Apple updates X11 public beta

One of the sleeper hits of this past January’s Macworld Expo was Apple’s release of a public beta version of its X11 for Mac OS X. It’s a hardware-accelerated X Window System implementation designed for people who need access to a Unix graphical user interface but don’t want to give up access to Mac OS X. Now Apple has released a new public beta version of X11 for Mac OS X, available for download.

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Although X11 for Mac OS X runs right alongside Mac OS X, and even supports cut and paste capabilities, one of Apple’s intentions is to give Unix developers an easier way of porting their software to Mac OS X. Apple has provided the complete suite of X11 display server software, client libraries and developer toolkits to that end.

Changes to X11 for Mac OS X public beta 3 include:

Pseudocolor (8-bit) visual plane support

Option to quit X11 without presenting warning dialog

Command-Q keyboard shortcut to quit X11

Command-, to bring up preferences dialog

Keyboard mappings with dead keys fixed

Linking against libGL no longer results with multiple definitions of glGetColorTableEXT

Locked files left behind in /tmp no longer block non-admin users from starting X11

Windows can be resized by user to any size and not be limited by the Dock’s height

Dragging remotely hosted windows no longer causes crash

Hardware accelerated scrolling in 16 bit mode now works

X Server no longer crashes if application tried to retrieve data back from the framebuffer using XGetImage

Bug fixes and other feature enhancements

X11 for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X v10.2 or later; 256MB RAM, and 10.2.3 or later for GL rendering. The 41.7MB download is available now. For Unix developers, Apple has also made available a new version of the X11 for Mac OS X Public Beta SDK. Visit the Web site for more details.