Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [x11]

The X window system (commonly X Window System or X11, based on its current major version being 11) is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces (GUI) for networked computers.

X.org logo

About X11

X11 is the most common windowing system for Unix & Linux computers. The developer of the X11 system is X.org. At a high level, an X11 “server” runs on one system, and an X11 “client” connects to the server, either locally over sockets, or over the network. These X11 clients are often graphical applications (e.g. xeyes, xclock) or graphical interfaces to a terminal (e.g. xterm). Some related software includes:

  • - Virtual Network Computing - a cross-platform graphical desktop sharing system that transmits keyboard & mouse events as well as screen updates from a “server” side to one or more “clients”. Related to this is Xvnc, a process that acts as either an X11 server or a VNC server.
  • RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol; originated in Windows and was later ported to Unix

Related tags

  • - for tunneling X11 over ssh
  • - keystroke input, possibly translated with or
  • - sensitivity, scrolling, and selecting with a mouse within X11
  • - dealing with X11’s clipboard feature
2823 questions
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What is `/tmp/.X11-unix/`?

I asked Google the same question and didn't like the results I got. What is /tmp/.X11-unix/?
ThorSummoner
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What is X11 exactly?

I'm reading Wikipedia about X11 and it says that: In its standard distribution it is a complete, albeit simple, display and interface solution which delivers a standard toolkit and protocol stack for building graphical user interfaces on most…
Hidden
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Reattach to lost X11 session

I'm using X11 forwarding over ssh to run Linux apps on my Windows box, and when the network drops it loses everything that was running. Is there anything similar to screen for X11?
Abdullah Jibaly
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How to trick a program into thinking there is no X server running

I have this program that can run with both a text user interface and a graphical user interface. It lacks any command line switch to force one or the other, rather I guess it somehow auto-detects whether we are in X or not (e.g. if I run it from a…
Luka Aleksić
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Find X.org pointer grab owner

I have an application that seems to have grabbed the mouse (I can move it but can't click anywhere), is there a way to find which app owns the X.org mouse grab? The shortcut given here to release the mouse didn't seem to work, so I'm interested in…
Tobu
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Capture the X11 protocol's traffic

How I can capture the X11 protocol's traffic? I need find a way to capture X11 traffic between two machines and also between an X11 server and an X11 client on local machine.
zh_
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Single set of keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste/cut across all X11 applications

A common quibble that I have when I'm running X11 on a Linux system is that there doesn't seem to be any X11-wide keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting. Ctrlc and Ctrlv work fine across most Gtk/Qt applications, but when copying and pasting…
noffle
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Is it possible to choose which X display a program instance should run on?

If there are multiple X Windows running on a system, is it possible get a program to run on a particular window? How would you identify the Window and get the program to run there? I'm assuming that I have whatever permissions are necessary to run…
vfclists
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Where are displays other than ":0"?

X Power Tools -book has a sentence about ":0": Display 0 on the local computer, connected by a local connection scheme I tried to open a clock by "xclock -display :2", but I got an error: Can't open display: :2 How am I supposed to program if…
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영
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4 answers

What is X Window System?

Can anyone please tell me what X Window System is and what it is used for?
kkk
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Is there a WinSpy++ like tool for Linux/X/GTK/QT?

When I was using Windows I have some times made a good use of WinSpy++ which allowed to point to a window or a control (a widget, a window element) to see details about it (including the values of the fields of the structure/class describing this…
Ivan
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What happened with X12?

Wikipedia says that "The protocol has been version 11 (hence "X11") since September 1987". That's almost 30 years. Why did the X protocol freeze?
x11
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Running multiple xserver displays "offscreen" or "headless"

I would like to run two or more displays, while I only have one GPU and one monitor. The second display does not have to display anything on the monitor, a dummy output would be ideal. I use startx to start a new display: startx -- :1 so far so…
user1973386
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How to check if DISPLAY is valid

I've read man-page X(7) and searched for this but I can't find a solution. How can I check in a long running process if the environment DISPLAY=:0 is still a valid display? (User could have logged out in the meantime but process is still alive) The…
Germar
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Backing store when mapping/unmapping an X11 window?

My X11 client/server are set up to use a backing store (backing_store = WhenMapped), which works fine when my window is partially obscured: remove what's obscuring the window and the now-visible part is refreshed from the backing store with no need…
Ian Macky
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