I have had X11 installed on my Mac for quite some time (as long as I have owned it I think) and have never used it. Do applications still use X11 or is out outdated at this point? Should I "learn" how to use it because I may use it in the future? The reason I ask is that I read that you can run X over SSH and I thought it might be useful to run a window manager to get some graphics from a remote machine. Then I realized I have never used X11 and launched it only to become confused. So should I use X11 and why?
Is X11 still used today
sshtunnelx11
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Best Answer
Yes. X11 is very much still in use as it is a very powerful windowing system and there is nothing that Apple has released that replaces the core functionality of X11.
I wouldn't spend time learning X11 in the abstract until you have a need to produce code that runs on X11 or you need to run software that is written for X11.
In a nutshell - it is a very flexible client/server system. The server runs where the keyboard and mouse and display are. The client is the program running locally or remotely on a different computer. For example I can run protein folding engines on large servers that are in a university across the country (or world) and interact with the user interface in a cafe on my MacBook Pro.
I have a choice of a wide variety of window managers to use. The virtual and extended desktop concepts in X11 are very different than Mac's typical you only get a screen if something is physically connected or enable spaces.
There are several downsides in that the system is different and to use it, you have to do some learning. Also - it doesn't map perfectly to Apple - cut and paste can be disorienting, mouse buttons have different functions, keyboard mapping can be tricky, and the uniformity of the Mac interface is disturbed as most X11 programs come with a wide variety of widgets. Even the most die hard fan of X11 chrome has to admit that a lot of it is "quaint" and some of it is really hard to use for people that expect the Macintosh user interface experience. (This is more of a culture thing - some countries have delicacies that are off-putting to others - it's not right or wrong - just different heritages and long assumptions on how something is "supposed to be done".)
Cheers and good luck!