X Window System Release 6 jimc, 950623 The X Window System Release 6 (X11R6) has most of the features you are familiar with from X11R5, plus a number of enhancements and bug fixes. For a general introduction to X-windows, do "man X". Nearly all of the commands listed below have their own man pages too, which you should see for detailed operating instructions. Near the end there is a list of X11R5 clients that have been retired. The X-server on Sun workstations is now able to send keycodes so that, in conjunction with our recent termcap change for xterm, arrow keys work consistently and the numeric keypad produces digits if NumLock is pressed. Other symbolic keycodes such as Find, Prior and Next are now sent from the appropriate keys. On Solaris machines you now have the option of using Sun's Open Windows server with the display PostScript extension. See the end of this handout for details, and also details of how to run old X11R5 programs. We have also installed a new, tighter security procedure to prevent the pathetically easy privacy violations possible with host-based X security. See the accompanying handout "security" for details. Here is a list of all the X11R6 clients. * indicates new for X11R6. Commonly Used Applications xterm Terminal emulator for running serial (tty-based) apps like the shells. x3270 Like xterm but emulates IBM 3270 for use with admin mainframe. rxterm Start an xterm on another machine, propagating the magic cookie and the DISPLAY environment variable, so it will work. Special user friendly version written by Mathnet. xedit Simple window based editor, wrapper for the Athena text widget. axe Window based editor, nicer than xedit. gemacs Gnu Emacs will use X if available. It hogs both memory and CPU time; we recommend using "emacs" (Micro-Emacs) in an xterm. xman Man page (documentation) viewer. xclock A time of day clock. Analog and digital formats are available. dclock A digital clock with more features than xclock. oclock An analog clock with a round perimeter. xbiff Changes picture and beeps when new mail arrives. tkpostage* Xbiff imitation, changes picture and beeps when new mail arrives. xpostit Sticks little postit (tm) notes to your screen xmailtool Window based emulation of Berkeley Mail. xmh X interface to the Rand-MH mail system. mosaic World Wide Web viewer netscape World Wide Web viewer xrn News reader xcalc Calculator program. Can imitate the TI-30 (infix) or HP-10C (RPN) if you do "xcalc -rpn". hexcalc Hexadecimal calculator Other X Applications xcalendar* Shows a calendar by months; you can make notes about activities on each day. xdiary* Shows a calendar by months; you can make notes about activities on each day. xrolodex "Card file" of data about people you know. Includes xrolomatch. xdu* Execute as "du directory | xdu"; shows the output graphically with bars proportional to the file/directory sizes. xfontsel Easy visual solution to the problem of specifying X fonts. Do prespecify a font pattern since if you select "all" fonts it will fill up memory on X-terminals. xless View a file in a window, like "less" and "more". xdbx Debugger with graphical user interface. Only works on SunOS-4. xarchie Queries remote archive database for files available to download. xclipboard Holding area for clipboard selections from other clients. xcutsel Interface between cut buffer and selection. xmeter Strip chart of the load on one or more machines. Uses rstat daemon. More efficient than xload for multiple machines. xload Strip chart of the local machine's load. See also xmeter. Viewing and Printing Images xdvi Preview TeX dvi files. This version can display PostScript specials (included via \psfig) on the page using ghostview. ghostview Show PostScript pictures in an X window. ImageMagick* A package of image manipulation routines. Do "man ImageMagick" for an overview. Do "man convert" for a list of the 42 available image types. Components are: display Read various image formats and display the image. Also various transformations like resize, mirror, sharpen, dither, gamma correct, annotate with text, and many others, selected by command line switches, Xresources, or an interactive dialog box. Can write transformed image to a file; can set root background. import Extract the image from an existing X window and store as a file. animate Slide show of successive images, with color management. montage Join separate images into a tiled composite. mogrify Do the transformations described in "display" with output to a file. convert Read an image file in one format and write a different format. Look here for the list of available image formats. combine Combine images by overwriting one with the other, adding, difference, etc. segment "Inverse" of montage, extracts sub-images automatically. identify Report the format of an image file and check for corruption. xv Displays images in many formats such as GIF, JPEG. See also display (part of ImageMagick). xloadimage Image viewer in many formats, particularly old ones. Includes xsetbg and xview. SunOS-4 only. xfig Drawing images by hand, like a paint program. bitmap Bitmap editor (monochrome). Also