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X Window System
Sign in to saveAlso known as X11, X Window, X Windows
graphics controller and network protocol for UNIX-like systems
The X Window System is software that lets computers running UNIX-like systems display graphics on screens and communicate these graphics over a network. It matters because it standardized how different computers can share graphical displays and interact with each other across networks, which became foundational to how Unix systems handle visual computing.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
~37 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at version 11 (hence "X11") since September 1987. The X.Org Foundation leads the X project, with the current reference implementation, X.Org Server, available as free and open-source software under the MIT License and similar permissive licenses.
Purpose and abilities
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “X Window System” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.