I personally hate having to specifically start Apple's X11 when I log into a machine, and in a lab administration setting, it is not ideal either. Here's how to make X11 Beta 3 run in the background of 10.2.5, invisible to the user. It's a collection of known hints and tricks. NOTE: This will affect all users on a machine.
- Turn off X11's Quit Warning Dialog Box. Type defaults write com.apple.x11 no_quit_alert true in a Terminal.
- Make X11 run without dock icon or menu bar. If you have the OS X Developer Tools installed:
- Control-click on X11.app in the Finder and select "Show Package Contents"
- Open Contents and open "Info.plist" in Property List Editor.
- Open root and click "New Sibling" with Property "LSUIElement" and String "1" as the value.
- Save and quit.
- (Optional) If you don't have a .xinitrc file, get one. Type cp /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc ~/.xinitrc to copy an existing one.
- (Optional) Modify the .xinitrc file to lose startup programs. Type pico ~/.xinitrc in Terminal. Go down to where it says start some nice programs and put a # in front of xterm & (Result: # xterm &).
- Enable Terminal to open X11 apps. Type cat >> ~/.login and hit return in Terminal. Then type setenv DISPLAY :0 and hit return, then hit Control-D.
- Add X11 to the user's Startup Items, or implement a login hook to do so (see previous hint).
- Log out and log in, then try running an X11 program from Terminal.
[
robg adds: I have not tested this one myself...]