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Enabling Apple's Aqua window manager for X11 UNIX
I installed the Apple X11 system that was released today and found that it comes with a neat window manager called aqua-wm.

I had a previous version of X11 installed, so this hint might not apply to virgin installs (i.e.; aqua-wm might be your default window manager already) [Editor's note: Yes, fresh installs default to the Aqua window manager.]

For those that might have had other window managers installed from a previous X11 install, or just want to know how to change window managers, do the following:

Open a terminal session. In your home directory, copy the hidden file .xinitrc to .xinitrc.save, then edit .xinitrc with vi or your favorite text editor.
 % cp .xinitrc .xinitrc.save
% vi .xinitrc
At the bottom of the file, you'll see the following:
 # start some nice programs

twm &
xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
# exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login
Remove the line 'twm &' and add the following in its place:
 /usr/X11R6/bin/quartz-wm &
Now when you start X11, you'll get the nifty aqua-wm which will minimize to the dock, have the title bars like Aqua, etc. You can add and delete the other lines in the .xinitrc file to not start the clock and xterms, or start other items instead.

[Editor's note: I thought I had installed over an old XFree86 install, but perhaps I had deleted my .xinitrc first, as I definitely got aqua-wm on my first X11 launch.]
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Enabling Apple's Aqua window manager for X11 | 4 comments | Create New Account
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No .xinitrc here either
Authored by: Han Solo on Jan 10, '03 02:49:28PM
Rob mentions that -- to his apparent surprise -- he did not have a .xinitrc file in his home directory from a prior XFree86 install. I don't either -- and I haven't installed Apple's X11 yet. Not sure why some some people have this file and others do not. I'm rather certain I didn't delete it (at least not intentionally) earlier. locate did turn up a file named xinitrc (notice, no leading dot) in the /etc/X11/xinit/ directory (and several soft links elsewhere pointing to this file) that do have a syntax similar to that mentioned in this hint.

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~/.xinitrc is created by the user
Authored by: johnblommers on Jan 10, '03 09:38:08PM

/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is the system default for XFree86 and OroborOSX and I made a copy of it and placed it in my home directory, adding a dot in front of its name. The X11 system reads this .xinitrc file preferentially over the system-wide xinitrc. I put in some customizations that I wanted.

Now Apple's X11 product is supposed to be based on XFree86, and I recall reading about some install-time option that allowed my own customization to remain in effect. So I was using twm as before. Luckily I spotted quartz-wm runing on another machine that I had NOT customized and made the switch. It now works just like OroborOSX does - regarding look and feel at least.



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Dang what Aqua-wm
Authored by: WillyT on Jan 10, '03 11:47:41PM

I downloaded all that stuff again and couldn't find Aqua-wm only quartz-wm. Then I read the hint a little closer its not Aqua-wm only quartz-wm. Went looking for what I already had.



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Enabling Apple's Aqua window manager for X11
Authored by: mayaguezcoqui on Mar 06, '03 05:51:14PM

Hi,

I just tried changing the line in my .xinitrc file as suggested in your hint, and XDarwin just bombs. (I've been able to use Xfree86 and XDarwin with twm or windowmaker just fine.)

I also have never been able to get the exporting display business for unix apps to work either. Think they may be connected?

Thanks!



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