What are some good apps for X11? - Page 2

Phil St. Romain · 01-16-2003, 07:59 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by sao Dillo Dillo is a web browser project completely written in C. Dillo is small: source is less than 300 KB, and the binary is around 200 KB! Dillo is very fast!

Man alive!!!

Fastest browser I've ever used, in fact. I've tweaked it to accept cookies and am posting using it right now. Seems to do the basics OK, including cgi form processing. No java, javascript, etc. but I don't always need that.

No pop-up windows either!

Phil St. Romain · 01-16-2003, 08:07 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by ClarkGoble Just to be the cyncial devils advocate. I think that you'll find most of those applications either have better versions or solutions within native Aqua apps or else are very specialized. For instance I find all the X11 office applications much weaker than MS Office or frequently even Appleworks.

You're absolutely right, Clark. Most X11 applications aren't as polished as their Mac and Windows counterparts.

I will say, however, that OpenOffice preserves the formatting of Word files better than Appleworks with Maclink Plus does. It's even better than Thinkfree Offrice at doing so. There's a very practical use, then--at least for me.

Apple's work with Safari shows other possibilities for interactions between Mac OS and open source software. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Your post seems to move this thread in the direction of discussing the pros and cons of X11 on OS X. That would be a great discussion. Care to re-post parts of your reflection in the Coat Room, perhaps with some further elaboration?

bluehz · 01-16-2003, 11:49 PM

ClarkGoble - I couldn't have said it better myself. I play around a lot with X11 but I have yet to find a single application that is not essentially available in the standard Mac GUI and the whole idea of running what I basically equate to "emulation" to run an app for any length of time does not really interest me. I am sure there are many apps beyond the realm of a normal user that has uses in X11 that most of us will never see. I was reading recently that large portions of the scientific community and in particular the astronomical community are migrating to Mac OS X. No doubt this has something to do with being able to have a well-polished GUI interface for most things, yet the ability to run their highly-specialized UNIX apps in X11.

In my case I have found 2 "interesting" uses for X11. I run my own server here on an old headless PC. It runs Linux mailservers, web, etc. Since I have no monitor on the machine I admin everything via the terminal through OS X. Sometimes though its nice to run an app off the Linux box on my Mac via X11 for admin purposes. The other thing I have found that actually does not have a counterpart in OS X is a decent Jabber chat client. Yes there are lots of Mac OS X Jabber chat clients - but NONE of them can take advantage of all the features, bells, and whistles available from a Jabber server. It is unfortunate that there is no GUI client that does more than basic Jabber functions. I found that you can run tkabber Jabber client in X11 and instantly have access to everything imaginable and available on other platforms. It is a polished app - with a nice X11 GUI interface and if it were not for the fact that once again - I just find it difficult to use and app in "emulation" mode via X11 - I would probably use it more often. Most times I suffer with a crappy OS X GUI version that lacks the features, but gets me by.

Quote:


	Originally posted by ClarkGoble Just to be the cyncial devils advocate. I think that you'll find most of those applications either have better versions or solutions within native Aqua apps or else are very specialized.

ClarkGoble · 01-17-2003, 12:07 AM

In my case I have found 2 "interesting" uses for X11. I run my own server here on an old headless PC.

For administration tasks, especially on remote servers, X11 is very useful. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning X11. Were I still in college there are many science programs that are X11 only. However the past week there have been a lot of regular users asking about X11 apps with the same general list of programs offered. By and large they are better off going after Aqua solutions.

Even Gimp and OpenOffice are limited in a Macintosh environment due to limits on copy and paste, font problems and frequent difficulties in printing. Apple's X11 has improved this and there are tips on getting fonts working better. However to suggest that for regular users OpenOffice is ready for prime time is somewhat silly. Certainly it will work for very casual users or users with unique needs. So will Abiword, Gnumeric and so forth. But by and large most users have no need for X11. I'm convinced that most X11 apps are mere curiosities - sort of like people pirating difficult and complex applications which they keep on their HD and then never use to actually do anything. Yet knowing that they have Final Cut Pro gives them a warm fuzzy feeling.

Once again there are benefits to X11. If you do have a lot invested in VIM or Emacs, it is essential. If you do have Perl, Python, or TCL pps athat you use for managing various projects with the GTK, open QT or TK toolkits then X11 gives you your apps. For quick hacks and administration toolks it is often a godsend. (Although I notice more and more of those are PHP programs or CGI programs) But unless you are administering remote servers, using very customized software, or so forth, you are better off just avoiding the whole mess.