atobm and bmtoa converters. pixmap* Editor for color bitmaps. xpr Convert an X window dump file to PostScript. xdpr will run xwd and pipe the result to xpr and lpr. xwd Dump contents of a window to a file. xwud Display a file produced by xwd. xshowcmap Shows the occupied slots in the colormap. xcoloredit Adjust colors using RGB sliders. xcol Viewing colors in pseudo-3D and substitute in program sources. Window Managers twm Window manager, currently popular. fvwm* A window manager, improvement on twm which uses less memory. Has a multi-page virtual desktop. ctwm* A window manager, improvement on twm. Has a multi-page virtual desktop. tvtwm* Window manager, an enhancement of twm with a multi-page virtual desktop. xsession* Session manager, performs some functions that window managers normally do but which are not logically "window operations". Session Management Tools xautolock Locks the screen if idle for a certain time. xidle Logs the person off if idle for a certain time. xlock Lock the screen. Locally hacked (rewritten) to work properly on X-terminals. xrdb Load or show the Xresources on the server. kbd_mode Reset the Sun console keyboard. Run after xinit in case the server crashes. Automatically handled at Mathnet by xdm. xmodmap Change the mappings for the keyboard and mouse. xset Set user preferences such as bell loudness or mouse speed. xsetroot Put a picture in the root window, or set its color. xcmsdb* Manages the color characterization data on the server. xstdcmap Put the server's colormap back to a standard configuration. resize Substitute correct rows and columns in TERMCAP. Only needed on brain-damaged xterms. xauth Manages the X authority (magic cookie) data. xhost Crude security method for X (we use xauth). xexit* Puts up a window saying "Logout". When you click on it, it sends polite close signals to all windows, then kills any that don't close, then exits. This replaces xlogout, for which there is a symbolic link to xexit. xdm Display manager, gets users to log in and starts their .xsession Games and Demos xlogo Demo showing a window with the X Consortium's X logo. ico Demo of bouncing icosahedron. maze Maze solving demo. xgas Demo of thermodynamics of an ideal gas. x11perf Benchmark tests for the X-server. x11perfcomp Given several output files from x11perf, merges them into a neat report. xieperf* Test and demo for the XIE extension. xrubik* Rubik's cube game. kklondike* "Standard" single deck solitaire card game. kspider* Double deck solitaire card game xreversi* Board game also known as Othello (tm). xmille* Mille Bournes game of chance The above four games come in a package but unfortunately the others dumped core on Solaris, possibly due to ANSI "C" conflicts. xphoon Picture of the moon in the root window xearth* Puts a picture of the Earth on the root window. It rotates. xmandel* Computes Mandelbrot and Julia sets. Computationally expensive so run it on your own workstation, please. Needs color. oneko Stupid little cat that follows the cursor around. I'd like to get rid of it but there will probably be complaints. xeyes Our favorite screen clutter program at 300 Kbytes each. Font Management Tools (see also xfontsel) xfed Font glyph editor. bdftopcf* Convert font data from bdf to pcf format (replaces bdftosnf). showfont* Shows various technical data about a font. fsinfo* Show administrative data about the font server. fslsfonts* List fonts known to a font server, similar to xlsfonts. fstobdf* Download a font from a font server, writing it as a bdf file. mkfontdir Creates the required index of (private) fonts in a directory. xfd Show font glyphs neatly in a window. xfs The font server. xlsfonts List on stdout the names of all known fonts. Window Technical Information xdpyinfo Show technical information about the display xwininfo Display technical data about a window. xprop Show various properties of a window or a font. Resource Analysis and Management (see also xrdb). "Resource" refers to customization data such as colors and font choices. appres Show on stdout the resources that an app would be getting from the X-server and/or its app-defaults file. listres Print on standard output the resources for the X widgets. See also viewres. viewres View the resources of the X widgets with a graphical display. editres* Interactive editor to extract the resources used by an Xt app, modify them, apply them in real time to the widget, and place in the user's .Xresources file. (Realtime application only works on some widgets.) xkeycaps Graphical method to generate xmodmap command sequences to rearrange your keyboard. xdvorak* Rearranges your keymap to the Dvorak layout, or restores qwerty. Miscellaneous Script Components (see also xexit) dox* Command line executor for many xlib atomic operations. xcmdmenu* Puts up a menu of buttons, each of which will run a program. xmessage Show a short message; user responds by clicking one or more buttons. xprompt Pop up a window into which the user can enter text, for scripts. wish "Window Shell" for the tcl/tk script language. We also have tclsh which does tcl without tk (windows). This is