XFree86 on Darwin and Mac OS X

Contents

  1. Important Notice
  2. Usage
  3. Setting Your Path
  4. License

Important Notice

This is a pre-release version of XFree86, and is not supported in any way. This software is distributed under the terms of the MIT X11 / X Consortium License and is provided AS IS, with no warranty. Please read the License before using. Bugs may be reported and patches may be submitted to the XonX project page at SourceForge. Before reporting bugs in pre-release versions, please check the latest version from XonX or in the XFree86 CVS repository.

Usage

XFree86 runs on Mac OS X in full screen mode. When the X window desktop is active, it takes over the entire screen. You can switch back to the Mac OS X desktop by holding down Command-Option-A. (This key combination can be changed in the user preferences.) From the Mac OS X desktop, just click on the Xmaster icon in the dock to switch back to the X window desktop.

Multi-Button Mouse Emulation

Many X11 applications rely on the use of a 3-button mouse. To emulate a 3-button mouse with a single button, select "Enable emulation of multiple mouse buttons" in the Preferences. This will take effect the next time the X server is started. When emulating a 3-button mouse, holding down the left command key and clicking the mouse button will simulate clicking the second mouse button. Holding down the left option key and clicking will simulate the third button.

Notes:

Note on .xserverrc

If a file named ".xserverrc" is present in your home directory, the options specified there will override the options passed by Xmaster to the X server. If you provide a ".xserverrc" file, make sure that you specify "-quartz" as one of the options passed to the X server.

Setting Your Path

The X11 binaries are located in /usr/X11R6/bin, which you may need to add to your path. Your path is the list of directories to be searched for executable commands. The way to do this depends on the shell you are using. With tcsh, you can check your path by typing "printenv PATH". You should see /usr/X11R6/bin listed as one of the directories. If not, you should add it to your default path. To do so, you can add the following line to a file in your home directory called .cshrc: (Create this file if you don't have one yet.)

setenv PATH "${PATH}:/usr/X11R6/bin"

Note that you will need to start a new Terminal window for any changes you make in .cshrc to take effect. You may also want to add the man pages from XFree86 to the list of pages to be searched when you are looking for documentation. The X11 man pages are located in /usr/X11R6/man and the MANPATH environment variable contains the list of directories to search.

License

The XFree86 Project is commited to providing freely redistributable binary and source releases. The main license we use is one based on the traditional MIT X11 / X Consortium License, which doesn't impose any conditions on modification or redistribution of source code or binaries other than requiring that copyright/license notices are left intact. For more information and additional copyright/licensing notices covering some sections of the code, please see the XFree86 License page.

X Consortium License

Copyright (C) 1996 X Consortium

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Except as contained in this notice, the name of the X Consortium shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from the X Consortium.

X Window System is a trademark of X Consortium, Inc.