The Latest XDarwin Project News
 

XDarwin 4.3 is now available for purchase

X11.pkg Hosted at MacOSForge

    MacOS Forge is now hosting the latest X11 packaged builds at: xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/X112.2.3 The complete file path to version 2.2.3 for Leopard is here: xquartz.macosforge.org/downloads/X11-2.2.3.pkg
  • This build no longer includes imake and xmkmf.
  • New libraries: freetype 2.3.6 and pixman 0.11.4
  • The freetype upgrade fixes issues where if a user loaded a carefully crafted font-file with a program linked against FreeType, it could cause the application to crash, or possibly execute arbitrary code.

March 26: Ben Byer Contributes Quartz Support to xorg-Based XDarwin

On the FreeDesktop mailing list, Ben Byer from Apple announced Quartz support for XDarwin Details are available at: wiki.x.org/wiki/XDarwin Included in this release:
  • XDarwin: this server runs on Darwin systems without Quartz (i.e. non-OS X); not well-tested yet.
  • XDarwinApp: this builds XDarwin.app, which is a full X server using Quartz. It has loadable module support for AGL and CGL, and well as fullscreen and rootless support.
  • Xquartz: this server runs on Quartz-based systems, and is meant to work with X11.app
  • x11app: this builds a version of Apple's X11.app using patches by Torrey Lyons; most, but not all, functionality of Apple's original X11.app is present in this release.

February 12: Control and Command Trick with xmodmap from extrabright.com

Pat at extrabright.com notes a great way to facilitate clipboard interaction between XDarwin and OSX:
Aassign the control key to the apple key and get rid of the meta. This ensure that you can go on using the apple key for keyboard shortcuts inside XDarwin, for example Apple + c in OpenOffice, while keeping the mapping of the control key for use with command line tools.To set this up, just create a .Xmodmap file inside your home folder with the following lines (or extend it accordingly if it already exists):
    vi ~/.Xmodmap
    clear Mod2
    clear control
    keycode 63 = Control_L
    keycode 67 = Control_L
    add control = Control_L

September 26: International Keymappings Added

In the interest of meeting international demand for XDarwin, a set of keyboard mappings have been added at: www.xdarwin.org/keymappings. Keyboards supported now include: Belgian, Canadian, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Latin-American, Japanese, Netherlands, Norwegian, Portugese, Swiss, and Swedish. To install, download the appropriate file and place it in: /System/Library/Keyboards/.

August 14: XDarwin Project to Switch from XFree86 to X.org

The next major X.Org release is in feature freeze. It adds a lot of new extensions and includes all the improvements to the XDarwin DDX from the top of the XFree86 tree. According to developer Torrey Lyons, the plan is for a release at the end of August. This is a very tight schedule and it needs testing on Darwin/Mac OS X. Any build failures and bug reports are very welcome. Support is anticipated for this release on Mac OS 10.1 - 10.3 and the latest OpenDarwin PPC and x86 builds. To be notified when the next major release goes final, sign up here. Details on the X.Org releases is at the FreeDesktop wiki's Xorg section and instructions for getting the source code from the Xorg CVS repository can be found here: wiki.freedesktop.org/XOrg/CvsPage.

July 30: Peter Mitchell Sets Up XDarwin 4.4 with GNOME and KDE

Australian Peter Mitchell has written up a description of his efforts to use XDarwin in combination with KDE. In his article, he describes the command line installation steps for running GNOME and KDE using XDarwin as the windowing layer. He describes both the challenges he faced and some suggestions as to the best order in which to install the various components necessary to run GNOME and KDE environments on Mac OS X. His article is recommended reading for anyone who seeks to set up these environments along with the XDarwin forums discussions.

