1.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
https://www.x.org

2.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO

3.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
What is the X system ?
The Idea of X-windows started in 1984 from Jim Gettys (of Project Athena) and
Bob Scheifler (of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science).
The idea was to have a simple user interface to allow students access educational
resources easily. At the time Gettys and Scheifler started working on X there were
a lot of proprietary graphics management system but it was not possible to use it
for free, so they started a free project called X.
In fact Scheifler make a first port of W which had a synchronous protocol with an
asynchronous one, making X two times faster than W.

4.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
What is the X system ?
From: rws@mit-bold (Robert W. Scheifler)
To: window@athena
Subject: window system X
Date: 19 Jun 1984 0907-EDT (Tuesday)
I've spent the last couple weeks writing a window
system for the VS100. I stole a fair amount of code
from W, surrounded it with an asynchronous rather
than a synchronous interface, and called it X. Overall
performance appears to be about twice that of W. The
code seems fairly solid at this point, although there are
still some deficiencies to be fixed up.
We at LCS have stopped using W, and are now
actively building applications on X. Anyone else using
W should seriously consider switching. This is not the
ultimate window system, but I believe it is a good
starting point for experimentation. Right at the moment
there is a CLU (and an Argus) interface to X; a C
interface is in the works. The three existing
applications are a text editor (TED), an Argus I/O
interface, and a primitive window manager. There is
no documentation yet; anyone crazy enough to
volunteer? I may get around to it eventually.
Anyone interested in seeing a demo can drop by
NE43-531, although you may want to call 3-1945
first. Anyone who wants the code can come by with a
tape. Anyone interested in hacking deficiencies, feel
free to get in touch.

5.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
XVFB
https://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.7/doc/man/man1/Xvfb.1.xhtml

6.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
XVFB
https://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.7/doc/man/man1/Xvfb.1.xhtml
Xvfb stands for “X virtual framebuffer”, it is used to execute X environment
On hardware without proper graphics devices or video cards, as for example
unix/linux server which have only SSH access.
Xvfb uses virtual memory to recreate a dumb framebuffer, this allow to use
Any graphical operations without showing it on screen.
The idea behind Xvfb is to use the X11 protocol.

7.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display
The x Window protocol allow to export display to remote client implementing
Authentication and a network protocol. This could be really useful if we need to
Test an application that could not run from CLI and should run on a remote server.
The only possibility we have is to use X-window network protocol and export
the display to a remote client.

8.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display
Remember that you should have a graphical linux/unix client with an X-protocol
to properly export the display.
You have many options on Windows :
- Cygwin/X (https://x.cygwin.com/)
- Xming (https://sourceforge.net/projects/xming/)
- Startnet (http://www.starnet.com/xwin32/)

9.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display
https://www.xquartz.org/
Remember that you should have a graphical linux/unix client with an X-protocol
to properly export the display.
The Mac OSX solution is XQuartz :

10.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.1
https://www.xquartz.org/
Download and install XQuartz then update the Security preferences to allow the
vagrant box connect properly to the client :

11.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.2
Check if the Vagrantfile has the property ForwardX11 set properly.
VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2"
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
…
config.ssh.forward_x11 = true
end

12.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.2
Check if the Vagrantfile has the property ForwardX11 set properly.
sudo apt-get install xterm
xterm

13.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.2
Check if the Vagrantfile has the property ForwardX11 set properly.
google-chrome

14.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.2
Check if the Vagrantfile has the property ForwardX11 set properly.
ssh -Y -p 2222 vagrant@localhost xterm

15.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display from a vagrant Box pt.2
Check if the Vagrantfile has the property ForwardX11 set properly.

16.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display what is it ?
A Display consist of a :
• keyboard
• mouse
• Screen
Exporting the DISPLAY variable the X Window System knows where to route the X
network traffic. The Display variable is :
hostname.D.S
Hostname : is the host used to sent the graphical output. If omitted is localhost
D : is the screen number. Most workstations tend to only have one keyboard, and therefore, only one display. Larger,
multi-user systems, however, frequently have several displays so that more than one person can be doing graphics
work at once. To avoid confusion, each display on a machine is assigned a display number (beginning at 0) when the
X server for that display is started. The display number must always be given in a display name.
S : Some displays share a single keyboard and pointer among two or more monitors. Since each monitor has its own
set of windows, each screen is assigned a screen number (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is
started. If the screen number is not given, screen 0 will be used.

17.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Export display what is it ?

18.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Chrome 59 headless need X ???
NO!
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome

19.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Install Chrome 59 on Ubuntu Trusty
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-
stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -f install gconf-service-
backend libgtk2.0-common libgtk2.0-bin libdbusmenu-glib4
libdbusmenu-gtk4 libgtk2.0-0 libindicator7 gconf2-common gconf-
service libnss3-nssdb libgconf-2-4 libnspr4 libxss1 fonts-
liberation libappindicator1 libnss3 xdg-utils
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

20.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
Install Chrome 59 on Ubuntu Trusty
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome
gconf-service-
backend
GNOME configuration database system (D-Bus service) - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/
gconf-service-backend]
gconf2-common GNOME configuration database system - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/gconf2-common]
gconf-service GNOME configuration database system (D-Bus service)
libgtk2.0-common common files for the GTK+ graphical user interface library
libgtk2.0-bin programs for the GTK+ graphical user interface library
libindicator7 panel indicator applet - shared library
libnss3-nssdb
Network Security Security libraries - shared databases - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/
trusty/libnss3-nssdb]
libgconf-2-4 GNOME configuration database system (shared libraries)
libnspr4 NetScape Portable Runtime Library
libxss1 X11 Screen Saver extension library
fonts-liberation
Fonts with the same metrics as Times, Arial and Courier - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/
trusty/fonts-liberation]
libappindicator1 Application Indicators - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/libappindicator1]
libnss3 [https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/libnss3]
xdg-utils
desktop integration utilities from freedesktop.org - [https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/
xdg-utils]

21.
federico.panini@fazland.com - CTO
References
• https://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.7/doc/man/man1/Xvfb.1.xhtml
• https://www.x.org/wiki/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20094118/ssh-into-vagrant-with-x-server-set-
up
• https://dyhr.com/2009/09/05/how-to-enable-x11-forwarding-with-ssh-on-mac-os-x-
leopard/
• http://www.hungry.com/~jamie/xexport.html
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/432255/what-is-display-environment-variable
• https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome
• https://coderwall.com/p/ozhfva/run-graphical-programs-within-vagrantboxes