
Apple Removes X11 in OS X Mountain Lion, Shifts Support to Open Source XQuartz - pooriaazimi
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/17/apple-removes-x11-in-os-x-mountain-lion-shifts-support-to-open-source-xquartz/
======
js2
The title is a bit unclear. Up through Lion, Apple bundled XQuartz to provide
X11 support. Going forward, they will no longer do so. Instead you'll have to
download and install the XQuartz binary separately. Apple will continue to
support XQuartz as an open source project. There will just no longer be an
"official" Apple version.

[Edit: why would someone downvote this?]

~~~
DrJokepu
You have been downvoted because many people on HN base their votes on whether
they like the message of a comment. People who like Apple products and can
identify with the values of the company will feel you're defending Apple with
your comment and will upvote you for doing so. Other people who like X11 or
XQuartz a lot or simply dislike Apple will feel that you're trying to defend
an evil act and will downvote your comment in retribution. I'm not sure how
helpful this voting pattern is for the quality of HN discussions but it's
basic human nature and there's not much that can be done about it.

~~~
cageface
I've had the idea in the back of my head for a while now to build a new facade
UI for HN that completely hides the surface evidence of the entire karma
system, which has come to be used in an increasingly childish and reflexive
manner.

------
tvon
Informative comment from Jeremy Huddleston (XQuartz developer):
[http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14341845#post14...](http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=14341845#post14341845)

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TheCoreh
I think it's a good move from Apple's part.

It's not uncommon for users that rely on X11 support to update to the latest
XQuartz release by themselves, anyway. Perhaps this will even bring more
attention to the project, which is always good.

It's also one less thing for them to worry about, since they're moving to a
faster release cycle.

Now, IMO, most people that need XQuartz need it to run GTK apps, like the
GIMP. Is there a technical reason why GTK doesn't support OS X natively? Or is
it only because noone ever did it, really? Perhaps now that can also happen?

It would be really nice to have GTK apps using the menu bar and displaying
native OS X widgets.

~~~
bri3d
<http://www.gtk.org/download/macos.php>

There's been a Quartz backend for GTK+ for quite some time. Working GIMP
builds for native OSX have been available since 2011, and for most projects
it's just a matter of finicking with the build system until it works.

~~~
_delirium
Huh, I guess that'd change the question to one of: why doesn't MacPorts ship a
native gimp?

~~~
ernesth
Macports does ship a non x11 gimp. It is the quartz variant.

------
MrJagil
Is it just me, or is Macrumors by far the best Apple-news aggregator out
there? Their reporting is clean, straight-forward and thorough (e.g. I wasn't
aware that X11 was important for scientists). They present the rumors and
their validity(looking at past rumors and the sources) and that's it. No non-
sense subjective babbling like you see on apple-insider.

Sorry for the derail, it's just something i've been noticing. I wish more
people would like to them.

~~~
alastairpat
They're certainly not bad (and what I subscribe to in RSS) when one considers
the field.

A lot of it is very US-centric and some of the 'rumours' aren't very news-
worthy (the numerous stories on dock connectors for the iPad 3 come to mind)
but it's far more like a news site that works mostly on facts (well, as close
to facts as rumours can come) than mere speculation and conjecture. Arn, the
guy who runs it, is an MD which might explain the difference to an extent.

~~~
arn
Yep, and longtime HNer

~~~
alastairpat
Haha, hi there! Perhaps I was a little harsh in my comment - I really do like
your site.

~~~
arn
nah. No worries, I didn't take it harshly at all. ;)

~~~
MrJagil
Hey man, hope you enjoy the props :)

1\. What's an MD? A doctor of medicine, as my dictionary suggests?

2\. There's certainly a lot more personality shining through the posts of
Jordan Golson. Just an observation.

Keep up the good work!

~~~
arn
1\. yep. medical doctor.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/technology/21blogger.html> 2\. yes, I know.
:) he's adjusting.

------
tehjones
Apple seems to be taking another turn towards open source software. The
spinning off of the cli build tools into an smaller package makes like easier
for tools like homebrew and fink. Supporting projects like this is a very good
sign.

~~~
rsynnott
Well, they've been supporting XQuartz since at least 2007...

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rbanffy
Can we please calm down? All that happened is that they will no longer bundle
an old version of XQuartz with every new release of OSX, which is probably a
good thing because it will probably make it less _hacky_ to install a newer
version.

How many Mac users actually use X? I assume a fraction of the audience of HN
does, but, again, the last time I used X on a Mac it was on a PPC G3.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Inkscape only runs via X on Mac.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
Witch is terrible unfortunate.

You can't use copy paste because it copies a raster version instead of a
vector one.

This makes inkscape totally unusable. I tried to compile a native GTK version
but letters and icons will appear as little boxes. It was more useful that way
that the X version(at least this way you could guess what the boxes were).

~~~
seclorum
There's an easy fix:

[http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Copying_and_past...](http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Copying_and_pasting_in_Inkscape_creates_pixellated_images_instead_of_copying_the_vector_objects)

~~~
damncabbage
Note:

    
    
      However, this will also prevent copying text from any
      X11 application to Mac OS X ones. It will not prevent
      copying text from OS X to X11.
    

But:

    
    
      When you just want to make a copy of an object within
      Inkscape, you should use duplicate (Ctrl-D) rather than
      copy/paste (Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V). Duplicate does not interact
      with the X11/OSX clipboards.

------
mbateman
Doesn't everyone use XQuartz anyway?

~~~
julien_p
The X11 that comes with Lion _is_ XQuartz anyway.

All this changes is that the first time you run an application that uses X11 a
dialog box pops up directing you to the XQuartz project page.

~~~
cookiecaper
This is actually probably good news. Was it 10.4 that shipped with a broken
version of XQuartz and we had to go download the new version anyway? I know it
was a rather annoying issue back when I used OS X more frequently.

~~~
mitchty
Yep, to be honest this is the exact same thing they did for java. Try to use
java in Lion, blam pops up a window asking to install it.

Seems like they're just trimming the base OS install down to what is used by
most users. I'll put this in the meh category.

~~~
ugh
It could be a bit smoother, though. When you launch Java you just have to
click twice (once to install, a second time to accept the terms), wait a few
seconds until it downloads and installs, and you are done. Everyone can do
that, it’s smooth and it’s nearly impossible to go wrong.

When you start X11 you get a similar dialog, but it currently sends you to a
website where you have to download stuff. That’s not the same.

It’s no big deal, really, but it could be smoother.

------
__david__
Does Xquartz install the launchd component that listens on /etc/launch*/org.x
and then launches the app on demand?

------
grzaks
I hope divvy is not affected by this. They are using X11 API.

~~~
rsynnott
So in future, users will be prompted to install XQuartz, rather than using the
rather antique version of XQuartz which currently comes with MacOS.

------
flocial
Would be nice to have an official package manager. Or better yet Debian under
the hood.

------
thought_alarm
We're all X11 users, now.

------
jc4p
The biggest effect this has for me is that I'll now need to find a good
replacement for Wireshark.

~~~
js2
No, you won't. You'll just have to download and install XQuartz from
<http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/Releases>

