Apple Removes X11 in OS X Mountain Lion, Shifts Support to Open Source XQuartz

[John.B]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I've abandoned any applications that run under X11 for proper native OSX alternatives, because X11 applications all seem so Linux-like and kludgey. But I understand that X11 is the only option for specific niche applications. That said, you couldn't pay me to run GIMP...

[gmcalpin]

Originally Posted by lhunath

Excuse me, but Pixelmator is a toddler's toy compared to the Gimp. You can't honestly expect to do any serious professional work in it, and its proprietary format will lock you down.

If you honestly expect to do any serious professional work, you have Photoshop. Not GIMP.

[Winni]

Originally Posted by Molecule

Last time I checked, GIMP was rubbish on OS X anyway. Don't get me wrong, the Linux and Windows versions are great, and will only get better once they finally get the single-window interface implemented, but on the Mac it's always been pretty crappy (admittedly this has a lot to do with X11 dependancy rather than fundamental problems with the design of the app, but still).

I hear Pixelmator is pretty great these days, maybe you should try that?

And in the next installment, you will enlighten us why people should use proprietary, closed source pay-for software when there is an Open Source alternative available that works perfectly fine on almost all known operating systems - except for OS X.

You see, not everybody has spare money to spend on or even WANTS to spend hard-earned cash for proprietary software when the free alternative is good enough.

But that is the issue in Mac land: If you want something that works, in most cases you have to pay for it. A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there.

That being said, yes, Pixelmator is a well working, affordable alternative to The GIMP and in most cases even for Adobe Photoshop. Since the Mac is no longer a professional platform but a consumer platform, we don't even have to compare software with the high-end Adobe applications anymore because Apple very obviously no longer cares for professional users. Those are are better off with Windows. Or Linux, depending on the sector they work in.

In two years from now, people will probably discuss how they can jailbreak their Macs in order to install software that did not get Apple's blessing. This is where this all is going.

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Originally Posted by gmcalpin

If you honestly expect to do any serious professional work, you have Photoshop. Not GIMP.

Sure. That certainly explains why there are customized versions of The GIMP being used in the movie industry.

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Originally Posted by John.B

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I've abandoned any applications that run under X11 for proper native OSX alternatives, because X11 applications all seem so Linux-like and kludgey. But I understand that X11 is the only option for specific niche applications. That said, you couldn't pay me to run GIMP...

Have you even seen a Linux desktop in the last ten years? From the sound of it, you haven't it.

Anyway, they seem so "Linux-like" because Apple has failed to make their implementation of X11 "Mac-like". There Java implementation showed how even Java software could appear like a regular Mac application, but they never cared enough for their X11 port to look equally well.

And the Mac platform still is too insignificant - and the Mac user base is too far away from their target market - to expect Unix-developers to make their software look like native Mac applications. Most Unix software serves certain business needs and targets certain professions while most Mac users are... Consumers.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by nickn

Is ML really an update? It seems like a downgrade in many respects.

It IS a downgrade in many respects (Delete Rosetta in Lion, Delete X11 in Mountain Lion and Add Gatekeeper to keep out developers who haven't paid their 33% Apple Tax), but clearly all the Kool-Aid drinkers will drink anything Apple decides to juice.

[NorCalLights]

Originally Posted by MagnusVonMagnum

It IS a downgrade in many respects (Delete Rosetta in Lion, Delete X11 in Mountain Lion and Add Gatekeeper to keep out developers who haven't paid their 33% Apple Tax), but clearly all the Kool-Aid drinkers will drink anything Apple decides to juice.

At the risk of feeding the troll...

Are you aware that Gatekeeper is optional for the user, and developer "keys" are free from Apple for devs who choose to distribute their apps outside of the Mac App Store?

So...

[PassiveSmoking]

Originally Posted by Mr. Retrofire

Yeah, 50 MB reduction on a 1 TB HDD. Impressive! Oh wait, not!

It's that kind of thinking that led Windows to bloat the the fatso of an operating system we all know and love today.

It's not just about space on the storage device (though with SSDs coming into vogue with typically smaller capacities than the HDs they replace it's something worth considering), it's all about reducing waste.

