Hey,
Here's a quick and dirty procedure that will help non-geeks like me get a taste of Unix apps in Apple's x11, I tried to cut out as much of the BS as I could and make it understandable to Mac people like me:

1) Make sure you have the latest (December 2002) developer tools loaded
2) Download the x11 public beta from the Apple site
3) Download the OpenOffice Beta for Mac OS X (linked from the Darwin page on the Apple site in Mac OS X)
4) Download the x11 packages for Mac OS X from the OpenDarwin site (particularly gtk and gimp) These are linked from the x11 page.

Stay away from fink and all that other garbage. If you've messed around with any of that, or XDarwin, or other flavors of XFree86, then you probably don't need to be reading this. This is, as far as I know, the path of least resistance for the Mac Faithful.

Install everything with the installers, don't customize the locations of the installs. Follow the stupid terminal instructions for OpenOffice (pay attention to the intstaller windows when they tell you to type stuff in the terminal, there's a "setenv" thing that's important).

Now, here's how you set up x11 to launch these apps from its Application menu:

Go the the Application menu and choose "Customize"
Click "Add Item"
Double Click under name in the new item and type "Gimp"
Double Click under Command and type:
"/usr/local/bin/gimp-1.2 --no-shm --no-xshm"
you're done with that item.
Click "Add Item" again
Same procedure, for this item make the name: "OpenOffice" and make the command (get this):
"/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program:/Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program/filter:/usr/X11R6/lib; sh /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.0.1/program/soffice"

Keep in mind, the thalo way is probably not the geek way. The geek way is to point you to a URL and have you read manuals that only they can read. I tried to do this without passing the buck to the geek aristocracy. The thing that always cracks me up about forums when somebody has a technical question is that the answer (when it comes to Unix) is never just "do this, do that"... it's always go here, read this, go there, read that discussion. Puh-leeze. Make it go. Pretend I'm a monkey and tell me what to type in the terminal so I can use the software right away. That's what I tried here. I really don't have the slightest idea what I'm doing. But it works. This will get two big, supposedly powerful top-flight OpenSource Unix applications running on your Mac in x11 via menu commands, taking as much advantage of Aqua as is possible. So you can see what all the hoopla is about. I think it's important to go through this nonsense (remembering that I'm giving you a kind of easy way out-- a distillation, using more Mac-like ways of doing things. You could do it the real geek way, having to track down ten bajillion dependencies, or with fink, and end up having to blow your brains out.)

All I kept saying to myself as I installed all this and began to test drive the apps, was: APPLE WANTS TO BE A PART OF **THIS???** This is what everybody is jumping up and down excited about? This is Unix on the Mac? Please, my brothers, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. Go ahead and use them, remembering that these packages are Apple's efforts to CUT OUT a lot of the ridiculous install and decompile and configure nonsense. Explore, experience, knock yourself out. Say to yourself "ooh, we can CUT AND PASTE! Just like on a real Mac!" But don't you dare tell me that this software has ANYTHING over OS 9 and the Mac legacy. It's like a macaroni-elmer's glue-and-glitter school project next to professional Mac software. Get a taste of this bloated, archaic, unforgiving CLI world where everything that can go wrong DOES go wrong, and tell me what benefits you think WE can get out of it. I'm all ears. These are about as sophisticated as apps get in this world? This and rolling eyes? (oh, if you want to see those, and I encourage you to marvel at them, set up your application menu in x11 with the name "X-Eyes" and for the command put "/usr/X11R6/bin/xeyes") Come on. You know what? My eyes are rolling just like those. I want you to think of me when you look at them.

Stay away from fink and all that other garbage.

Nah. Fink with Fink Commander is point and click and makes much more software available.

But you're right about the software not being as polished as their proprietary counterparts. Considering that Open Office and all the others are free, however, there's the draw. And they're not finished yet. I wouldn't be suprised if Apple got involved in tweaking some of these--like they did with X11.

. . . This is what everybody is jumping up and down excited about? This is Unix on the Mac?. . .

LOL! Yes, it does make you want to click your heels and say, "There's no place like home . . . there's no place like home."

I think Apple's thinking more the other way around, however, hoping that Unixy types will be happy to run their apps on OS X.

