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

[gkroeger]

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]

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

Well, I suppose that might help.

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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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.

 

[VulchR]

...Most Unix software serves certain business needs and targets certain professions while most Mac users are... Consumers.

Speak for yourself on this point, but otherwise I agree with much in your post.

I am a scientist working in a UK university. The current implementation of X11 seems to work well for the specialist software we need to use. I do not really care how X programs run other than they run without having to go through a palava to set them up. If XQuartz is sufficiently compatible to allow this then great, but if it is not, or the effort to maintain XQuartz burns out when the developers lose interest, then I and many others in the universities will be annoyed and Apple's slice of the educational market will decrease.

 

[r.harris1]

Speak for yourself on this point, but otherwise I agree with much in your post.

I am a scientist working in a UK university. The current implementation of X11 seems to work well for the specialist software we need to use. I do not really care how X programs run other than they run without having to go through a palava to set them up. If XQuartz is sufficiently compatible to allow this then great, but if it is not, or the effort to maintain XQuartz burns out when the developers lose interest, then I and many others in the universities will be annoyed and Apple's slice of the educational market will decrease.

Start X11 on your Mac and go to "About X11". It should say something along the lines of XQuartz 2.6.3 (xorg-server 1.10.3), depending on your OS version. What this move gives you is the ability to have a more up-to-date version and isn't quite the end of the world that others have suggested.

 

[KnightWRX]

Speak for yourself on this point, but otherwise I agree with much in your post.

I am a scientist working in a UK university. The current implementation of X11 seems to work well for the specialist software we need to use. I do not really care how X programs run other than they run without having to go through a palava to set them up. If XQuartz is sufficiently compatible to allow this then great, but if it is not, or the effort to maintain XQuartz burns out when the developers lose interest, then I and many others in the universities will be annoyed and Apple's slice of the educational market will decrease.

XQuartz is a fully compatible X11 server. X11.app is XQuartz, just an older version.

 

[coolspot18]

Stuff like this should really be optional. Not everyone uses it.

But Apple has a tendency of pulling a major feature with LITTLE to NO lead time.

This is a reason why OSX will *NEVER* succeed in the enterprise.

For all the hate against Microsoft, at least they give users notice when they pull a major component.

Uh ? How is it an issue in Enterprise exactly ?

More testing, more work for the administrator... whereas previous versions had a perfectly fine X11 server built in.



Apple should inform the community of deprecated features at least 1+ versions ahead.

 

[John.B]

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.

Funny that a UNIX user declares Mac application market share to be insignificant.

My point stands, most UNIX software looks like it was designed by engineers. Even pretty Apple-style X11 window dressing wouldn't solve that.

Props to Apple for getting out of the X11 business and offloading that work to an (OBTW, Apple funded) open source project. Exactly the same approach they took with Java; anyone who didn't see this coming wasn't paying attention.

As for me, I couldn't be happier than to have retired my Solaris UltraSPARC five years ago for a Mac.

 

[KnightWRX]

More testing, more work for the administrator... whereas previous versions had a perfectly fine X11 server built in.

Sorry, but no. Any decent IT people were already using up to date XQuartz builds.

 

[Graig]

xQuartz X11 2.7.1

Is anyone here familiar with updating this on Lion? I have 2.6.3 which was installed with Lion. Not sure if one should be concerned with updating this as I seem to think it will need to be reinstalled after a system update.

 

[WM.]

Is anyone here familiar with updating this on Lion? I have 2.6.3 which was installed with Lion. Not sure if one should be concerned with updating this as I seem to think it will need to be reinstalled after a system update.

Since Snow Leopard, Xquartz installs alongside X11 instead of replacing it.

 

[attila]

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.

Excuse me? Professional work in GIMP?!

 

[KnightWRX]

Excuse me? Professional work in GIMP?!

Yes :

http://www.cinepaint.org/

Cinepaint is a fork of GIMP used in the movie industry. Surprising to some, I know.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Yes :

http://www.cinepaint.org/

Cinepaint is a fork of GIMP used in the movie industry. Surprising to some, I know.

Cinepaint is a pile. It has higher bit depth than standard GIMP and being a subset tailored for some in-house cinema it is extremely long in the tooth.

GEGL replaces everything that Cinepaint offered and much more.

GEGL is nowhere near ready and seeing as it's taken 6 years to move off the toilet, figuratively speaking, when it actually can take a shower, get dressed and go to work then GIMP can talk about Non-destructive editing, etc. [most likely another year away at the rate that team works].