Apple's work with Safari shows other possibilities for interactions between Mac OS and open source software. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

This is where I think things are headed. And of course Safari, Chimera and others are but a few examples. There are, as I mentioned, OSX Aqua ports of GnuPlot, mPlayer, Gnutella, and so forth. Heavens, every application at SourceForge I've sought out the past couple of months had native OSX versions using Aqua. While many of the ports are kind of quick and dirty Cocoa hacks (see mPlayer for example) many are quite good. Most are somewhat unpolished. But in that they are no different than most X11 apps which are likewise unpolished.

The fact that Cocoa is so easy to build interfaces with makes it fairly easy to port a lot of software if the interface is structurally separate from the main code. (Typically that is the case in any halfway well designed system) X11 provides a nice stop gap for some applications. But generally you can come up with a good Mac port fairly quickly.

Even if you don't want to use Cocoa there are many possibilities. For Gnome based apps, there is GTK+ which allows porting very quickly.

http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/

For KDE based apps, there is QT/Mac

http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/mac/index.html

There really is no reason why many elements of say KOffice or the Gnome stuff like AbiWord or Gnumeric couldn't get ported over with a Mac look at feel.

(I kept this post here, since I think the issue of porting X11 apps to native OSX apps is apt. I'll repost this over in the Coat room though)

sao · 01-17-2003, 12:51 AM

Well, yes, it's true that many Unix apps are not so refined and polished as what we usually get on the Mac GUI. And as Mac users we demand always the best.

Nevertheless, I for one, I'm very grateful to the Open Source community for giving me the chance to experience a new world, I barely knew it existed outside my Mac Universe.

Many of you, I read, have lots of experience 'outside' Macintosh (Linux servers, Sun, etc.). For me, it was the opposite, in "over" ten years I always stayed within the Mac, and in the Mac I found all what was necessary.

So now, the Unix world is coming my way, to where I live, and I don't need to go (move) anywhere. And I'm grateful for that. I welcome all what comes, especially if I can learn somethings new.

I have installed now on my Mac, over 1000 Unix packages, learned tons of new things, tried slowly to harness the power and control over my machine that comes from using the CLI, and all of this at the right price, for free (except the cost of my internet connection).

The open source community is made of volunteers, who work for free and just for the love of it. This commitment, in today's world it's very rare to find (except in some charitable organizations).

Quote:


	ClarkGoble wrote: There really is no reason why many elements of say KOffice or the Gnome stuff like AbiWord or Gnumeric couldn't get ported over with a Mac look at feel.

You are right. The questions I always like to ask myself are:

Okey, what I'm going to do about it? What is my contribution? How can I help? Can I give somethings back?

Cheers...

PS: I agree with what Phil said above, this will be a good subject for the coat room, as this thread is basically for people who come for the first time to X11.

bluehz · 01-17-2003, 01:25 AM

Very well put sao. I must say - like you - I have been a Mac fanatic since my first Mac 128k in 1986. I never ventured outside that world until I started using OS X. Since then I have ventured beyond into using Linux (and GULP... I actually have a PC in my house) and everyday I learn something new. For me the learning aspect is as much a part of the whole computing experience as anything else. People always ask me what games I have on my machines. I respond "none"... when I want to play a game... I dig myself into some experiment/compilation and try to dig myself out. That to me is the game that excites me. I would have to agree that the whole X11 world has opened up a new area of learning for me and sometimes the results of learning something in X11 ends up teaching me something useful in UNIX beyond the realm of X11. So for that I must agree - X11 has been useful and served its purpose well.

mnewman · 01-17-2003, 01:53 AM

I agree that the opportunity to learn a few things is one of the reasons a lot of us have dug in to the unix side of OS/X and have installed X11. For me it's a bit of nostalgia. I've been a Mac user since I saw my first Mac at the Byte show in LA in 1984. My first foray into unix was in the late 80's when I was desperate to get on line and the only possibility from here on Saipan was a dial-up connection to a shell account on a BSD box (via an X.25 pad) in Cupertino run by a company called Portal. Although we were running DOS at work, moving over to the unix CLI was quite a shock.

Fortunately we got a "real" ISP on island by about 1996 and I conveniently forgot all I knew about unix.

At my age it's been a real trip to re-learn it and slowly figure out what's going on behind the scenes. Whether or not there are X11 appls that would be truly useful to me is beside the point.

Finally, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few patient experts on this forum who are willing to help. Thank-you.

sao · 01-17-2003, 03:04 AM

Quote:


	RacerX wrote: I still love that program (Geomview)

It's very cool. Although I don't understand it fully, I can do very weird things with it.

I just posted my first two screenshots of Apple X11, one of them running Geomview and Pymol, here:

http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/PhotoAlbum7.html

Cheers...

ClarkGoble · 01-17-2003, 05:20 AM

To get back closer to the original intent of the thread, let me suggest a few places with lots of X11 applications.