Either way, it's like so all the other Unix stuff. If one wants to use X11 resources, now it's easier than ever; if not, then there's no need whatsoever to do so. *That* you can, however, just might turn out of be a plus in some cases.

This thread is what I was waiting for since I tried OS X Public Beta two years ago and went "WTF?"

Concept after concept it makes it clear to anyone why "the power of Unix" is just another stupid empty slogan to justify the NeXT acquisition.

Should I tell them?

Nah. This is more fun.

So, why was this posted in TechIssues again?

Maybe have a browse around the available forums before posting... there's quite a bit to choose from you know.

If your point is to demonstrate how unMac like OpenOffice is, then why?

X11 is not Mac, nor OS X. It is X11.

Now then, when Apple developers get on board writing heavily for an opensource project, then things can be guaranteed to change.

Everything happens for a reason, buddy buoy.

thalo, I agree that if you can download and install the package without using Fink, that's much faster (e.g. Open Office, Gimp), but it's not always possible. And when it's not, then there's Fink.

Again, I agree with you about the quality of some of these apps, but, fwiw, Open Office and even AbiWord do a better job opening and preserving the formatting of complicated Word files than Appleworks with Maclink Plus does. Same goes with OO and Excel files and even PPT files.

If you're wanting to expand the topic beyond X11 to Unix apps in general, there's a lot more to appreciate, like Gimp-Print which makes all sorts of older printer drivers run on OS X, and Carbon Copy Cloner which harnesses Terminal commands with a GUI front to make cloning your set-up as painless as possible.

But I'll tell you, I'm still more impressed with OS 9 than anything that I've seen so far.

What shocking news!

In reply to:

---

Concept after concept it makes it clear to anyone why "the power of Unix" is just another stupid empty slogan to justify the NeXT acquisition.

---

Oh, *do* shut up.

There's a reason Steve Jobs didn't demonstrate or even mention X11 at the keynote - it's not ready yet.

Look, you're using a KHTML port if you're surfing with safari, and you didn't have to compile it. Apple takes Open Source stuff and turns it into click-and-point stuff. And contributes back to the project as well. And now that Disk images can clean up after themselves, more and more will, making installation of software even more painless.

What I'm getting at is: what's stopping Apple from seamlessly incorporating X Window into OS X and developing a click-and-point installation for standard packages - perhaps even basing a future version of AppleWorks on OpenOffice...?
You can already have Windows programs on the Dock out of Virtual PC - why not X? You wouldn't even need to see the "Applications" menu.

I believe this is one thing that's in store for us - X11 as an additional runtime environment, deployed standard with every copy of OS X.

Of course it's geeky for now. It's not done yet.

-s*

um, because it's a tech issue. I think the overarching tech issue. The issue of WHY. The issue of SO WHAT? This is a place to talk about "platforms, interface, nanobits, and other bytes." I'm talking about platforms, I'm talking about interface. I'm talking about the technology of Unix, the nanobits and other bytes it takes to actually to get it to work, and discovering that it doesn't seem to DO all that much but perpetuate the geek aristocracy.

Craig's post is a perfect illustration. "Should I tell them? Nah"
Oh of course not. I think that was craigie's way of saying that he has information that you don't. That he is privy to some secret that you are not. He doesn't want to share it because it's more fun to watch you squirm and struggle. Well, you'll get a lot of that in this life. OK, I'm teasing, but makes you think, doesn't it? Me, I think we're in this together, a brotherhood of the Faithful, which is why I see the current dumbdown of the Mac and the downtalking perpetuation of these antiquated hierarchies as a crying shame. A big fat missed opportunity to really bust up the mold.

Should I tell them? No way. Why give a clear answer, when an enigmatic one maintains the mystique and supremacy of arcane access to functionality and information? Why share what you can hoard? Why make something easy when you can keep it complicated?

The problem is, there's kind of a whopping lie under it all. And that lie is that there's power for you and me at the end of the yellow brick road. That the effort and energy you expend to get the knowledge, will pay off with something you can actually use. Well, I say power isn't power until the have nots can do something with it too. When minimal effort yields maximum results. Powerful software and a powerful platform aren't built by the attitude: well, if you REALLY want power, read a mere 200,000 man pages, and then simply program it yourself! Sorry, that ain't power for anybody but the elite. That's a waste of effort, unless you are endeavoring to be the one to innovate. So yeah, hey, if you're a developer... go ahead and go to school. But if you have to overcome too many obstacles, just to LOAD software you haven't decided if you can even USE yet, something is terribly askew.