Two guys with Pixelmator and OS X mature Frameworks are running circles around GTK+ and GIMP.

With both systems and actually following and using GIMP since 1998 it's growth and maturity has been a snail's pace.

Cinepaint has been stuck on 0.22 for 4 years.

They've obviously been doing work and recently announced the delay of 1.1.

Lots of promise with GEGL: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gegl/tree/NEWS

Great Features: http://gegl.org/#features

when it's ready.

GIMP 2.8 has taken at least 2 years and several features were nixed to get it out the door.

GIMP 2.10 is the first release with major features people used to Photoshop will be thrilled to test. At the rate upon which the team makes a .2 update it's at least 12 months after the 2.8 impending release.

Blender [GIMP calls it its fellow project] is smoking hot and have native support for OS X.

Blender 2.6.2 has the Cyles Render Engine, Multi-GPGPU with CUDA/OpenCL support, UV Tools, Motion Tracking, Carve Booleans, etc:

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-262/

and the BMesh entering the picture for 2.6.3 and currently in Trunk with all the hotness 2.6.2 provides it as a serious competitor to major proprietary projects.

The dev activity is massive and the donations are large. They've earned it.

GIMP is no Pixelmator. Two guys make tens of millions off of Pixelmator, leverage all the power of OS X with Grand Central, OpenCL, Quartz Compositing, etc., and to honestly proclaim it's a toy and GIMP is professional is way off base.

It'll be even more embarrassing if the guys at Pixelmator open up a mature extensions API ala Photoshop to open up a 3rd party add-on market.

The $29.99 for Pixelmator is obscenely low priced. I look forward to seeing what 2.1 adds to the app.

I look forward to GIMP 2.8 but my skeptic helmet has long forwarned me to be unimpressed with the ``feature additions.'' I'm glad they changed the UI, but that only took a decade of complaints to get it done.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Big Arguments

I find GIMP's UI to be utter rubbish to be honest. I find Corel Draw easier to use. GIMP's UI in no way facilitates learning. Tooltips are cryptic and terms are vague or schizophrenic. I could literally write an essay about how bad it is.

Blender is as you say brilliant, and for one of my paper's we are essentially making a Java XNA clone by extending the Blender Game Renderer.

 

[KnightWRX]

Cinepaint is a pile.

That wasn't the argument. The argument was that GIMP wasn't used for professional work, Cinepaint is and it's a fork of GIMP (originally it was known as FilmGimp).

Your opinion on the matter is noted but quite irrelevant to the discussion.

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I find GIMP's UI to be utter rubbish to be honest.

Good news everybody! That's why they are completely re-doing it at the moment in the 2.7 dev series and it will be the new feature in 2.8 which is set to launch late march.

But for now, there always is GimpShop : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop

 

[MorphingDragon]

That wasn't the argument. The argument was that GIMP wasn't used for professional work, Cinepaint is and it's a fork of GIMP (originally it was known as FilmGimp).

Your opinion on the matter is noted but quite irrelevant to the discussion.

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Good news everybody! That's why they are completely re-doing it at the moment in the 2.7 dev series and it will be the new feature in 2.8 which is set to launch late march.

But for now, there always is GimpShop : http://gimpshop.com/

Oh God, the last time a big open source project said they were improving the UI we ended up with GNOME3.

 

[KnightWRX]

Oh God, the last time a big open source project said they were improving the UI we ended up with GNOME3.

No need to wait for find out, just grab a package of GIMP 2.7. It's like a month away from release, it's pretty much ready.

 

[MorphingDragon]

No need to wait for find out, just grab a package of GIMP 2.7. It's like a month away from release, it's pretty much ready.

A Nominal Layout improvement. UI elements are still clunky.

 

[VulchR]

XQuartz is a fully compatible X11 server. X11.app is XQuartz, just an older version.

OK - then this all sounds fine.... As you can imagine, the UNIX-like tools and X Windows are a big draw for those of use relying on specialist software (indeed, it would be hard to justify the price of Mac's to university bean-counters without access to these tools). It's a little unnerving to hear things are changing, but it sounds like this is an update in essence rather than a deletion of a feature.

 

[BlkBear]

I'm curious - what are the most useful x11 applications?
The only ones I've used are Inkscape and GIMP

Have created a thread for that specific question here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1325628/

ssh -X

something I do fairly regularly. Some of us have Macs because they are Unix workstations. We expect them to have all the standard things a Unix workstation has...