tk4.0. expectk An extension of wish to manage subprocesses and pseudottys. We also have expect, which does tcl without tk (windows). Debugging Tools xev X debugging tool, prints on stdout every X event it receives. xmag Show a magnified view of a portion of the screen. Really Miscellaneous Stuff xcolorize* Provides pretty background colors for otherwise monochrome apps. xcolors Displays a giant window with up to 256 color chips on it. xpm library Support for colored bitmaps in several programs. a2x* X interface to DragonDictate (which we don't have). If you're blind, inquire about this package. iceauth* Authority controller for ICE. imake Generate a Makefile by merging templates with the Imakefile. xmkmf Generate a Makefile suitable for compiling an X app on your system, using imake. startx Start an X-server and clients. Not for Mathnet; we use xdm. xinit For starting an X session. Not for Mathnet; we use xdm. xkill Kill a window. xlsatoms Prints names and numeric codes of atoms known to the X-server. xlsclients List all clients that are using the display. xconsole Intercepts the console datastream; pops up when a console message is written. xon Old version of xrsh. xrefresh Force sreeen redisplay. xrlogin Start a local xterm and make it rlogin (or telnet) to a host. xrsh Do rsh on a remote host, propagating necessary environment. X11R5 clients that are not going to be available with X11R6. The "English- only policy" is that the programming staff is not supposed to do any work to provide support for languages other than English. The reason is that there are so many possibilities (Katakana, Hangul, Kanji-Hanzi-Guo Yue, Cyrillic, Thai, etc.) that we can't keep up with them. auto_box display a rotating cube using PHIGS. No PHIGS support. bdftops No man page, probably converts a font to printable PostScript bdftosnf Convert font to snf; X11R6 uses pcf instead. beach_ball display a bouncing sphere using PHIGS. No PHIGS support. bitimp No man page. font2c No man page gsnd No man page gxditview display gtroff output files. We don't actively support roff. kterm Japanese (Kanji) xterm. Dropped due to English-only policy. fr-koi7 No man page; part of Cyrillic support. to-koi7 No man page; part of Cyrillic support. muncher Demo of a plaid-like design that saturates your server. pfbtogs No man page plaid Demo of a plaid design plbpex PEX benchmark. No PEX support. puzzle Puzzle of 15 tiles in 4x4 array. rcmd use xrsh showsnf No man page, probably shows SNF font. ssetroot No man page, probably moldy oldy root window setter. Use display from ImageMagick. sxpm Show X Pixmap file. Since it isn't in the XPM distribution, we don't need it. Use "pixmap" to view/edit file, or use "display" from ImageMagick. x10tox11 Pseudo X-server so X10 clients can run under X11. Forget it. xcpustate Bargraph of CPU idle/user/system times. CPU hog. xcyr Cyrillic font package. Dropped due to English-only policy. xditview Previewer for ditroff output. We don't actively support roff. xgrab Grab a rectangular screen area. Use "import" of ImageMagick. xgopher Network information browser. Uses TextSinkPart::font which is not in X11R6. (Xaw/TextSinkP.h) So doesn't compile. Too bad. xlswins List non-useful data about all the windows on the display. xmenu Use xcmdmenu. xmoon See xphoon. xmosaic Symbolic link pointing nowhere. See mosaic. xncdinit No man page. xnetlib For locating and downloading files from Dongarra's Netlib. Uses TextSinkPart::font which is not in X11R6.(Xaw/TextSinkP.h) Also I found the X11R5 version to be flaky. No further effort. xnetload Use xmeter xperfmon Use xmeter xplaces Use xlsclients xps Not installed on all machines (whatever it does). No man page. xsetbg No man page, probably moldy oldy root window setter. Use display from ImageMagick. xskel Mouse tester?? No man page. Clients which are supposed to be installed but which haven't been finished. xrlogin Supposed to be installed. Find it. xshowcmap Supposed to be installed. xdaliclock Need to build for Solaris. The following programs are linked with the X11R5 libraries. They should work OK until new versions are compiled with X11R6. Cgm_edit NCARG -- need to rebuild for X11R6 (old vers should work) Idt NCARG gnuplot_x11 Need to build gs Ghostscript entry point (already have ghostview) oleo Spreadsheet, need to rebuild. Special X11 setups: On Solaris machines only, you can use the Sun Open Windows server. To activate it, on the login screen click on the Openwin button in the menu on the lower right corner. To return to the MIT-Athena X11R6 server, select Athena. The Openwin server has a display PostScript extension, and in consequence is somewhat of a memory hog. To run Openwin software, do "setenv OPENWINHOME /usr/openwin", and put /usr/openwin/bin on your path ahead of /usr/bin/X11. Most openwin software needs nonstandard services of the Open Look Window Manager (olwm), e.g. to close dialog boxes. On Mathnet (not PIC), a complete set of X11R5 software has been preserved in /usr/X11R5/{bin, lib, include}. You may use it if you wish. The X11R5 shared libraries remain in /usr/lib so that packaged software will still run.