tip! I’d much rather use X11 from Tiger than try to fix the (broken) X11 included in Leopard. However, if I follow the instructions above, when I open the X11.app in /Applications/Utilities I get two icons in the dock. One which is the X11 I want and starts an xterm right away, the other just keeps bouncing and bouncing. Any idea how to get rid of this second one? I’m not sure if I didn’t completely remove it or what exactly happened, also I’m not sure how to find out what it’s trying to execute.
Oct 29th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Marcos Says
hmm. I’d think if you had uninstalled the leopard x11 you’d be ok. Is there still an X11.app file in /usr/X11 or wherever? You could also check the x11-users archive; there’s a lot of discussion there. Can you “reveal in finder” the endless bouncing icon? see what’s going on as in where it’s from.
THere may be some plist still causing problems with launchd.
When I get home I’m going to try all this on my Macbook and I can report if I got it working.
Oct 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Scott Michael Says
On my first attempt I neglected to remove the Leopard X11.app from /Applications/Utilities. Needless to say the launcher got really confused. After this I removed everything I could find in /usr/ and /etc/ relating to X11. I then followed the steps and was able to get a working Tiger X11 but still have the two icons in my dock. One works the other says Application Not Responding when I right click. If I “Show in Finder” it shows me /Applications/Utilities/X11.app for either one. So either I’m starting two instances of the same thing and they aren’t happy with each other. Or two different things, one which works, the other doesn’t.
Oct 29th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Marcos Says
Bah, I’m getting the eternal bouncing second X11 thing too. I don’t know why. THe only work around I’ve found is to “show package” contents of X11.app and make an alias of the “MacOS/X11″ file. Double clicking on that launches the terminal and launches x11.app but … at least there’s only one in the dock.
Oct 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
mmhere123456 Says
another reason not to use the Leopard X11 is that LBX (low bandwidth X) is apparently not supported. This feature is a complete MUST for me, as my home ‘broadband’ connection, while high bandwith, unfortunately carries pretty high latency between home and work.
Without LBX enabled, apps running at work and being displayed on Leopard X11 at home can take 45-60 seconds (!) for the initial window to appear.
Because the default X protocol [without using LBX] is extremely chatty and sends a large number of tiny packets in a very interactive manner, it can be very slow across high latency links. LBX solves this problem.
I could live w/o full screen support, but no LBX is hideously bad!
Oct 31st, 2007 at 5:40 pm