The first one is SourceForge which has a lot of good stuff - including a lot of non-X11 stuff. Typically they'll list OSX as a platform, but often if it says Linux and you've added most of the necessary tools with Fink, you can still install it.

http://www.sourceforge.org

Next up is the Net Administrator Tool list. Even if you aren't administering a server this has a lot of cool suggestions and X11 apps. Since administration is one of the most defendable uses for X11, you'll find a lot here. Be aware that it covers Windows as well. The Backup articles are very good reads for using OSX.

http://www.netadmintools.com/

KDE doesn't work too well with X11.app at the moment. At least I often have problems with KDE applications. (Others may not) The following though is basically the KDE version of VersionTracker. Some of the applications you might be able to install with Fink. So the page may just act as a "gee I ought to try that" site. However others you may have to compile on your own. Click on the "categories" button near the top of the window to get a list of all the application types.

http://apps.kde.com/

Gnome applications like Abiword or Gnumeric work very well under X11. The following is a site that lists most of the significant Gnome applications. Once again many are available via Fink. However many others aren't.

http://www.linux.org/apps/Gnome.html

sao · 01-17-2003, 06:10 AM

ClarkGoble,

If you search with google you will find 'many' places from where you can get X11 apps. Tons of links. And if you know how to compile by yourself, you might be successful in installing some of them.

Many Mac users, are just starting with Unix, like I did myself one year ago, some of them are complete beginners, and that's why I strongly recommend starting with Fink.

It offers a lot in one place and is simple to use (by installing binary packages with apt-get). Easy to delete if you get tired of it, wonderful support 24/7 and most important...

all Fink packages are ported not to Linux, or some other system, but they modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X ("port" it) and make it available for download as a coherent distribution.

So, all Fink ported software is geared straight for MacOS X.

And for a beginner, who doesn't know the intricacies of compiling, that's great!

Cheers...

bluehz · 01-17-2003, 07:21 AM

One thing I can say (even if a bit off topic) running remote apps from my Linux box on my Mac using Apples X11 is AMAZINGLY fast compared to previous X11, I was dumbfounded the first time I launched a remote app - I am used to runnig to get coffe while it loads. Not this time - appeared almost instantaneously.

I have even found I can put commands for remote applications in the Apple X11 menu using this syntax:

Code:

ssh -X user@server application

e.g.
ssh -X root@linux endeavour2

Note that I use ssh-agent to automatically exchange pubkeys with my linux box so I do not have to enter a login/password. I am not sure the above syntax will work in the Application menu otherwise as I see no way to request a login/password (although its entirely possible).

sbur · 01-17-2003, 07:22 AM

Quote:


	Originally posted by RacerX Geomview? ...[snip].... Both SGI's IRIX and Sun's Solaris (and early versions of the SunOS) all had Motif in common (which I was under the impression was one of the requirements to run it on non-SGI/Sun systems). .

Motif (or an knockoff of it) has been ported. I got it from either Don Logan's site (? - it was about a year ago) or gnu-darwin. but the libraries are all avaliable and are required for a number of things.

In general I would agree that X11 isn't usefull for the general user. I use it for very specialized apps like pymol and molden which do not have (good) aqua counterparts.

Glanz · 01-17-2003, 09:11 AM

If you have fink:

Galeon: THE FASTEST browser, even faster than Safari and Chimera. Galeon is a GNOME web browser based on Gecko (the Mozilla rendering engine. It's fast, it has a light interface, and it is fully standard-compliant.

Nedit aka Nirvanna (for the editing bliss it brings). NEdit is a standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) style text editor for programs and plain-text files. Users of Macintosh and MS Windows based text editors should find NEdit a familiar and comfortable environment. NEdit provides all of the standard menu, dialog, editing, and mouse support, as well as all of the standard shortcuts to which the users of modern GUI based environments are accustomed. For users of older style Unix editors, welcome to the world of mouse-based editing! Features for programmers

* State of the art syntax highlighting with built-in patterns for C, C++, Java, Ada, FORTRAN, Pascal, Yacc, Perl, Python, Tcl, Csh, Awk, HTML, LaTeX, VHDL, Verilog, and more.
* Auto-indent, programmable language-sensitive smart-indent.
* Block indentation adjustment
* Parenthesis flashing and matching
* Find lines directly from compiler error output
* Tab emulation
* Unix ctags support
* Client/Server mode for integration with software development tools.
* Very complete functionality. NEdit is the primary editor for thousands of Unix and VMS programmers
* Thorough consistency with Motif, MS Windows, and Macintosh conventions
* Designed for intensive use: keystroke efficiency, fast response time, streamlined interaction
* Unlimited undo

* 100% GUI from the ground up

* True multi-window, fully graphical design
* Mouse-based editing
* Secondary/quick action selections
* Fully integrated rectangular selection
* Interactive WYSIWYG dragable selections
* Maximum compatibility with X, Motif, and inter-client protocols, for interaction with the widest possible range of X programs and

WINDOWMAKER and (Blackbox): IMHO the best window manager, along with Blackbox. Usage Notes: Before you can use Window Maker, you must run 'wmaker.inst' to set up the preferences files for your account. That script can also create an appropriate .xinitrc file to start Window Maker as your default window manager.

