Her's how it works
Eriberiboo said:
so first i downloaded x11 and then i downloaded gimp... but it's still saying that i don't have x11. and i tried dragging x11 into gimp but it wouldn't let me because gimp can't be modified. so if anyone can tell me how to fix this.. THANKS!! <3
It's saying that you don't have X11 __running__ not that you don't have X11 __installed__ All rograms that depend in X11 expect to see a running X11 Server when they are launched.
So, try this. Click in the X11 icon in the applications directory. This will bring up X11 and one X11 program - A terminal. OK now X11 is running. You can start gimp from inside the x-termian.
(No not confuse the "normal" Mac OS X terminal witrh an X-Term.. Each uses a different display subsystem.)
A little bit of background: X11 has been around for a long time. UNIX had windows and mice via X11 before there was such thing as a Mac (or a lisa, or a MS Windows) Back then it was common to have a lot fewer computers then people. X11's idea was that you could build a "chaep" (say maybe $12K) thing called an X-Server and put it on someone's desk and have it connect via hight speed network to a larger computer. Apps running on the large computer could send graphic commands down the network cable to draw pictures and text on the desktop X-Server. This was realy great because you could connect your X-Server to several big computers at once and the output from each app could go into it's own window or you could get two X-Servers if you wanted more screen space and even better, one x-server could drive multiple screens.
Now zip forward about 25 years: All that's changed is that now the X-Server runs on the "big computer" and the "big computer" is now cheap enouh that you can buy one for yourself and set it on your desk. With the x-server runing on the sam computer as the x-aplication, graphic commands don't need to flow through a cable but they still use a kind of internal (loopback) network connection. The software is till the same the Apps need to make a network connection to an X-Server. (Yes, your X-Server can display graphic from any networked computer.) Surprizingly little has changed, much of the code inside Tiger dates from ther 1980's and uses design ideas that were "cutting dge" in the 60's
To help remember how this works, just remember those old computers that were so large they filled an entire room. That's where your Aplication runs. The X-server is that thing with that is on the desk in your office that has a CRT and keyboard. The next thing is that any x-server and any x-program can be connected