The less code in the system, the less code there is to document, test, maintain, fix, bring new OS Dev team members up to speed on...

And less executable code on a system also reduces the attack surface. If there's vulnerable code in X11 (not saying there is, just if), then an exploit will only affect the people who installed X11 instead of potentially every OSX user out there.

I'll admit at first stories like this sound rather alarming, but closer examination shows that it's really not that big of a problem, the problems people are having with the DP are most likely down to the fact that it's a DP, and it doesn't seem that in the long term this is going to do any real harm to the people who need X11 support whilst bringing real benefits for those who don't need it.

[Rocketman]

Originally Posted by jeremyhu

please file bug reports with specific information.

File bugs, and they'll get fixed in time. I can't fix bugs I don't know about

No, but I will fix bugs if you report them.

Okay! I get it. There are issues, file bug reports.

Here's a bug report. Add more backward feature, device and OS compatibility. Pick one? Device. Ironically it is supposedly somewhere in my iTunes backup! Which would be fine but my old Mac/iTunes won't see my new iPhone either. Double screwed by Apple!

Steve bragged about never losing data since he used a particular utility. Now may I not lose iPhone 1 data simply because I upgraded Macs?

I thought not.

Rocketman

[Erwin-Br]

Originally Posted by NorCalLights

At the risk of feeding the troll...

Are you aware that Gatekeeper is optional for the user, and developer "keys" are free from Apple for devs who choose to distribute their apps outside of the Mac App Store?

So...

You have to pay $99 to get in the Mac Developer program, so the keys are not free even if you decide not to use the store.

Gatekeeper is indeed optional, but the default setting is "ON", which is at least a minor hurdle, especially for the not so savvy users. Let's hope the setting is easily located, and it will be made clear to the user that it's this setting that prevents a program from being installed.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by NorCalLights

At the risk of feeding the troll...

Are you aware that Gatekeeper is optional for the user, and developer "keys" are free from Apple for devs who choose to distribute their apps outside of the Mac App Store?

So...

So... it's amazing how certain types on here like to call people names when they don't like what they have to say.

I gave my reasons for disliking Gatekeeper in another thread (the one on Mountain Lion). In short, it's one more step to making the Mac just like the iPhone. Defaulting to App store ONLY is a sure way to get know-nothing types to only use the App Store which in turn leads to a very real decreased user base for regular/traditionally distributed programs which in turn leads to more developers being forced to cater to Apple's every whim (in order to maximize their potential user base and sales) on what you can and cannot post on their store (not to mention giving 1/3 of all your developer profits to them for no reason other than they have pushed the market away from traditional sales by said defaulting to App Store only). In turn, you have less features, less software to choose from (especially in certain categories) and one might easily conjecture you will eventually have NO option to turn it off in the next version or two of OSX (each baby step towards that goal with no complaints from people like you tells them it's OK to keep going).

If that's a troll, then I'm Bob Barker. The question is what it makes you and I think we both know the answer to that.

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

I guess this will be another "dumbing down" thread.

Anyone who was using X11 on OS X (myself included) never really bothered with Apple's version anyhow and went straight to XQuartz.

I understand what you are saying, and, for solitary/small office developers, it may not matter much. But, in the Enterprise, this is a big deal. The fact that Apple supports X11 in Snow Leopard really helps legitimize X11 apps in enterprise environments. This is just another example of how tone deaf Apple is becoming to enterprise requirements. (Another example in a long list.) Frustrating.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by jnpy!$4g3cwk

I understand what you are saying, and, for solitary/small office developers, it may not matter much. But, in the Enterprise, this is a big deal. The fact that Apple supports X11 in Snow Leopard really helps legitimize X11 apps in enterprise environments. This is just another example of how tone deaf Apple is becoming to enterprise requirements. (Another example in a long list.) Frustrating.

Uh ? How is it an issue in Enterprise exactly ? XQuartz isn't limited to running only on hobbyist computers. I really don't see the issue for "enterprise" here. If we had Mac clients where I work and required X11 support on them (we use Hummingbird Exceed on Windows for X11 support right now for the Unix administrators, integrators and developers), we would simply use XQuartz.

[eagandale4114]

Originally Posted by MagnusVonMagnum

So... it's amazing how certain types on here like to call people names when they don't like what they have to say.