I switched from Linux to OS X for my primary work computer because it is a Unix and it was less hassle (I occasionally need to use Microsoft Office, no worries about hardware support, etc). Now I have a MacBook Pro for my primary computer, but I also have a Linux workstation (12-core, 48GB RAM, 2 x Tesla C2075) and I use a HPC cluster daily, and I spend a fair amount of my time on my Mac in a terminal. If Apple continues to "dumb down" OS X I will probably abandon it for a work platform (I will probably still have a Mac at home, but will also run Linux for some consulting work).

 

[John.B]

ssh -X

something I do fairly regularly. Some of us have Macs because they are Unix workstations. We expect them to have all the standard things a Unix workstation has...

I switched from Linux to OS X for my primary work computer because it is a Unix and it was less hassle (I occasionally need to use Microsoft Office, no worries about hardware support, etc). Now I have a MacBook Pro for my primary computer, but I also have a Linux workstation (12-core, 48GB RAM, 2 x Tesla C2075) and I use a HPC cluster daily, and I spend a fair amount of my time on my Mac in a terminal. If Apple continues to "dumb down" OS X I will probably abandon it for a work platform (I will probably still have a Mac at home, but will also run Linux for some consulting work).

I don't really care what work computer you use (as long as I don't have to run Linux I'm happy) but there are some flaws in your assumptions.

They aren't dumbing down the platform. They're consolidating the work for XQuartz in one place, in the open source project where the work has been taking place all along. They are also funding it.

You'll still be able to ssh -X with XQuartz on ML just the same way you're probably doing it today on Lion or SL or whatever else.

 

[BlkBear]

I don't really care what work computer you use (as long as I don't have to run Linux I'm happy) but there are some flaws in your assumptions.

They aren't dumbing down the platform. They're consolidating the work for XQuartz in one place, in the open source project where the work has been taking place all along. They are also funding it.

You'll still be able to ssh -X with XQuartz on ML just the same way you're probably doing it today on Lion or SL or whatever else.

To some, it seems like they are downplaying the "Unix foundation" of OS X and are going to attempt to make OS X more iOS-like. Their focus is certainly the consumer market, they are completely neglecting the Mac Pro and it is pretty clear they don't care about all the people came to Mac from platforms like Solaris and Irix.

 

[r.harris1]

To some, it seems like they are downplaying the "Unix foundation" of OS X and are going to attempt to make OS X more iOS-like. Their focus is certainly the consumer market, they are completely neglecting the Mac Pro and it is pretty clear they don't care about all the people came to Mac from platforms like Solaris and Irix.

I disagree. I think to Apple it's more of a UI paradigm shift and ecosystem consolidation than some conscious caring (or not caring) about a particular segment of their user base. To me this makes sense from both a business and software development perspective. Both systems are derived off of Darwin and are both unix based. Why not combine UI elements and other ecosystem components where possible? And since Apple has always been focused on UI in general, it seems reasonable.

I come from a Solaris/Linux background and from a software engineering and database perspective, I'm still every bit as much productive today in Lion as I was in SL and will be just as productive in ML. And I'm one of those who likes Lion - it's been rock solid no matter what I've thrown at it, and with what I do in my day job it's a lot. I'm in terminals and various IDEs all day long and run graphics, cpu and memory intensive applications constantly and it performs like a champ. ML looks to be more of the same. Obviously, we all have an opinion

As for Mac Pro, I think the next 6 months will show more about that with new processors coming out. To me, the jury's still out.

 

[BlkBear]

I just think a Unix should come with an X server, but I guess there are a lot of consumers that don't care about X. Couldn't they bundle XQuartz and give us periodic updates through software update?

What's next, not including Terminal.app since most consumers don't care about the command line? How about Python, Perl, or Ruby? These are usually not as up to date as they could be.

 

[FluJunkie]

I don't really care what work computer you use (as long as I don't have to run Linux I'm happy) but there are some flaws in your assumptions.

They aren't dumbing down the platform. They're consolidating the work for XQuartz in one place, in the open source project where the work has been taking place all along. They are also funding it.

I think the concern - and it's a valid one - is that Apple divesting themselves of responsibility, even if there's something waiting to step up and take the reigns (as in this case) means we're one step closer to Apple divesting itself entirely.

It's a flawed argument, but between the long wait on the Mac Pro, things like the Science section of the Apple website still talking about Leopard, the Workgroup Cluster and 32-bit XGrid and mucking about with X11 support (even with no net impact), I don't necessarily blame some users from having a mild case of PTSD.