Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
Unix and Linux Stack Exchange

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
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How to know whether Wayland or X11 is being used

I just installed the latest Kali Linux on my laptop which was based on Debian 7 (oldstable). I then dist-upgrad-ed the whole thing to Debian 8. I've always wanted Wayland instead of X11, so I installed the necessary packages. Then created a minimal…
Dehbop
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How do keyboard input and text output work?

Suppose I press the A key in a text editor and this inserts the character a in the document and displays it on the screen. I know the editor application isn't directly communicating with the hardware (there's a kernel and stuff in between), so what…
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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How to get keycodes for xmodmap?

I'm trying to use xmodmap to remap Alt / Super keys on Dell L100 keyboard, and have trouble getting the keycodes. For instance, using xev doesn't give me keycode for Alt FocusOut event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001, mode…
Yaroslav Bulatov
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What process created this X11 window?

Given an X11 window ID, is there a way to find the ID of the process that created it? Of course this isn't always possible, for example if the window came over a TCP connection. For that case I'd like the IP and port associated with the remote…
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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Difference between .xinitrc, .xsession and .xsessionrc

I found three configuration files. .xinitrc .xsession .xsessionrc I know that the first one is for using startx and the second and third are used when using a display manager. But what is the difference between the last two?
lockdoc
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Open a window on a remote X display (why "Cannot open display")?

Once upon a time, DISPLAY=:0.0 totem /path/to/movie.avi after ssh 'ing into my desktop from my laptop would cause totem to play movie.avi on my desktop. Now it gives the error: No protocol specified Cannot open display: I reinstalled Debian…
justin cress
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Xfce entered zoom mode. How do I exit?

I pressed something around my mouse pad (keys in the altgr region+mousepad - quite possibly multitouch) and suddenly the whole X11 display zoomed around 10%. That means I can see 90% of the 1920x1080 screen in a somewhat blurry version. When I move…
Ole Tange
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Copy file to xclip and paste to Firefox

I'm coping file to xclip cat file.txt | xclip I'm pasting without problem with xclip -o When I want to paste it to Firefox with Ctrl+V it pastes old text (that shouldn't already be in the clipboard). When I go back to terminal and run xclip -o it…
xralf
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How to run a script on screen lock/unlock?

I'd like to run a script if the Gnome session is locked and unlocked. Is there a way that I can intercept this and perform certain actions when the desktop is locked or unlocked?
Naftuli Kay
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Copy image from clipboard to file

Is it possible to take an image from the clipboard and output it to a file (using X)? I can do this with text easily: $ xclip -selection c -o > file.text But when I try the above with an image nothing is written. The reason I want to do this is I…
Lerp
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What is ".xsession" for?

What is the purpose of the .xsession file in the home folder? What should be put in there? The desktop environments don't use that file and for the X startup from the tty there is .xinitrc.
Mirzhan Irkegulov
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How can I set mouse sensitivity, not just mouse acceleration?

I can't find a single desktop environment that supports setting both mouse acceleration AND mouse sensitivity. I don't want any mouse acceleration, but I want to increase the speed of my mouse. That means that if I move the mouse the same distance,…
David Gay
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How do I get my mouse back from QEMU/KVM?

I'm running QEMU/KVM on Debian Testing x64 with this command: kvm -m 1024 -hda win7.img -cdrom win7x86.iso -boot d -net user But when I click inside the virtual machine, QEMU captures my mouse and won't let it go. I thought the key combination to…
Michael A
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How do I scale i3 window manager for my HiDPI display?

I have a Dell XPS 13 9343 2015 with a resolution of 3200x1800 pixels. I am trying to use i3 windows manager on it but everything is tiny and hardly readable. I managed to scale every applications (firefox, terminal, etc...) using .Xresources : !…
hg8
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Why can't I run GUI apps as root: "No protocol specified"?

I installed Debian onto my machine last night. Now, I don't understand why I can't run GUI apps from a terminal when running as root. For example: sudo -i glxgears Generates the following output: No protocol specified Error: couldn't open display…
Octopus
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