CST 334
Lecture 8
X Window (see handout)
X-Window is a Unix graphical system that provides for a Windows-like computing environment (XWindow is older than Windows!) It is a program AND a protocol for exchanging graphical data
between operating systems.
Some key terms: Definitions can be found in online tutorial at:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XWindow-Overview-HOWTO/
GUI—Graphical User Interface
X Server
X Client
Window Manager
Desktop Environment
KDE
GNOME
STARTING UP XWINDOW
normally you will log into Linux graphically. On some machines with text login, you will type startx
SOME WINDOW MANAGERS
(small) twm, fvwm… sawfish, afterstep (large)
Some basic X applications & utilities:
(which may or may not be installed on Fedora Core 4)
xemacs – emacs for the windows clientele
xclock (xdaliclock?) – simple clock utility
xman – man pages in graphical format. If the little box it starts with gets annoying, launch it with
the -notopbox option.
xmag - A magnifying glass for X, with a couple other useful features.
xfig – a simple vector graphics utility
xpaint - Basic bitmap painting program, for any real work you should grab GIMP.
xcpustate - Displays CPU state (idle, nice, system, kernel) statistics, as well as Ethernet info
xload - Monitor your memory usage with a moving graph or the lights on your keyboard! If you
use Window Maker, look for wmmon to do the same, but prettier.
Advanced Text Formating using latex and xdvi
Star Office, Ghostview
copy TRM*.ps to your home directory
latex TRM*.ps makes a .dvi file
xdvi TRM*.dvi opens in xdvi
Screen Captures
KSnapshot (under graphics), or
import –border –frame –colorspace GRAY image_name.jpg, click on window you want to capture
Remote X-Windows
(security vulnerability, sniffers can detect, private LAN OK)
You must do two things to achieve all this:
1. Tell the local display (the server) to accept connections from the remote computer.
2. Tell the remote application (the client) to direct its output to your local display.
(This probably won’t work due to firewalls)
Suppose mlc104.csumb.edu is local server, and terra.mpc.edu is the remote computer.
On mlc104, typing the command xhost +terra.mpc.edu will allow mlc104’s X-Server to
receive X requests from clients on terra.
Now, if you ssh into terra, and set your DISPLAY variable (more on environment variables later)
DISPLAY=mlc104.csumb.edu:0; export DISPLAY
You can then run a command, such as xclock & on terra and see the display on your mlc104 X
session display.
X Screen Savers
http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/