I gave my reasons for disliking Gatekeeper in another thread (the one on Mountain Lion). In short, it's one more step to making the Mac just like the iPhone. Defaulting to App store ONLY is a sure way to get know-nothing types to only use the App Store which in turn leads to a very real decreased user base for regular/traditionally distributed programs which in turn leads to more developers being forced to cater to Apple's every whim (in order to maximize their potential user base and sales) on what you can and cannot post on their store (not to mention giving 1/3 of all your developer profits to them for no reason other than they have pushed the market away from traditional sales by said defaulting to App Store only). In turn, you have less features, less software to choose from (especially in certain categories) and one might easily conjecture you will eventually have NO option to turn it off in the next version or two of OSX (each baby step towards that goal with no complaints from people like you tells them it's OK to keep going).

If that's a troll, then I'm Bob Barker. The question is what it makes you and I think we both know the answer to that.

You don't need to go via the mac app store and pay apple. You just ask apple for a FREE code signature. Apple does not check your app and it doesn't control the content.
And the default setting is Mac app store downloads an downloads with a valid signature that has not been tampered with.

[Z3Rt]

Just because they don't support it doesn't mean you can use it on Mountain Lion. You just go dig through the contents of your Lion iso and extract it and drag that **** over to Mountain Lion, they didn't block you from using it they just don't support it.

[dccorona]

This isn't a big deal as long as it is still available. I need X11 for school (we do all of our development for class in a linux environment over SSH, and the text editor I prefer requires X11 forwarding)

If its just not available at all...well, thats a deal breaker unfortunately

[bwillwall]

Am I the only one that wishes Apple would stop constantly dropping support for old applications? It makes upgrading painful I miss rosetta and X11 will probably run some things that the other versions won't. Actually... maybe this should be for the developers... KEEP YOUR FREAKING APPLICATIONS UP TO DATE

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by eagandale4114

You don't need to go via the mac app store and pay apple. You just ask apple for a FREE code signature. Apple does not check your app and it doesn't control the content.
And the default setting is Mac app store downloads an downloads with a valid signature that has not been tampered with.

And what if they decide they don't want to give free code signatures if they don't approve of your content for whatever reason (competes against their product, too adult, does something one of their advertisers doesn't like, etc.)? They exercise that type of every day on the App Store. They might not do this today and they might not do this tomorrow, but they can start doing it any time they feel like it. It's like having to ask permission to go to the bathroom. What are you going to do if they say NO? They are putting the controls to enable this in OSX right NOW not tomorrow.

Nevermind. Be naive.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by bwillwall

Am I the only one that wishes Apple would stop constantly dropping support for old applications? It makes upgrading painful I miss rosetta and X11 will probably run some things that the other versions won't. Actually... maybe this should be for the developers... KEEP YOUR FREAKING APPLICATIONS UP TO DATE

X11 applications are up to date. Apple is not dropping support for old applications by dropping their implementation of X11, they are simply moving users to a better maintained implementation in XQuartz.

What's so hard to get here ? This is not Rosetta. X11 applications will continue to work as long as the folks behind XQuartz or any other X11 implementation for OS X continue to provide such implementations.

This is more akin to the Java situation in which Apple was poorly acting as a gatekeeper of the product and preferred to hand over the reigns back to Oracle. And this is how it should be anyway.

[Luis Ortega]

This just gets more pathetic each day.
Apple is hellbent on turning everyone into ios gadget media consumers- which can only be bought from them- and all the fanboys can do is trip over themselves to rationalize every stupid move apple makes.
The days of Macs as serious working machines are over.
The future for apple computer users is bleak.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Luis Ortega

This just gets more pathetic each day.
Apple is hellbent on turning everyone into ios gadget media consumers- which can only be bought from them- and all the fanboys can do is trip over themselves to rationalize every stupid move apple makes.
The days of Macs as serious working machines are over.
The future for apple computer users is bleak.

Because you actually used X11.app instead of XQuartz ?

Really ?

[babyj]

Originally Posted by Luis Ortega

Apple is hellbent on turning everyone into ios gadget media consumers. The days of Macs as serious working machines are over. The future for apple computer users is bleak.

