Project:	XDarwin home page
License:	CategoryFreeware, CategoryOpenSource, CategoryFreeSoftware
Download:	download page

XDarwin is a free window server for Darwin. After you've installed it and one of the many WindowManagers available (OroborOSX is one good choice), you can run GraphicalUnixSoftware.

Most Unix operating systems (such as the Darwin layer underlying OS X) have WindowServer software that conforms to the "X11" standard. There's a FreeSoftware project that has created and maintains an X11 window server, called XFree86. It run on many different systems, and the version that runs on Darwin is called XDarwin.

The project that created XDarwin is called XonX.

There are also several proprietary window servers available (in particular Tenon offers Xtools for OS X).

Apple released (in January 2003) an XWindowsSystem environment called X11.

Graphical Unix applications typically expect a three button mouse. You can get button 2 in XDarwin by command-clicking, and button 3 by option-clicking. Many features are often available this way.

If you're a Mac user, you may frequently be frustrated by not being able to type. In Unix, typing in a window generally requires that the mouse be over the window you're typing in.

Does anyone know if XDarwin can coexist with the X11 beta from Apple? Assuming they dont, how would you go about uninstalling XDarwin? thanks in advance.

Well, I dont have an answer for if they coexist or not, but here is how to uninstall - http://www.xdarwin.org/faq/#uninstall

Crikey, now I'm even more confused. I read an article about the Film Gimp, and its says that it needs Apples X11 and XDarwin!

I have no personal experience with this, but apparently the two can coexist. The following was copied from http://www.xdarwin.org/forums/read.php?f=1&i=2886&t=2886

- Scott B.

Re: Apple's X11 & XDarwin
Author: Thierry (---.abo.wanadoo.fr)
Date: 04-28-03 06:47

X11 and XDarwin mostly use same files or files with same names.

to uninstall X11, beside the application itself, you have to remove /usr/x11R6 and /etc/X11.

I run X11 installed "over" XDarwin in order to get sometimes features from one (speed) or from the other one (full screen mode, oroborOSX) and although I admit this is not perfectly "clean", it works for me.

Re: Apple's X11 & XDarwin
Author: Lauri Karttunen (---.parc.xerox.com)
Date: 04-29-03 23:35

Before installing a completely fresh version of XDarwin, I backed up my /etc/X11 and /usr/X11R6 directories that were created by installing Apple's X11. After the XDarwin installation, I noticed that the /usr/X11R6/bin was lacking just two files:
Xquartz
quartz-wm
After copying them into the newly installed XDarwin /usr/X11R6/bin, I observed that I could run XDarwin and Apple's X11 by just commenting or uncommenting one of the two lines in my .xinitrc file:

# exec wmaker # run XDarwin 
exec quartz-wm # run Apple's X11 

It appears that Apple's X11 and XDarwin are happy to coexist on the same machine.

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