Open Motif for Linux or Mac

This page provides Open Motif package downloads, suitable for use on Linux or Mac, running on Intel-compatible 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, but patched to improve Xft text rendering performance.

Two types of package are provided:

• Library only : The Mac download contains the static Motif library (libXm.a), while the Linux version contains both static and shared libraries (libXm.a and libXm.so). This is the only Motif component required by X/Winteracter for development on Linux or Mac.
• Full package : For completeness, the packages from which the above libraries originate are also provided. X/Winteracter users do not need to download these packages.

The full packages are 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.

All of the downloads are gzipped tar archives, which extract to a directory called motif-2.3.8 .

Configuration:

Wherever the Open Motif files are extracted, it is recommended that X/Winteracter users create a symbolic link called /usr/local/OpenMotif64. For example, if the Motif files have been extracted into /home/username/motif-2.3.8, a suitable command to create the link would be:

  sudo ln -s /home/username/motif-2.3.8 /usr/local/OpenMotif64

Creating such a link allows the Winteracter development environment (WiDE) and compile/link scripts to find the Motif library, without needing to reference a system-specific path or a particular version number. (Obviously, you will need to change "/home/username" to the correct path, depending on where you extracted the downloaded tar file.)

On Linux, it is also advisable to add the Motif library directory to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, to ensure the shared library can be found when linking against that version of the library. Add it to the front of the shared library path, e.g.

  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/OpenMotif64/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Typically, this should be placed in your login script (e.g. ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile or equivalent). On the Mac, set the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable instead (e.g. in ~/.zprofile).

Notes:

• When building X/Winteracter applications with the above libraries, version 13.0d or later is recommended.
• Each of the above packages is compatible with a much wider range of operating system releases than that on which they were built.
• These packages were built from the standard 2.3.8 sources, modified with a single 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 (see CHANGES in the full 2.3.8 packages).

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.