Open Motif for Linux or Mac

Updated Dec/2025

This page provides pre-compiled Open Motif libraries, suitable for use on Linux or macOS on x86_64 or ARM64 based processors. These are the versions of Open Motif which are recommended for use with the current version of X/Winteracter. They were built from the standard 2.3.8 Open Motif source distribution, with minor patches (see Notes below).

Two types of package are provided:

• Libraries only : Each package contains static (libXm.a) and shared libraries (libXm.so or libXm.dylib, depending on platform). This is the only Motif component required by X/Winteracter for development on Linux or macOS.
• Source code : For completeness, the Open Motif source used to build the libraries is also provided, but X/Winteracter users do not need to download this. The source is provided here to fulfil the terms of the Open Group Public License. All of the packages below are made available here according to the terms of that license.

Build system	Target architecture	Download
Ubuntu 18 Linux/x86_64	Intel/AMD x86_64	Static/shared libraries (13mb)
Ubuntu 25 Linux/arm64	ARM64 ("AArch64")	Static/shared libraries (13mb)
macOS 10.13 (High Sierra)	Intel x86_64	Static/shared libraries (6.6mb)
macOS 15 (Sequoia)	ARM64 ("Apple Silicon")	Static/shared libraries (7.4mb)
Open Motif 2.3.8 source code (patched)		Source code (5.5mb)

Each download is a gzipped tar archive. The library archives extract to a directory called motif-2.3.8_x86_64 or motif-2.3.8_arm64, depending on target architecture. The source code archive extracts to motif-2.3.8.

Configuration:

X/Winteracter users should extract the library package into /usr/local. A symbolic link should also be created in the same directory, pointing to the resulting Motif directory. Both actions will usually require administrator privilege. This is best achieved at a shell prompt, using the sudo command. Typically, the required commands on each supported platform are:

Linux/x86_64 :

  cd /usr/local
  sudo tar xf ~/Downloads/openmotif-2_3_8_patched_libXm.u18.x86_64.tar.gz
  sudo ln -s motif-2.3.8_x86_64 /usr/local/OpenMotif_x86_64

Linux/arm64 :

  cd /usr/local
  sudo tar xf ~/Downloads/openmotif-2_3_8_patched_libXm.u25.arm64.tar.gz
  sudo ln -s motif-2.3.8_arm64 /usr/local/OpenMotif_arm64

macOS/x86_64 :

  cd /usr/local
  sudo tar xf ~/Downloads/openmotif-2.3.8_patched_libXm_macOS_10_13_x86_64.tar.gz
  sudo ln -s motif-2.3.8_x86_64 /usr/local/OpenMotif_x86_64

macOS/ARM64 ("Apple Silicon") :

  cd /usr/local
  sudo tar xf ~/Downloads/openmotif-2.3.8_patched_libXm_macOS_15_arm64.tar.gz
  sudo ln -s motif-2.3.8_arm64 /usr/local/OpenMotif_arm64

Creating the symbolic link allows the Winteracter development environment (WiDE) and compile/link scripts to find the Motif library, without needing to reference a specific Motif version number. (Obviously, you may need to change the path to the downloaded tar file, depending on where your browser saved it.)

Also, it may be useful to add the Motif library directory to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (Linux) or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH (macOS) environment variable, to ensure the shared library can be found, when running applications linked against that version of the library. Typically, this should be set in your login script (e.g. ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.zprofile or equivalent). Add it to the front of the shared library path, e.g.

  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/OpenMotif_x86_64/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Notes:

• When building applications with the above libraries, using X/Winteracter v16.x or earlier, change the symbolic link name to OpenMotif64. Support for ARM64 was added at 17.0, so the recommended symlink names were changed to include the target processor type at that release.
• Each of the above packages is compatible with a much wider range of operating system releases than that on which they were built.
• The library packages were built from the standard 2.3.8 sources, modified with a minor Xft text rendering patch, kindly supplied by Dušan Peterc (www.arahne.si). The patch improves performance on recent versions of macOS and on remote X servers connected to Mac or Linux hosts. A minor preprocessing modification was also made to ensure successful compilation on recent macOS versions (e.g. Sequoia). See CHANGES in the 2.3.8 source package.

Disclaimer

These packages are provided primarily for the benefit of X/Winteracter users, but are freely available to anyone to download. They are provided on an "as is" basis with no warranty, no endorsement and no technical support, beyond that specifically stated above.