X Window System - Video hardware

CVS  () [+/-] In computing, the X Window System (commonly X11 or X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays. It provides the standard toolkit and protocol to build graphical user interfaces on Unix, Unix-like operating systems, and OpenVMS; and almost all modern operating systems support it. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the screen and interacting with a mouse and keyboard. X does not manda ...

Including:

• X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency
• X Window System - Design principles of X
• X Window System - User interfaces
• X Window System - Implementations
• X Window System - X terminals
• X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X
• X Window System - Video hardware
• X Window System - User interface features
• X Window System - Network
• X Window System - Competitors to X
• X Window System - History
• X Window System - Predecessors
• X Window System - Origin and early development
• X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc.
• X Window System - The Open Group
• X Window System - X.Org and XFree86
• X Window System - The X.Org Foundation
• X Window System - Future directions
• X Window System - Nomenclature
• X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia - X Window System

X Window System - Predecessors. Several bitmap display systems preceded X. From Xerox came the Alto (1973) and the Star (1981). From Apple came the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh (1984). In the Unix world there was the Andrew Project (1982) and Rob Pike's Blit terminal (1984). X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system called W (the letter X directly following W in the Latin alphabet). W ran under the V operating system. W used a network protocol supporting terminal and graphics windows, the server maintaining display lists. X Window Sy ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - History

X Window System - Predecessors. Several bitmap display systems preceded X. From Xerox came the Alto (1973) and the Star (1981). From Apple came the Lisa (1983) and the Macintosh (1984). The Unix world had the Andrew Project (1982) and Rob Pike's Blit terminal (1984). X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system called W (the letter X directly following W in the Latin alphabet). W Window System ran under the V operating system. W used a network protocol supporting terminal and graphics windows, the server maintaining display lists. X Window Sy ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - History

With the X.Org Foundation and freedesktop.org, the main line of X development has started to progress rapidly once more. The developers intend to release present and future versions as usable finished products, not merely as bases for vendors to build a product upon. X.Org has separated the architecture of the reference implementation into independent modules, each maintainable in separate projects. X11R6.9 provides the monolithic source code for legacy users, but X11R7.0 contains a modular build system for the same set of features [2 ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Future directions

Unix-like systems use X almost universally for graphics. Nevertheless, some people have attempted writing alternatives to and replacements for X. Historical alternatives include Sun's NeWS, which failed in the market, and NeXT's Display PostScript, which eventually became Apple's Quartz for Mac OS X. Modern attempts to address criticisms of X by replacing it completely include Berlin/Fresco and the Y Window System. These alternatives have seen negligible take-up, however, and commentators widely doubt the viability of any replacement that do ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Competitors to X

Unix-like systems use X almost universally for graphics. Nevertheless, some people have attempted writing alternatives to and replacements for X. Historical alternatives include Sun's NeWS, which failed in the market, and NeXT's Display PostScript, which was eventually turned into Apple's Quartz for Mac OS X. Modern attempts to address criticisms of X by replacing it completely include Berlin/Fresco and the Y Window System. These alternatives have seen negligible take-up, however, and the viability of any replacement that i ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Competitors to X

In 1984, Bob Scheifler and Jim Gettys set out the early principles of X: Do not add new functionality unless an implementor cannot complete a real application without it. It is as important to decide what a system is not as to decide what it is. Do not serve all the world's needs; rather, make the system extensible so that additional needs can be met in an upwardly compatible fashion. The only thing worse than generalizing from one example is generalizing from no examples at all. < ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Design principles of X

X deliberately contains no specification as to application user interface, such as buttons, menus, window title bars and so on. Instead, user software - such as window managers, GUI widget toolkits and desktop environments, or application-specific GUIs, such as point of sale - provide/define all such details. As such, the "typical" X interface has varied tremendously over the years. A window manager controls the placement and appearance of application windows. This may have an interface akin to that of Microsoft Windows or of the Maci ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - User interfaces

The X.Org reference implementation serves as the canonical implementation of X. Due to the liberal licensing, a number of variations, both free and proprietary, have appeared. Commercial UNIX vendors have tended to take the reference implementation and adapt it for their hardware, usually customising it heavily and adding proprietary extensions. Up to 2004, XFree86 provided the most common X variant on free Unix-like systems. XFree86 started as a port of X for 386-compatible PCs and, by the end of the 1990s, had become the greatest so ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Implementations

The UNIX-HATERS Handbook devoted an entire chapter, "The X-Windows Disaster", to the problems of X in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Why X Is Not Our Ideal Window System (1990) by Gajewska, Manasse and McCormack detailed problems in the protocol with recommendations for improvement. X Window System - Video hardware. The performance edge for graphical computing is now in the most advanced graphics functions. Manufacturers typically implement these in proprietary drivers, generally writing for ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X

X uses a client-server model: an X server communicates with various client programs. The server accepts requests for graphical output (windows) and sends back user input (from keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen). The server may function as any one of: an application displaying to a window of another display system a system program controlling the video output of a PC a dedicated piece of hardware. This client-server terminology — the user's terminal as the "server", the remote applica ...

See also:

X Window System, X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency, X Window System - Design principles of X, X Window System - User interfaces, X Window System - Implementations, X Window System - X terminals, X Window System - Limitations and criticisms of X, X Window System - Video hardware, X Window System - User interface features, X Window System - Network, X Window System - Competitors to X, X Window System - History, X Window System - Predecessors, X Window System - Origin and early development, X Window System - The MIT X Consortium and the X Consortium Inc., X Window System - The Open Group, X Window System - X.Org and XFree86, X Window System - The X.Org Foundation, X Window System - Future directions, X Window System - Nomenclature, X Window System - Release history

Read more here: » X Window System: Encyclopedia II - X Window System - The X client-server model and network transparency