To use Window Maker with GNOME, leave .xinitrc alone and instead select Window Maker in the Window Manager panel of the GNOME Control Center.

Web site: http://www.windowmaker.org/

blackbox-rootless
Alternate Window Manager, works in XDarwin's
Blackbox is yet another addition to the list of window managers for the Open Group's X Window System, Version 11 Release 6 and above. Blackbox is built with C++, sharing no common code with any other window manager (even though the graphics implementation is similar to that of Window Maker).

This version of blackbox has been patched to be more usable under rootless X. The menus, which were previously only accessible via clicking on the root window, may now be opened from the (otherwise fairly useless) toolbar at the bottom of the screen.

Web site: http://bbtools.thelinuxcommunity.org/

Maintainer: Christian Swinehart <cswinehart@users.sourceforge.net> env

bluehz · 01-17-2003, 09:18 AM

I would like to append this note regarding useful X11 apps:

Two useful apps I use remotely on my Linux box via Apple X11:

Kate
http://kate.kde.org/
This is sort of like the BBEdit of the Linux world. It is especially useful for editing XML files.

Endeavour2
http://wolfpack.twu.net/Endeavour2/
This reminds me of FileBuddy - only a bit more powerful. File browser, image browser, archiver.

I just checked and neither of these are available via Fink. I have no idea if they woudl actually build on OS X. Like I said - I am actually running them remotely on a Linux box.

Interesting note - I can launch most remote applications using the Applications menu with a command like this:

ssh -X user@server application_name

but for some reason this does not work with kate. If I try it with kate I get:

Quote:


	There was an error setting up inter-process communications for KDE. The message returned by the System was: Authentication Rejected, reason: none of the Authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed. Please check that the "dcopserver" program is running.

but if I do the same command in an Apple X11 terminal:

ssh -X user@server kate

then kate launches just fine.

Anyone have any ideas what might be going on here? Could this be one of those "path" anomalies that are occuring in Apple X11?

ClarkGoble · 01-17-2003, 01:23 PM

While I agree with Fink being ideal for newbies, installing most Unix software isn't that painful. Just unzip the .tar.gz file to its own folder. Open up the terminal and cd to that directory. (Type cd and then drag the folder to the terminal window as a shortcut)

First read any README files. Then type "make depend" (not all require this, so it may not do anything or report that there isn't a way to make depend). Type make and it will spend a few minutes compiling. If there are problems here you are likely missing something. If you have some experience you may be able to get the missing files. If you are a newbie, well I'd not bother going further.

If the "make" works (and in my experience it typically does) then type "make install". That typically copies the program the /usr/bin or other locations. In a few cases you have to copy the file yourself. For those programs I typically just create a bin directory in my home directory. I then do "sudo cp newfile ~/bin"

That's all there is to it.

To be honest with about 15 non-Fink packages I've installed, I've only run into compile problems twice. These were rather involved packages. The place things may get a little tricky is with Perl scripts that depend upon other Perl libraries. You often have to learn how to load Perl libraries. However for those cases you can often ask questions here or in one of the other Mac forums and get help. Plus, to be honest, problems like that are how you learn the most about the shell.

sao · 01-17-2003, 01:34 PM

Quote:


	ClarkGoble wrote: To be honest with about 15 non-Fink packages I've installed, I've only run into compile problems twice.

Well done, ClarkGoble. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers...

sao · 01-17-2003, 01:40 PM

bsdmktemp

Utility for safely making temporary files and directories.
Mktemp is a simple utility designed to make temporary file handling in shells scripts be safe and simple. Traditionally, many shell scripts take the name of the program with the PID as a suffix and use that as a temporary filename. This kind of naming scheme is predictable and the race condition it creates is easy for an attacker to win. A safer, though still inferior approach is to make a temporary directory using the same naming scheme. While this does allow one to guarantee that a temporary file will not be subverted, it still allows a simple denial of service attack. For these reasons it is suggested that mktemp be used instead. The mktemp utility takes the given filename template and overwrites a portion of it to create a unique filename.

xtail

Watches the growth of files.
Xtail monitors one or more files, and displays all data written to a file since command invocation. It is very useful for monitoring multiple logfiles simultaneously.If an entry given on the command line is a directory, all files in that directory will be monitored, including those created after the xtail invocation. If an entry given on the command line doesn't exist, xtail will watch for it and monitor it once created. When switching files in the display, a banner showing the pathname of the file is printed.

