5.5 X11-based Applications and Libraries

You can use Fink to install many X11-based applications, such as the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), xfig/transfig , ImageMagick, nedit , and many others. Since Fink understands dependencies, installing some of these applications will cause Fink to first install several other packages. For example, since the text editor nedit depends on Motif libraries, Fink will first install lesstif . (This also gives you the Motif window manager, mwm .) Similarly, when you install the GIMP via Fink, you will also install the packages for GNOME, GTK+, and glib since Fink handles any package dependencies you might encounter.

You can also use Fink (see Chapter 11) to install libraries directly. For example, the following command can be used to install the X11-based Qt libraries:

 $  fink install qt  

This is an Aqua version of Qt for Mac OS X (available from Trolltech, http://www.trolltech.com); however, Qt applications won't automatically use the library. Instead, you'll need to recompile and link the application against the Aqua version of Qt, which may not always be a trivial task.

Another interesting development is the port of KDE to Mac OS X. As of this writing, Konqueror had been ported and a port of Koffice was underway. To keep abreast of developments pertaining to KDE on Mac OS X, see http://ranger.befunk.com/blog/.

5.5.1 Aqua-X11 Interactions

Since X11-based applications rely on different graphics systems, even when running XDarwin in rootless mode, you would not necessarily expect to see GUI interactions run smoothly between these two graphics systems. But actually, there are several such interactions that run very well.

First, it is possible to open X11-based applications from the Terminal application. To launch an X11-based application from the Terminal, use the open-x11 command as follows :

 $  open-x11 /sw/bin/gimp  

You can also copy and paste between X11 and Mac OS X applications. For example, to copy from an xterm , select some text with your mouse and use the standard Macintosh keyboard shortcut to copy, -C. This places the selected text into the clipboard. To paste the contents of the clipboard into a Mac OS X application (such as the Terminal), simply press -V to paste the text.

To copy from a Mac OS X application, highlight some text and press -C. The copied text can be pasted into an xterm window by pressing the middle button of a three-button mouse or by Command-clicking in the X11 application.