February 5: X11 and XDarwin Apps Available at Darwinports.com

Darwinports.com and the official Darwinports site have a category specifically for applications that work with XDarwin as well as a portfile for XFree86 on Darwin. The list is synchronized with CVS on a nightly basis and includes window managers and libraries in addition to complete applications:

January 30: Second Release Candidate for XDarwin 4.4

A second Release Candidate is now available for XDarwin 4.4. Submission of bugs and patches to bugs.xfree86.org is encouraged. Also, the XFree86 project has details on how to test including a test suite from Mark Vojkovich. As usual, there are current downloads available at: ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/snapshots/4.3.99.902/binaries

December 12: XDarwin 4.4 in Testing

The first release candidate for XDarwin 4.4.0 is now available. The upcoming 4.4.0 release is expected to be the basis for future releases of Apple's X11. This release candidate has no known bugs on Mac OS X, but it needs testing so bug reports are greatly appreciated. XDarwin 4.4.0 provides identical performance to Apple's X11 on Panther and is fully compatible with quartz-wm. In addition this release fixes several bugs present in Apple's X11.

Following is a summary of the most significant differences between Apple's X11 1.0 and XDarwin 4.4:

    BUG FIXES:
  • Threaded direct GLX works correctly.
  • The X11 GL library does not export all the GLU symbols.
  • All scripts and man pages do not begin with "#pragma" line. This bug causes various problems including scripts not working for users with tcsh as their shell and manpage formatting being broken.
  • The Freetype library is fully backwards compatible with earlier versions. (This was a bug in XDarwin 4.3, which Apple's X11 inherited.)
    FEATURE DIFFERENCES:
  • XDarwin supports IPv6.
  • There is no "pseudo-fullscreen" mode. XDarwin's fullscreen mode has a real root window which works with xmag and twm, but you can't dynamically switch between fullscreen and rootless modes.
  • XDarwin does not track Aqua keyboard layout changes while it is running. XDarwin reads the Aqua keyboard layout at startup time. While running, the X11 keymap should be changed with xmodmap.
  • XDarwin is supported back to Mac OS X 10.1.
  • XDarwin only interprets Command key shortcuts if the cursor is in the menubar.
  • XDarwin does not support changing the screen layout or color depth while it is running.
  • Hiding the XDarwin application works when using any window manager. (Apple's X11 only supports hiding with quartz-wm.)
  • XDarwin supports cut-and-paste between Aqua and X11 windows when quartz-wm is not running. If quartz-wm is running, XDarwin will let quartz-wm handle cut-and-paste as it generally does a better job.
  • XDarwin allows arbitrary modifier keys to be used in emulating a multi-button mouse. These can be specified from the Preferences UI.

November 3: XDarwin runs on NetBSD/powerpc

In keeping with the efforts for the XDarwin project to remain open source (in contrast to Apple's X11 release) Christos Zaoulas, James Whitwell, and Emmanuel Dreyfus have accomplished a milestone in their development efforts toward Mac-compatible IOKit driver emulation. XDarwin is being used as a test case for binary compatibility with Darwin, the Mac OS X kernel. Further details are available at their site as well as a post describing their work at the FreeBSD forums. Those unfamiliar with binary compatibility may find the NetBSD FAQ on this point to be helpful.

October 2: XDarwin Site License Now Available

A site license program has been set up for XDarwin. Pricing is set at $249 for unlimited company-wide use of the most popular X11 Window server for Mac OS X. This pricing includes expedited access to updates and incremental releases, one of which is expected to coincide with the next major release of Mac OS X. Government and academic institutions are also eligible for the site license, which includes assistance with automated installation of XDarwin across a network. To purchase a site license for your office, school, or lab visit the online store: XDarwin.com.

June 23: Committment to MacOSX 10.3 Panther

The XDarwin project applauds Apple's recent announcement of 64bit architecture workstations and upcoming Panther update, Mac OS X 10.3. On the feature roadmap are:

  • Integration with FontBook for ease of font installation.
  • Support for greater window manager diversity.
  • Support for accelerated 3D chipsets via the PCI-X bus.
  • Fast user switching compatibility.

The XDarwin project is committed to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther and expects to ship a major release after Panther is out later this year and is eager to remain the de facto standard for XFree86 on Mac OS X.