Even though in the README file of xtail it says that it is similar in functionality to running a "tail -f filename" command, it is actually quite different._ Whereas tail will only monitor any changes appended to the end of a file, xtail actually monitors the entire file._ When xtail is invoked with the following command:
% xtail /var/log/messages
It will monitor the /var/log/messages file for any changes, this includes both new data and deletions._ xtail continuously searches through the list of files looking for any changes and reporting this information to standard output. Xtail uses two different parameters within its C looping function to determine if a file that it is monitoring has changed -

* The size of the file
* The mtime of the file

Don Benot · 01-17-2003, 01:46 PM

Thanks for that info ClarkGoble. I do have a question though. You said:

Quote:


	If the "make" works (and in my experience it typically does) then type "make install". That typically copies the program the /usr/bin or other locations. In a few cases you have to copy the file yourself. For those programs I typically just create a bin directory in my home directory. I then do "sudo cp newfile ~/bin"

Is there any danger in putting non-Fink stuff in /sw/bin ? That way, all the X11 stuff would be together.

Don

bluehz · 01-17-2003, 01:50 PM

Don Benot - I asked that same question a few months ago. I thought it would be nice to basically keep my system clean and install all into /sw/bin ...sort of self-contained. The answer was a resounding NO do not install into /sw/bin. It was something akin to sacralige. Not surethe exact reasoning - I mean logistically it should work fine. But for whatever reason it was recommmend against installing into /sw/bin. Perhaps others in this thread could chime in with a good reason (other than blaspheming the /sw/bin directory).

ClarkGoble · 01-17-2003, 01:56 PM

There really isn't a problem with putting anything anywhere. For programs that aren't just small terminal apps (i.e. pretty printers and so forth) a lot of people put them in /usr/local/bin. You could use /sw/bin however the problem with that is if Fink installs a different version. Further when I've had problems with Fink in the past, such as when I installed the latest version of Perl, I ended up having to remove all of Fink and reinstall it. Had I compiled those other programs to the Fink directory I'd have had to reinstall each of them by hand.

If you really feel uncomfortable with putting things in /usr/bin or ~/bin then simply create a directory structure like Fink does. Call it /mysw. Create a src directory to keep the .tar.gz files you downloaded, in case you need to reinstall them. (Most OSX users have 40-60gig hard drives, so the few meg this will take isn't significant and is very convenient in the long term) You thus end up with a structure like this:

/mysw/bin
/mysw/src

I personally have a second hard drive I keep backups of all my install software on. Typically I create .dmg files using Disk Copy. This is very good for me as I have stepped on CDs of original software before. (I killed a copy of Metrowerks by dropping it and rolling over it with my chair) So I already have a bunch of directories for that. I just have one called "non-Fink sw" where I keep my .tar.gz files. Once again this really is convenient. It makes it clear what version of the software you are running, so you know if you ought to upgrade. It also makes installing on other machines or reinstalling on your own much easier.

One last quick mention. One reason that it is typically so easy to install non-Fink software is that installing Fink installs most of the libraries you would ever need. Even if you aren't using many installs from Fink, consider installing the general Gnome and KDE applications. That will automatically load quite a few libraries. When you install non-Fink software the "make" command will search for those libraries and will find the ones Fink installed. Thus Fink really erases a lot of installation headaches even if you don't use Fink for much.

