XDarwin

XDarwin is a port of the X Window System to run on the Mac OS X and Darwin operating systems. It permits the use of programs written for the X window system on those operating systems.

XDarwin was ported by the XonX project, an offshoot project created by XFree86 developers. It is integrated in the upstream source code of the XFree86 and Xorg servers, where it is presently maintained.

Window Maker in XDarwin.

Originally, XDarwin required an X window manager to run. For this task, a window manager called OroborOSX was created; this was based on Oroborus, another X window manager, but modified to look like the native Mac OS window manager. More recent versions of XDarwin can also run in rootless mode, which is to say that it integrates with the native window manager instead of requiring such a program specifically for X.

The OpenOffice.org Calc running on Mac OS 10.2 in XDarwin's rootless mode.

Before the introduction of Apple's X11.app, XDarwin was the only X11 server available for OS X. According to the XonX project, X11.app itself contains code from XDarwin. Programs such as OpenOffice.org use XDarwin to run in the X11 windowing environment, either in a rootless or full-screen mode. A version of the program was created for Mac OS 10.3 or higher that runs in the native Aqua interface.

External links

• X.org – Official home of the X Window System
• X on Darwin and Mac OS X from X11R7.0 documentation
• XDarwin.org
• XonX project
• OroborOSX