April 24: Hardware Accelerated XDarwin 4.3 Has Arrived

The XDarwin project announces that a hardware-accelerated version 4.3 is now available.

Orders are now being taken for the final release of XDarwin 4.3 and the packaged product been has shipped out to all who pre-ordered.

You are encouraged to place an order for the CD, proceeds of which support the efforts to maintain this web site and the availability of all source-code. Instructions for manually installing are available at www.xdarwin.org/install.php and instructions for using the XInstall script are at www.xfree86.org.

Notable improvements in 4.3 include:

  • Hardware accelerated GLX in rootless mode
  • Ability to use all native Mac OS X fonts
  • new -configure X server option
  • Faster 2-D drawing in rootless mode
  • Much faster full screen mode 2-D drawing, comparable to rootless mode
  • New font configuration library (fontconfig)

Jan 7: Apple Comes On Board With X11 Server

Today Apple publicly announced their own X11 server. This announcement underscores the fact that the future is very bright for unix software developers who choose the Mac platform to deploy and build their software. The mission of the XDarwin project remains focused on bringing the best unix apps to Mac OS X. We can't wait to show you what we have in store! Stay tuned for details.

Dec. 10: Discounted Pricing for Academics

Academic discounts for 30% off of the retail package price of XDarwin are now available. Starting on January 1, 2003, retail pricing on XDarwin will be increased to $99.95. This represents a substantial opportunity for university buyers to obtain the full retail packaging at a significantly reduced price. Government institutions and employees of national laboratories are also eligible for the academic discount. Please note that both the academic and retail pricing will be increased in January. Click here for further details.

Oct 27: XDarwin 4.2.1.1 Update

XFree86 4.2.1.1 is a bug fix update to version 4.2.0.1. All users of XFree86 on Darwin/Mac OS X should update to 4.2.1.1. You must first install XFree86 4.2.0 and then update to XFree86 4.2.0.1 before applying this update. There is only one version of this update for both Mac OS X 10.1 and 10.2. Bug fixes include:
  • Fixed black cursor outlines on Mac OS X 10.2.2.
  • Fixed XDarwin rootless crash when window resizing with complex bit gravity.
  • Miscellaneous fixes to xdm.

    Sept 13: XDarwin Updated for Jaguar

    An installer for XFree86 4.2.0.1 for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar is now available. This release is a bug fix and compatibility update to XFree86 version 4.2.0. The update is recommended for all users of XFree86 on Darwin/Mac OS X. Separate installers are available for Mac OS X 10.1 and 10.2 (Jaguar).
    Bug Fixes:
    An XDarwin crash on dual processor machines has been fixed.
    - libXt is now a flat namespace image.
    - Fixed reading uninitialized memory in libXaw.
    - /usr/X11R6/include/X11/bitmaps now includes stipple and Stippler, which has been renamed to avoid a case insensitivity name collision.
    - (Jaguar only) A new xterm binary is provided.
    - (Jaguar only) A new libGLU is provided for compatibility with gcc 3.1.

    Aug 25: XFree86 4.2.0

    The latest full release from the XFree86 Project, XFree86 4.2.0, is now available.
    A quick summary of the new Darwin/Mac OS X specific features in 4.2.0 is:

    • On Mac OS X, a new rootless mode was added to the XDarwin X server. This allows X clients to display windows on the Aqua desktop.
    • Xinerama support added to XDarwin
    • With XDarwin in full screen mode, the depth, size, and refresh rate can now be chosen to be different from the settings used by Aqua.
    • GLX support added for Darwin and Mac OS X with software rendering.
    • Keymap setup in XDarwin is improved, particularly for international keyboards.
    • In addition to English and Japanese, the XDarwin user interface is now localized in Dutch, French, German, Spanish, and Korean.
    A double-clickable installer is now available only Mac OS X version 10.1.
    Downloads are immediately available here and from sourceforge.

    XDarwin 4.3 is now available for purchase