01-17-2003, 12:07 AM	#24
ClarkGoble Triple-A Player Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 58	In my case I have found 2 "interesting" uses for X11. I run my own server here on an old headless PC. For administration tasks, especially on remote servers, X11 is very useful. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not condemning X11. Were I still in college there are many science programs that are X11 only. However the past week there have been a lot of regular users asking about X11 apps with the same general list of programs offered. By and large they are better off going after Aqua solutions. Even Gimp and OpenOffice are limited in a Macintosh environment due to limits on copy and paste, font problems and frequent difficulties in printing. Apple's X11 has improved this and there are tips on getting fonts working better. However to suggest that for regular users OpenOffice is ready for prime time is somewhat silly. Certainly it will work for very casual users or users with unique needs. So will Abiword, Gnumeric and so forth. But by and large most users have no need for X11. I'm convinced that most X11 apps are mere curiosities - sort of like people pirating difficult and complex applications which they keep on their HD and then never use to actually do anything. Yet knowing that they have Final Cut Pro gives them a warm fuzzy feeling. Once again there are benefits to X11. If you do have a lot invested in VIM or Emacs, it is essential. If you do have Perl, Python, or TCL pps athat you use for managing various projects with the GTK, open QT or TK toolkits then X11 gives you your apps. For quick hacks and administration toolks it is often a godsend. (Although I notice more and more of those are PHP programs or CGI programs) But unless you are administering remote servers, using very customized software, or so forth, you are better off just avoiding the whole mess. Apple's work with Safari shows other possibilities for interactions between Mac OS and open source software. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. This is where I think things are headed. And of course Safari, Chimera and others are but a few examples. There are, as I mentioned, OSX Aqua ports of GnuPlot, mPlayer, Gnutella, and so forth. Heavens, every application at SourceForge I've sought out the past couple of months had native OSX versions using Aqua. While many of the ports are kind of quick and dirty Cocoa hacks (see mPlayer for example) many are quite good. Most are somewhat unpolished. But in that they are no different than most X11 apps which are likewise unpolished. The fact that Cocoa is so easy to build interfaces with makes it fairly easy to port a lot of software if the interface is structurally separate from the main code. (Typically that is the case in any halfway well designed system) X11 provides a nice stop gap for some applications. But generally you can come up with a good Mac port fairly quickly. Even if you don't want to use Cocoa there are many possibilities. For Gnome based apps, there is GTK+ which allows porting very quickly. http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net/ For KDE based apps, there is QT/Mac http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/mac/index.html There really is no reason why many elements of say KOffice or the Gnome stuff like AbiWord or Gnumeric couldn't get ported over with a Mac look at feel. (I kept this post here, since I think the issue of porting X11 apps to native OSX apps is apt. I'll repost this over in the Coat room though) Last edited by ClarkGoble; 01-17-2003 at 12:12 AM.

01-17-2003, 06:10 AM	#30
sao Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 4,237	ClarkGoble, If you search with google you will find 'many' places from where you can get X11 apps. Tons of links. And if you know how to compile by yourself, you might be successful in installing some of them. Many Mac users, are just starting with Unix, like I did myself one year ago, some of them are complete beginners, and that's why I strongly recommend starting with Fink. It offers a lot in one place and is simple to use (by installing binary packages with apt-get). Easy to delete if you get tired of it, wonderful support 24/7 and most important... all Fink packages are ported not to Linux, or some other system, but they modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X ("port" it) and make it available for download as a coherent distribution. So, all Fink ported software is geared straight for MacOS X. And for a beginner, who doesn't know the intricacies of compiling, that's great! Cheers... Last edited by sao; 01-17-2003 at 07:14 AM.

01-17-2003, 07:21 AM	#31
bluehz MVP Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,562	One thing I can say (even if a bit off topic) running remote apps from my Linux box on my Mac using Apples X11 is AMAZINGLY fast compared to previous X11, I was dumbfounded the first time I launched a remote app - I am used to runnig to get coffe while it loads. Not this time - appeared almost instantaneously. I have even found I can put commands for remote applications in the Apple X11 menu using this syntax: Code: ssh -X user@server application e.g. ssh -X root@linux endeavour2 Note that I use ssh-agent to automatically exchange pubkeys with my linux box so I do not have to enter a login/password. I am not sure the above syntax will work in the Application menu otherwise as I see no way to request a login/password (although its entirely possible).

01-17-2003, 01:23 PM	#35
ClarkGoble Triple-A Player Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 58	Installing non-Fink software While I agree with Fink being ideal for newbies, installing most Unix software isn't that painful. Just unzip the .tar.gz file to its own folder. Open up the terminal and cd to that directory. (Type cd and then drag the folder to the terminal window as a shortcut) First read any README files. Then type "make depend" (not all require this, so it may not do anything or report that there isn't a way to make depend). Type make and it will spend a few minutes compiling. If there are problems here you are likely missing something. If you have some experience you may be able to get the missing files. If you are a newbie, well I'd not bother going further. If the "make" works (and in my experience it typically does) then type "make install". That typically copies the program the /usr/bin or other locations. In a few cases you have to copy the file yourself. For those programs I typically just create a bin directory in my home directory. I then do "sudo cp newfile ~/bin" That's all there is to it. To be honest with about 15 non-Fink packages I've installed, I've only run into compile problems twice. These were rather involved packages. The place things may get a little tricky is with Perl scripts that depend upon other Perl libraries. You often have to learn how to load Perl libraries. However for those cases you can often ask questions here or in one of the other Mac forums and get help. Plus, to be honest, problems like that are how you learn the most about the shell. Last edited by ClarkGoble; 01-17-2003 at 01:25 PM.

