Another, Another Mac Question - X11 what is it.

[vex]

Been trying to get to grips with SEAHORSE rather than go through GIMP as I did not know what X11 was.

But it is a little harder than I expected to get to grips with.

Is GIMP closer to Photoshop, What is X11 and how do I get it onto my Core Duo Intel Mac?

Chris

[Plotloss]

X-Windows I believe.

The Linux GUI

As OSX is a *nix based operating system under the covers.

The GiMP should work on a Mac, the cuddly Mac interface is just the Apple equivalent of X11

[PJ S]

X-11 is supplied on one of the discs that came with your Mac.
You can install it from there should you want to.

[ThePassenger]

X11 is a tricky one to explain. Think of *nix as being a layered approach to things with each layer being highly specialised.

X11 is the layer that handles the absolute basic functionality of a GUI, it handles things like drawing a window, mouse control, etc etc.

On OS X, you need X11 installed to run things like GIMP. Having said that though their is quite a performance hit in doing so. Or at least is on my old iMac.

[zumbruk]

More than you ever wanted to know about X-Windows;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window

Be warned, it's effing gigantic (about 320Mb on my Sun).

[qube_TA]

Essentially X11 is the graphics engine that sits behind a GUI, the GUI tells X11 what graphics to draw.

There are loads of different GUI's for *nix based OSes which all look different but all use X11 to make them work.

Matthew

[ThePassenger]

qube_TA said:

Essentially X11 is the graphics engine that sits behind a GUI, the GUI tells X11 what graphics to draw.

There are loads of different GUI's for *nix based OSes which all look different but all use X11 to make them work.

Matthew

^^^^ Summed up better than I did

[vex]

Thanks, How do people find GIMP, is it easy to use if you are coming across from a basic knowledge of PS Elements?

[woodies92]

I use gimpshop on my macbook and it's much easier to use than gimpshopif you're familiar with photoshop>its also free and also needs x11 but i haven't had any problems since installing it.

Woody

[HiRich]

If you are after free/cheap graphics work, have you tried Graphic Converter at www.lemkesoft.com ? Free, if you can live with a 30 second splash screen, and the guilt.

[robbieduncan]

If you want the power and flexibility of the GIMP but want a proper OSX GUI then you could try Seashore which uses the GIMP graphics code but with a proper non-X11 GUI.