X11 is a really awful old windowing system that is sadly still in use in the Unix world and has been kept at least semi-modern by loads and loads of "extensions" that enable it to do things it once wasn't able to do* (like font rendering, alpha blending, changing resolution on the fly, direct OpenGL support, etc.). Unfortunately, these extensions, added onto its original shoddy design, have had the effect of making it an incoherent, bloated mess.
"I think X Windows is brain-damaged and will fail."
-- Steve Jobs, summer 1987 Usenix conference. He was half right.
* Although X11 can "do" these things, it can only do them in a kludgy, haphazard, nonstanard manner.
For more information about X11, go
here.