01-17-2003, 01:40 PM	#37
sao Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Singapore Posts: 4,237	More Tools... bsdmktemp Utility for safely making temporary files and directories. Mktemp is a simple utility designed to make temporary file handling in shells scripts be safe and simple. Traditionally, many shell scripts take the name of the program with the PID as a suffix and use that as a temporary filename. This kind of naming scheme is predictable and the race condition it creates is easy for an attacker to win. A safer, though still inferior approach is to make a temporary directory using the same naming scheme. While this does allow one to guarantee that a temporary file will not be subverted, it still allows a simple denial of service attack. For these reasons it is suggested that mktemp be used instead. The mktemp utility takes the given filename template and overwrites a portion of it to create a unique filename. xtail Watches the growth of files. Xtail monitors one or more files, and displays all data written to a file since command invocation. It is very useful for monitoring multiple logfiles simultaneously.If an entry given on the command line is a directory, all files in that directory will be monitored, including those created after the xtail invocation. If an entry given on the command line doesn't exist, xtail will watch for it and monitor it once created. When switching files in the display, a banner showing the pathname of the file is printed. Even though in the README file of xtail it says that it is similar in functionality to running a "tail -f filename" command, it is actually quite different._ Whereas tail will only monitor any changes appended to the end of a file, xtail actually monitors the entire file._ When xtail is invoked with the following command: % xtail /var/log/messages It will monitor the /var/log/messages file for any changes, this includes both new data and deletions._ xtail continuously searches through the list of files looking for any changes and reporting this information to standard output. Xtail uses two different parameters within its C looping function to determine if a file that it is monitoring has changed - * The size of the file * The mtime of the file

01-17-2003, 01:25 AM	#26
bluehz MVP Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,562	Very well put sao. I must say - like you - I have been a Mac fanatic since my first Mac 128k in 1986. I never ventured outside that world until I started using OS X. Since then I have ventured beyond into using Linux (and GULP... I actually have a PC in my house) and everyday I learn something new. For me the learning aspect is as much a part of the whole computing experience as anything else. People always ask me what games I have on my machines. I respond "none"... when I want to play a game... I dig myself into some experiment/compilation and try to dig myself out. That to me is the game that excites me. I would have to agree that the whole X11 world has opened up a new area of learning for me and sometimes the results of learning something in X11 ends up teaching me something useful in UNIX beyond the realm of X11. So for that I must agree - X11 has been useful and served its purpose well.

01-17-2003, 01:53 AM	#27
mnewman MVP Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Korat, Thailand Posts: 2,046	I agree that the opportunity to learn a few things is one of the reasons a lot of us have dug in to the unix side of OS/X and have installed X11. For me it's a bit of nostalgia. I've been a Mac user since I saw my first Mac at the Byte show in LA in 1984. My first foray into unix was in the late 80's when I was desperate to get on line and the only possibility from here on Saipan was a dial-up connection to a shell account on a BSD box (via an X.25 pad) in Cupertino run by a company called Portal. Although we were running DOS at work, moving over to the unix CLI was quite a shock. Fortunately we got a "real" ISP on island by about 1996 and I conveniently forgot all I knew about unix. At my age it's been a real trip to re-learn it and slowly figure out what's going on behind the scenes. Whether or not there are X11 appls that would be truly useful to me is beside the point. Finally, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few patient experts on this forum who are willing to help. Thank-you.

01-17-2003, 05:20 AM	#29
ClarkGoble Triple-A Player Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 58	To get back closer to the original intent of the thread, let me suggest a few places with lots of X11 applications. The first one is SourceForge which has a lot of good stuff - including a lot of non-X11 stuff. Typically they'll list OSX as a platform, but often if it says Linux and you've added most of the necessary tools with Fink, you can still install it. http://www.sourceforge.org Next up is the Net Administrator Tool list. Even if you aren't administering a server this has a lot of cool suggestions and X11 apps. Since administration is one of the most defendable uses for X11, you'll find a lot here. Be aware that it covers Windows as well. The Backup articles are very good reads for using OSX. http://www.netadmintools.com/ KDE doesn't work too well with X11.app at the moment. At least I often have problems with KDE applications. (Others may not) The following though is basically the KDE version of VersionTracker. Some of the applications you might be able to install with Fink. So the page may just act as a "gee I ought to try that" site. However others you may have to compile on your own. Click on the "categories" button near the top of the window to get a list of all the application types. http://apps.kde.com/ Gnome applications like Abiword or Gnumeric work very well under X11. The following is a site that lists most of the significant Gnome applications. Once again many are available via Fink. However many others aren't. http://www.linux.org/apps/Gnome.html

