anyone know of any any resources to get started with Panther. I want to install KDE GNOME or fluxbox, but Panther is kind of foreign to me. and the darwin webpage is kind of lacking with navigation help.

So has anyone done this.. Or does anyone know how to get started.. or is there a good link out there?

btw.. Here is the setup

PowerMac G4 Dual 500mhz
OSX V 10.3.2

Any ideas???

thanks
Trey

Well, that depends what you're trying to do... If you want to get rid of Aqua and use KDE as your windowing environment, then you would want to just install OpenDarwin and setup X as normal. If you just want to be able to use X apps in Mac OS, then you want to install fink and the X packages for fink. Then you can run a X environment alongside your Aqua environment, which gives you access to X apps and OS X apps at the same time (which is what I do).

I would not recommend KDE or Gnome for that approach, they use tway too many resources and their function is just duplicated with what Aqua does already. I use Blackbox in a "rootless" X setup (i.e. it doesn't take over the whole display, only overlays on it) so I can use Nessus etc while still using Safari, Mail.app, ...

To me, it's really pointless to pay all that money for a Mac with a really great OS, then just rip and replace it with something that has much less polish.

ok.. If I setup gnome or kde I cannot run the mac apps? If I install fink I can run OpenSource X11 apps on aqua? Is that right? please correct me if its not

If that is correct... I'm going to go with fink. All I really want is evolution and a few others. But I thought I would be able to photochop etc.. from a DE/WM?? I will do a search on fink know!

Thanks
Trey

Well, if you go with OpenDarwin you wouldn't be able to run Apple software, because that would replace OS X. You can still use KDE or Gnome with fink, but why bother? All you need is the X server so you can run X apps, why clutter it with a bunch of icons, menus, etc that just take up memory? Blackbox will let you run X apps just as well, and it won't take up nearly as much memory.

I've used both Evolution and Mail.app (the default mail client with OS X) and I have to say that Mail.app does pretty much everything I want. It doesn't have the integrated calendar and news feeds, but OS X has iCal for calendar and you can get news feeds with other third party programs. Also, I've had a lot of instability problems with Evolution at different points (depending on the version of the various GTK dependencies), I've never had a problem with Mail.app crashing.

Now there will always be some things that only run in X and don't have an OS X port, but I would avoid running anything in X unless I had to since stuff runs much more effeciently and with much more stability when it's native.

Sweet! thanks for the info. I am still going to try some of the O/S software (I have to try it!) but I will stay away from the desktop managers for the time being...

Thanks for all the info!

Trey

the one thing you guys are missing is Apple's own X11 environment (installable from the Panther CD's or downloaded at their website). It provides a full X11 environment that coinsices with the OSX environment. It is also enhanced by the Quartz Extreme (OpenGL driven) drawing enging so it moves uber-smothely. I've seen screenshots of GNOME and KDE both running under this environment. This way, you don't have to give up a thing!
I've already got the Gimp running, its quite fun. Havn't had the time to go trying GNOME or KDE yet, but if I have the need, or the time to mess around, I'll work on it.

i installed kde using fink, and its totally crashing. i cant do anything in the windows i open, and x11 dosent even recognize the windows as open.the kicker dosent work either.

OS 10.3.6
x11 v. 1.0

Just to mention, there is a great O'Reilly book entitled "Mac OSX for Unix Geeks"

It covers these things and more. I managed to find it for 5 bucks, but I think it retails for around 24.95.

The fink documentation should have a whole section on X. There are a lot of gotchas so be sure to pay special attention.

That said, personally I followed SolusFides' suggestion and went with Apple's own X11. It doesn't add any kind of clutter, and I can run all my X apps in it. I ripped out fink since it's such a terrible and poorly maintained ports system and I'm happier for it. The Apple X11 really is the way to go here. Again, I have no idea why anyone would pay for an Apple and OS X, only to turn around and run KDE or Gnome on it. You might as well build a PC from scratch for 1/2 the price and run Linux or BSD.

Well,

I'm actually thinking about doing just that. But I don't want to. per se.

At the school I work for, I've implemented a Win2K terminal server. It's about the coolest thing one can do with windows in my opinion. I'm using Wyse thin clients. ANYWAY.....

I have this dream of deploying a thin client lab in which students can access a Windoze desktop, a BSD (or linux) desktop, and a Mac desktop, all at the same station. UNFORTUNATELY .... according to apple, OS X does not support this type or "terminal services" environment. (And I was all set to buy a mac server too.... ) however, as we all know, this can certainly be done using X forwarding. The catch is..... you can't forward the actual desktop in this manner. Sooooooo.....


Frankly I'm surprised and dismayed by apple's lack of support for this technology. M$ makes it almost too easy (but expensive), LTSP is out there... and of course it can be done under FreeBSD. Has apple dropped the ball?

**Edit**

I guess what I meant to say here is that you can forward quartz and get an OS X "feel" to your environment, but would be unable to run OS X apps. (pointless?). Given the BSD underpinnings, I just don't understand why Apple would fail to include this functionality. Perhaps we'll see it in Tiger?

**Edit**

Er, Apple Remote Desktop? Off the top of my head, I thought you could have concurrent user logins if you had Fast User Switching enabled. Obviously this is for OS X Server. Now you piqued my curiosity.

Apple has a remote desktop solution... Kinda pricey though. You could also use the VNC Server for OSX. Of course, that's going to limit you to one user at a time per box

Apple remote desktop --- from what I've read --- needs to be run on an apple. Now if I could run it under bsd or even windows... now that would be worth something to me.....

I was hoping that vnc would provide the solution but if we'll be limited to one user at a time then that won't do.

I am not sure whether my suggestion would help. But, you can have multiple VNC server running on one Mac Os X machine (done it). And you can specify each a different port. Therefore you can have multiple user on VNC for single Mac. But the questions is. Who is going to control the mouse cursor.

Okay well that's interesting, but the question is, will they get their own desktop, or will they share one?

Seriously, If I can do this with VNC I'll be totally psyched. I really can't believe that Apple doesn't provide this functionality.

I mean *nix is a multi-user system. That's sort of the whole d**n point.....