Can I run a build of Firefox in X11 on OS X?

July 27, 2009 12:16 PM

Can I run a build of Firefox in X11 on OS X (Leopard) in a window manager like BlackBox or WindowMaker? I want to stay fullscreen in X11 for productivity purposes.

Recently I toyed with X11 and .xinitrc on my Mac running Leopard. Replaced the default quartz window manager system in my xinitrc for X11 with BlackBox for now and have been running several xterm in workspaces fullscreen which is what I was originally after (running a terminal fullscreen, no distractions for coding).

Now I want to take it to the next step and get all my web development tools in Firefox with me so I can preview and tweak stuff...but at the same time it'd be nice to not have to Command+Option+A back into Leopard and instead just toggle to workspace 4 or something to see my changes in Firefox.

Possible? I know this might be silly, but it's more of an attempt to avoid distractions. Kinda like Front Row for media but for my coding :P

Thanks in advance.

posted by mikee to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Just spitballin' - You can launch multiple VNC servers, so I'd bet that you could launch a local VNC using X + WM/BB and connect to that. I've done this on Linux many many times and the local->local connection speed makes it almost as fast as straight desktop.
posted by unixrat at 12:51 PM on July 27, 2009

MacPorts and Fink both offer X11 versions of Firefox.
posted by harlan at 1:56 PM on July 27, 2009