01-17-2003, 09:11 AM	#33
Glanz Major Leaguer Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Montreal Posts: 373	If you have fink: Galeon: THE FASTEST browser, even faster than Safari and Chimera. Galeon is a GNOME web browser based on Gecko (the Mozilla rendering engine. It's fast, it has a light interface, and it is fully standard-compliant. Nedit aka Nirvanna (for the editing bliss it brings). NEdit is a standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) style text editor for programs and plain-text files. Users of Macintosh and MS Windows based text editors should find NEdit a familiar and comfortable environment. NEdit provides all of the standard menu, dialog, editing, and mouse support, as well as all of the standard shortcuts to which the users of modern GUI based environments are accustomed. For users of older style Unix editors, welcome to the world of mouse-based editing! Features for programmers * State of the art syntax highlighting with built-in patterns for C, C++, Java, Ada, FORTRAN, Pascal, Yacc, Perl, Python, Tcl, Csh, Awk, HTML, LaTeX, VHDL, Verilog, and more. * Auto-indent, programmable language-sensitive smart-indent. * Block indentation adjustment * Parenthesis flashing and matching * Find lines directly from compiler error output * Tab emulation * Unix ctags support * Client/Server mode for integration with software development tools. * Very complete functionality. NEdit is the primary editor for thousands of Unix and VMS programmers * Thorough consistency with Motif, MS Windows, and Macintosh conventions * Designed for intensive use: keystroke efficiency, fast response time, streamlined interaction * Unlimited undo * 100% GUI from the ground up * True multi-window, fully graphical design * Mouse-based editing * Secondary/quick action selections * Fully integrated rectangular selection * Interactive WYSIWYG dragable selections * Maximum compatibility with X, Motif, and inter-client protocols, for interaction with the widest possible range of X programs and WINDOWMAKER and (Blackbox): IMHO the best window manager, along with Blackbox. Usage Notes: Before you can use Window Maker, you must run 'wmaker.inst' to set up the preferences files for your account. That script can also create an appropriate .xinitrc file to start Window Maker as your default window manager. To use Window Maker with GNOME, leave .xinitrc alone and instead select Window Maker in the Window Manager panel of the GNOME Control Center. Web site: http://www.windowmaker.org/ blackbox-rootless Alternate Window Manager, works in XDarwin's Blackbox is yet another addition to the list of window managers for the Open Group's X Window System, Version 11 Release 6 and above. Blackbox is built with C++, sharing no common code with any other window manager (even though the graphics implementation is similar to that of Window Maker). This version of blackbox has been patched to be more usable under rootless X. The menus, which were previously only accessible via clicking on the root window, may now be opened from the (otherwise fairly useless) toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Web site: http://bbtools.thelinuxcommunity.org/ Maintainer: Christian Swinehart <cswinehart@users.sourceforge.net> env

01-17-2003, 01:50 PM	#39
bluehz MVP Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 1,562	Don Benot - I asked that same question a few months ago. I thought it would be nice to basically keep my system clean and install all into /sw/bin ...sort of self-contained. The answer was a resounding NO do not install into /sw/bin. It was something akin to sacralige. Not surethe exact reasoning - I mean logistically it should work fine. But for whatever reason it was recommmend against installing into /sw/bin. Perhaps others in this thread could chime in with a good reason (other than blaspheming the /sw/bin directory).

01-17-2003, 01:56 PM	#40
ClarkGoble Triple-A Player Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 58	There really isn't a problem with putting anything anywhere. For programs that aren't just small terminal apps (i.e. pretty printers and so forth) a lot of people put them in /usr/local/bin. You could use /sw/bin however the problem with that is if Fink installs a different version. Further when I've had problems with Fink in the past, such as when I installed the latest version of Perl, I ended up having to remove all of Fink and reinstall it. Had I compiled those other programs to the Fink directory I'd have had to reinstall each of them by hand. If you really feel uncomfortable with putting things in /usr/bin or ~/bin then simply create a directory structure like Fink does. Call it /mysw. Create a src directory to keep the .tar.gz files you downloaded, in case you need to reinstall them. (Most OSX users have 40-60gig hard drives, so the few meg this will take isn't significant and is very convenient in the long term) You thus end up with a structure like this: /mysw/bin /mysw/src I personally have a second hard drive I keep backups of all my install software on. Typically I create .dmg files using Disk Copy. This is very good for me as I have stepped on CDs of original software before. (I killed a copy of Metrowerks by dropping it and rolling over it with my chair) So I already have a bunch of directories for that. I just have one called "non-Fink sw" where I keep my .tar.gz files. Once again this really is convenient. It makes it clear what version of the software you are running, so you know if you ought to upgrade. It also makes installing on other machines or reinstalling on your own much easier. One last quick mention. One reason that it is typically so easy to install non-Fink software is that installing Fink installs most of the libraries you would ever need. Even if you aren't using many installs from Fink, consider installing the general Gnome and KDE applications. That will automatically load quite a few libraries. When you install non-Fink software the "make" command will search for those libraries and will find the ones Fink installed. Thus Fink really erases a lot of installation headaches even if you don't use Fink for much.