To me, power is when difficult ideas and procedures are made as EASY as possible to comprehend. When you don't have to jump through flaming hoops. When stuff is accessible. Now, before you think I'm agin all things Unix and anti-geek, remember that I wouldn't have even TRIED to load these apps unless Apple was showing a concerted effort to streamline and simplify the process. Installing a package by double-clicking an icon (and pressing a few continue buttons) is a sound and sane way of doing something that--holy crap if you tried to do it manually you'd have already cut your wrists--is pretty much impossible for the average joe without significant study. So that was a GOOD thing.

The trouble is, I got to the other side of it and said "so what?" I didn't get something that was better. Spending all that extra effort loading software, and I didn't get a payoff. Interesting, sure. Functional, sure. Even feature-rich. Gimp, for instance, I see why some people can call it powerful. Some people who aren't Mac users who've used Photoshop for years. What I didn't get, was something better or more usable than commercial software running in Mac OS 9 doing the same things and more.

Apple used to be ALL ABOUT making stuff accessible. Visual. It took difficult ideas, like filesystems, and iconized them. Slapped a metaphor on them, and suddenly it wasn't such a big bad world. They not only OPENED the door to greater computing power for "the rest of us," they KICKED it open. I want them to do that again. Unix is the big bad boogeyman CLI. Well boo hoo. Behind its arcane commands are stuff that makes sense. It has to. And I'm convinced that with a rosetta stone, anybody could use it well. I want Apple to be that rosetta stone. I want them to translate for us. Show us how, and more importantly WHY. In plain language. Better yet, in VISUAL terms. I want it to "snitch" on Unix. Demystify it. Not to point us to technical manpages... but to EXPLAIN, to teach. To show us the ideas behind the code. Remember hypercard? That was one of the all time great programs as far as letting the little guy play programmer. At blurring the lines between knowing what you wanted to do, and writing software that actually did it.

That's what I want Apple to do with Unix. I hear it's a great developer's language. Well, when everybody's a developer, then it'll be true. If you have to hide it and bury it, if it's too ugly to see the light of day, then it's probably NOT a good developer's language. Apple is in a position where they could be showing us what to do, then step back and watch us be brilliant. They SAY they are doing this, like in iApps, but it's mere lip service. They are still doing all the work--boilerplate--and only letting joe blow go so far; a very narrow vision. I'd like to see them blow the whole geek myth to smithereens. But I feel that in all this rhetoric of opening the Mac, they aren't stepping up and REALLY giving us the keys to the kingdom. They are perpetuating some of the same prole/pleb relationships that at one time they were about dispelling.

Yes, as with any type of learning, there is a curve. If you have to learn a language to do something, well, then the learning of the language needs to be made easy. The way it was with hypercard hypertext. Unix manpages are intimidating. I pictured Apple being all over them. You know what true personal computer power is? Being armed only with what you are trying to do, and having hardware and software that can get you there quickly.

There are learning curves and there are learning curves. You tell me which is more attractive: the way things used to be with Mac software, where you could load and go and learn on the fly, and barely had to GLANCE at a manual? Or having to skim through yards and yards of manpages to grok the meaning of some arcane two-letter command to help you do one tiny thing to TRY and load some software?

We hear a lot about how cocoa is going to be modular, visual, easy to program. Drag and drop, WYSIWYG... well? Why aren't we ALL developers yet? I'll be happy when we load developers tools, and can make our first freestanding native X cocoa app in an hour.

I think it can happen. I think it will happen. But old habits and old ways of doing things and old attitudes have to change. Again, this was what Apple used to be about. Screw big blue, what can it DO? We need that back. Where it's arcane, we need simple and clear. Where the answer is buried and blurred and hidden behind distracting nonsense, we need it brought out into the light.

But what's horribly sobering here, is how far we have to go. Pop the hood on Unix and what do you get? Now we can use apps from another platform. And? I mean, after seeing them and using them (albeit for a short time), I guess I'm asking if we really WANT to. I'm kind of shocked at how POOR they are, compared to legacy Mac software. I guess I'm spoiled.