I don't get the negativity over this. I use my Mac for work, wouldn't use anything else and think the direction Apple are moving in is great. It makes my life easier for all the day to day stuff and if there is something it can't do I just fire up a virtual machine under Fusion to run Windows, Linux or vSphere.

Mac sales are continuing to grow so Apple must be doing something right - they're in business to make money, not to keep a few specialist users happy.

[jeremyhu]

Originally Posted by Molecule

Like I said, it's those X11 quirks that make it unusable on the Mac for me, namely having to click on a window - such as the toolbox - and then click on the tool you want, then click back on the main window and then click where you want to use said tool. That doubles the amount of mouse clicks needed to perform an operation.

Goto X11->Preferences->Windows and turn on "Click through inactive windows"

It also takes a million years to launch, because of the need to launch X11 first. And it feels somewhat sluggish (or at least it did back when I was still using it), again largely due to the fact that it needs to have X11 running on top of OS X, eating up valuable memory and CPU cycles.

If they made a fully-native OS X version of GIMP, sans-X11 dependency, it would be fantastic. But in absence of that it's useless for me.

I think there's work being done on that, but I don't really follow it.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by jeremyhu

I think there's work being done on that, but I don't really follow it.

Anyway, the length of time it takes to launch Gimp on Mac has nothing to do with having to "load X11 up first". My X11 is always active (on account of my SSH forwarding X11 which automatically launches it everytime I log somewhere) and Gimp takes a hell of a long time to load.

Gimp takes a hell of a long time to load on Windows and Linux too.

[jeremyhu]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Okay! I get it. There are issues, file bug reports.

Here's a bug report. Add more backward feature, device and OS compatibility. Pick one? Device. Ironically it is supposedly somewhere in my iTunes backup! Which would be fine but my old Mac/iTunes won't see my new iPhone either. Double screwed by Apple!

Steve bragged about never losing data since he used a particular utility. Now may I not lose iPhone 1 data simply because I upgraded Macs?

I thought not.

Rocketman

I'm not sure what you're reporting here, but it sounds like you had problems with trying to sync your phone with a new system. It sounds like you started fresh with a new iTunes library instead of migrating from your old system. You can still migrate from your old system using the migration assistant.

Also, you can solve that by syncing with iCloud instead of your computer.

[gkroeger]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Okay! I get it. There are issues, file bug reports.

Here's a bug report. Add more backward feature, device and OS compatibility. Pick one? Device. Ironically it is supposedly somewhere in my iTunes backup! Which would be fine but my old Mac/iTunes won't see my new iPhone either. Double screwed by Apple!

Steve bragged about never losing data since he used a particular utility. Now may I not lose iPhone 1 data simply because I upgraded Macs?

I thought not.

Rocketman

And this rant has what to do with X11?

[Molecule]

Originally Posted by jeremyhu

Goto X11->Preferences->Windows and turn on "Click through inactive windows"

Well, I suppose that might help.

Originally Posted by jeremyhu

I think there's work being done on that, but I don't really follow it.

Yes, I believe there is/was a project to create a version of GIMP that wasn't reliant on X. Last time I checked (which admittedly was quite a while back) it was nowhere near usable though.

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Originally Posted by Winni

And in the next installment, you will enlighten us why people should use proprietary, closed source pay-for software when there is an Open Source alternative available that works perfectly fine on almost all known operating systems - except for OS X.

You see, not everybody has spare money to spend on or even WANTS to spend hard-earned cash for proprietary software when the free alternative is good enough.

But that is the issue in Mac land: If you want something that works, in most cases you have to pay for it. A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there.

That being said, yes, Pixelmator is a well working, affordable alternative to The GIMP and in most cases even for Adobe Photoshop. Since the Mac is no longer a professional platform but a consumer platform, we don't even have to compare software with the high-end Adobe applications anymore because Apple very obviously no longer cares for professional users. Those are are better off with Windows. Or Linux, depending on the sector they work in.

In two years from now, people will probably discuss how they can jailbreak their Macs in order to install software that did not get Apple's blessing. This is where this all is going.

I'd respond point by point, but really there's no need - I agree with pretty much 100% of what you said there.