MacOS X: Using XDarwin and OroborOSX

Purdue Engineering Computer Network

If you have the need to run applications built for the X11 environment, now you can run them natively on your Mac. This Knowledge Base article covers the installation of XDarwin, an implementation of XFree86, an X11 window server, and OroborOSX, an improved desktop manager that runs on top of XDarwin. OroborOSX provides an advanced interface that blends very well with the look and actions of OS X.

To run XDarwin and OroborOSX, you will need Mac OS X 10.1 or later (including 10.2). OS 9.x systems are not supported.

XDarwin Installation

First we will install XDarwin. All of the instructions here are referenced from this page on the XFree86 site.

1. First you will need to make sure your machine is supported. Basically, if you can run OS X, you're fine. However, if you have a pure Darwin installation, you may need to download video drivers sepearately at Apple's Darwin page.
2. The first thing we are going to do is download a test file to determine which set of precompiled binaries you need to build XDarwin on your Mac. See Fig. 1.
   
   Fig. 1
   
   The FTP address is:
   
   ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.2.0/binaries/
   
   Go ahead and download Xinstall.sh from either of the Darwin sets. What you need to make sure of this that StuffIt Expander or any other decompression utility does not touch this. You can do this by downloading the files via an FTP client or changing your browser's preferences to not use StuffIt as a post-download application. The installer will decompress the files by itself, and needs the compressed files.
   
   Go to the Terminal application (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal), navigate to the directory with XInstall.sh, and type the following:
   
   sh Xinstall.sh -test
   
   This will test to see which version of the binaries you need. Once it tells you, download the following files from whichever set you need:
   • Xinstall.sh
   • extract
   • Xbin.tgz
   • Xlib.tgz
   • Xman.tgz
   • Xdoc.tgz
   • Xfnts.tgz
   • Xfenc.tgz
   • Xetc.tgz
   • Xxserv.tgz
   • Xquartz.tgz
   
   All of those files will be in that directory. Please download all of those files into the same directory, preferably a folder dedicated to those files. See Fig. 2.
   
   Fig. 2
   
3. After you have downloaded those files, you should run the installer file, XInstall.sh. You do this by going into the Terminal application and, after navigating to the directory that all of the download files are in, typing the following command. See Fig. 3.
   sh Xinstall.sh
   Fig. 3
4. The installer will give you prompts/questions. Installing over an existing version of XDarwin will yield more questions; answer them as you see fit. For new users, you will still be presented with some questions. If asked if you want to create links to the GL libraries, say yes. When asked if you want to link to rdisk, also say yes. After that the installer will finish up and you will be back at the command prompt. Exit out of the Terminal; XDarwin is ready to run.
5. It is a good idea to go ahead and run XDarwin at this point, to make sure it works properly. You will find the XDarwin application in your Applications folder. See Fig. 4.
   
   Fig. 4
   
   Double-click XDarwin to launch it; when asked whether you want to run it in full-screen or rootless mode, select rootless. This will allow you to use OS X in conjunction with the XDarwin GUI.
   
   Note: If you are using Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), an update is required to prevent XDarwin from crashing under 10.2. You can download the update here.

Installing OroborOSX

OroborOSX is a desktop manager that gives you a way to access your apps, similar to Mac OS's Finder. It will give you a comprehensive environment from which to run your X11 apps. The default interface, Eau, very closely resembles OS X's Aqua interface. You can even use transparencies and minimize to the dock.

1. First, you need to download OroborOSX. That can be done here. Again, you cannot have StuffIt Expander decompress the file as it will incorrectly decompress it. Download the file and either modify your browser's preferences to avoid using StuffIt after you download the program, or simply throw away what it decompresses and work with the original downloaded file. If you use Safari to downoad it, it may automatically extract the .gz portion
2. Again, go into the Terminal application (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and a command prompt will open. Navigate to the directory in which the file is located. You can verify with the ls command.
3. Once you are there, type this command. See Fig. 5.
   
   (.tar.gz file) tar -zxvf (insert filename).tar.gz
   (.tar file) tar -xf (insert filename).tar
   
   Fig. 5
4. This will uncompress the file and create a folder called OroborOSX-Folder. Open this folder and you will find an application named OroborOSX-v0.8. See Fig. 6.
   
   Fig. 6
   Launching this application will start up XDarwin (in the background) and give you the OroborOSX interface. From here you can configure and run your X11 apps.

Running X11 Apps with XDarwin and OroborOSX

1. First, you have to know that the app you are trying to run is available on the server you are connecting to. In most cases, by the time you get to this point you will already know what you can do.
2. If you want to use OS X's Terminal instead of OroborOSX's xterm, you will have to create a .cshrc file in your home directory. The "." character at the beginning of the file name will make the file invisible in Mac OS X. You need to create this file with one line in it, so that whenever you open a Terminal window your setenv DISPLAY variable will allow graphical apps launched from the Terminal to be run graphically through OroborOSX. Note: If you plan on using xterm to launch the apps, you won't need to create this file.
3. To enable the use of launching apps in OroborOSX from the Terminal, open a new Terminal window and navigate to your home directory (/Users/username). Create a new file named ".cshrc" (without the quotes) with your favorite editor and enter this: setenv DISPLAY localhost:0.0. See Fig. 7.
   
   Fig. 7
4. Save and exit the file, and close all open terminal windows. Now, connect to the remote server you wish to access the X11 apps from. As ECN has disabled nonsecure connections, use SSH to connect. You also need to add -X in the line somewhere to force it to tunnel through X11 (OroborOSX). See Fig. 8
   
   Fig. 8
5. Once you are connected, you can launch X11 apps remotely (like Matlab, for example) and have the graphical output run in OroborOSX like it was right on your computer. See Fig. 9.
   
   Fig. 9