XQuartz is an open-source version of the X.Org X server, a component of the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

(X11, or shortened to simply X, and sometimes informally X-Windows) that runs on

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

. It formally replaced Apple's internal X11 app. The name "XQuartz" derives from

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical fo ...

, part of the macOS Core Graphics framework, to which XQuartz connects these applications. XQuartz allows

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform softwar ...

applications using X11 for the GUI to run on macOS, many of which are not specifically designed for macOS. This includes numerous scientific and academic software projects.

History

X11.app was initially available as a downloadable public

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labi ...

for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar and later included as a standard package for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. In Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger X11.app was an optional install included on the install DVD. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion installed X11.app by default, but from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on Apple dropped dedicated support for X11.app, with users being directed to the

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

XQuartz project (to which Apple contributes) instead. In Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Apple's X11 implemented X11 protocol release 6.6 (X11R6.6). This implementation includes an XFree86 4.4 based X11 window server,

rootless window manager, libraries, and basic utilities such as

xterm In computing, xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. It allows users to run programs which require a command-line interface. If no particular program is specified, xterm runs the user's shell. An X display can show ...

. "Rootless" means that X window applications show up on the Quartz desktop, appearing like any other windowed Quartz application (that is, not in a virtual desktop contained within another window). In

Mac OS X Leopard Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X Tig ...

, X11 was updated to use X.Org Server (X11R7.2) rather than

XFree86 XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and was available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the ...

. The source code for X11 is available from Apple. Some source code is available under the

Apple Public Source License The Apple Public Source License (APSL) is the open-source and free software license under which Apple's Darwin operating system was released in 2000. A free and open-source software license was voluntarily adopted to further involve the communit ...

while the bulk is licensed under the

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license co ...

Current version

The current version of XQuartz is a DDX (Device Dependent X) included in the X.Org Server and implements support for hardware-accelerated 2D graphics (in versions prior to 2.1), hardware

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve har ...

acceleration and integration with

Aqua Aqua is the Latin word for water. It is used in many words which relate to water, such as aquatic life. In English, it may also refer to: Arts * Aqua (color), a greenish-blue color Business * Aqua (skyscraper), an 82-story residential skys ...

, the macOS

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

(GUI). As of version 2.8.0, XQuartz does not provide support for high-resolution Retina displays to X11 apps, which run in pixel-doubled mode on high-resolution displays.

List of versions (since 2010)

References

External links

* {{macOS MacOS-only software made by Apple Inc. Software using the Apple Public Source License X servers

History

Current version

List of versions (since 2010)

See also

References

External links