Chapter 27. The X Window System

X Window System Background

X Windows is a network-based windowing environment, not a system-based windowing environment. For this reason, it is ideal for giving you a window into your UNIX system from your Windows system.

X Windows is an industry standard for supporting windowed user interfaces across a computer network. Because it is an industry standard, many companies offer X server products for operating systems such as Windows (we’ll get into the "server" and "client" terminology of X Windows shortly). X Windows is not just a windowing system on your computer but a windowing system across the network.

X Windows is independent of the hardware or operating system on which it runs. All it needs is a server and a ...

Get UNIX® User’s Handbook, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.