Macs have shipped with the X Window System, or X11, ever since the release of OS X 10.3 (Panther) in 2003. For those of you who are unfamiliar with X11, it is a means of providing a graphical user interface for certain applications, mostly Linux based. The implementation of X11 in OS X allows the user to run apps ported from Linux, or that rely heavily on the X Window System, with ease and stability.
OS X Mountain Lion will have support for the more frequently updated open source XQuartz rather than X11, and I really like the sound of that. I’ve always been a fan of open source software simply because of the large support communities and frequent updates. Like I’ve said before, I was an avid Linux user before making the switch over to OS X, so a lot of the applications I’m familiar with are based on X11.
Image courtesy of http://osx.iusethis.com/
For example, I use the GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP for any and all graphical work; even the header of this blog. Upon switching to OS X, I wasn’t about to pay a fortune for Photoshop when the GIMP was already just as powerful, and free. So, I grabbed the Mac version of GIMP and ran it under X11. The only thing was, on Lion, the official X11 was packed full of annoying bugs, and at one point X11 wouldn’t even run at all. That’s when I made the switch to XQuartz, and I haven’t looked back since.
For the average end user there are no noticeable aesthetic differences between the two, but it seems like the official X11 is no longer getting along with current versions of OS X, where XQuartz is running damn near flawlessly.
For more information on XQuartz, visit: http://xquartz.macosforge.org/
February 27th, 2012 at 6:32 PM
It’s unclear whether GIMP runs with XQuartz. I too use GIMP, but since learning X11 will no longer come with OS X (Mountain Lion), it’s the only thing causing concern with it. Please clarify. Thanks, Sebastian
February 27th, 2012 at 6:50 PM
I replaced my X11 installation with XQuartz months ago, and GIMP has been working flawlessly for me. As long as everything’s up to date, you shouldn’t have any problems running gimp with XQuartz. I actually prefer XQuartz over the basic x11 installation just because it has a much more active development cycle.
You can install XQuarts without getting rid of x11 if you want to check it out – here’s the link: http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/X112.7.1