What Is the X Window System?
Linux provides the capability to run windowed applications across a heterogeneous net work by incorporating the XFree86 implementation of the X11 standard of the X Window System created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This system is much more than a graphical interface used to run applications; it's a powerful client/server system that allows applications to be run and shared across a network. Although XFree86 is meant to run in a networked environment, it runs fine on a single machine. You don't need a network to run XFree86 or X applications.
Historically, XFree86 has been one of the most complex parts of Linux to install and configure. This is no longer the case for most standard hardware configurations ...
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