Filed under: Software, Freeware, Open Source, UNIX / BSD, Universal Binary
X11 on Intel Macs
Despite my initial inability to find a proper X11 installer the
other day, it is included on the disk with my new iMac (although nowhere that I could find on Apple's website,
which I think is a mistake on Apple's part). So, I installed X11 and OOo and the Gimp. The X11 launcher app is
installed in your Utilities folder and, after the initial launch of the program, launches quite speedily (just one
bounce in the Dock!). Launching the Gimp takes a bit longer with 9 bounces in the Dock and then a very speedy splash
screen load. OpenOffice.org 2.0 takes even longer with
one bounce and about 14 seconds total loading time.Great. So what? Well, here's the interesting bit: both the Gimp and OOo (which is really only an alpha release) launch and run faster than Microsoft Office and Photoshop running in Rosetta. So, if you have a new Intel-based Mac and you are lamenting Photoshop and Word sluggishness, why not give these open source softwares a try? There's an initial learning curve, but, hey... they're free. Free is good.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Logan said 2:43PM on 2-01-2006
I found X11 for download right here:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/x11formacosx.html
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Logan said 2:47PM on 2-01-2006
Oh! But it's not for 10.4. Sorry about that. Nevermind.
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James said 2:49PM on 2-01-2006
Yeah, for some reason Apple have never had X11 for Tiger available for download. It seems like kind of an odd decision.
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jonvdveen said 2:51AM on 2-04-2006
Hey, I recently purchased a new iMac core duo. I must admit that I am relatively new to the mac platform (and loving it). I am really wanting to install the gimp, OOo, and inkscape, but I am finding it impossible to get x11 installed on my computer. I can't even find it on my install CD. Could you please let me know where to find it and how to go about installing it. That would be greatly appreciated. A link to an informative site would even be nice!
Thanks!
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Mark Warren said 8:09AM on 2-28-2006
jonvdveen,
I've got a Core Duo iMac as well. Here's how I found X11. Insert Install Disc 1 into the Mac, look for the "Optional Installs" package and open it, when you get to the list of items to install, click on the triangle next to Applications, and the last item you'll see on the list is X11 :)
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Steve Lianoglou said 11:49AM on 3-01-2006
Looks like I'm a bit late to the party :-)
Thanks for the heads up, got OO.o up and running .. nice! Was getting tired of the MS Office trial "Learn more about Microsoft Office" dialog window that kept popping up on each save.
I really should google it, but was wondering if anybody had some quick insight into getting some better fonts loaded in to OO.o.
Cheers,
-steve
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Jeff said 11:30AM on 3-28-2006
Wow, thanks for this article. I was trying last night to figure out where to get X11 for my new MacBook so I could install GIMP and OO.o. Thanks! I've made sure to add this to my del.icio.us as well for easy reference... just in case.
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Peter Artymiuk said 1:23PM on 4-06-2006
I have just bought a CoreDuo mac mini, I want X11 too - it is absolutely essential for most scientific software running under unix or linux. The Terminal software simply cannot support these programs and Apple think 1000s of programs are going to be rewritten for Aqua they will lose many customers they otherwise deserve to win to OS X.
The Xcode tools option did not install it in Utilities even on a Custom build. The Install Disk with my machine has no Optional Installs.
Eventually by running Spotlight and looking for "X11" I found X11User.pkg and X11SDK.pkg on the Install Disk, The latter had already been installed in Xcode, but double clicking X11user.pkg finally installed X11 in Utilities.
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Michael Koppelman said 12:00PM on 4-19-2006
Apple does a very good job of hiding this software. WFT. Why not just install it by default. Strike one against Apple.
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