X Window System

What is X Window System?

The X Window System is a network-transparent window system which runs on a wide range of computing and graphics machines. The X Window System was originally developed by the MIT X Consortium. Current X Window System development is done through the X Consortium. The X Consortium is an independent, not-for-profit corporation, the successor to the MIT X Consortium, which was part of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science.

How to Use

When you login into the console (physically on the machine) you are automatically placed in the X Window System.

Occasionally you will find it necessary to rlogin into another machine and you will want to display the program you are running back to your machine. This is done by setting the environment variable DISPLAY to equal your machine name. For example:

% rlogin anothermachine
% setenv DISPLAY yourmachinename:0.0
% run_the_program
If you get a message about not being able to connect to your X Display or "access denied." Try doing the following in another one of your windows:
% xhost +

Availability

The X Window System is available on the Suns, SGIs, and IBMs.


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