Porting old X11 software

J

JohnnyThunders

Hi y'all,

I've been using FreeBSD as my daily driver for about three months now, and I've really enjoyed the journey so far. Recently, I've become more interested in the history of Unix and older software, particularly from the 1990s and the early days of X11. This got me interested in finding old, somewhat obscure software, compiling it, and getting it to work on modern FreeBSD systems.

So far, I've managed to get the following programs working:

  • wily (a text editor inspired by Acme)
  • mgv (a Motif-based PostScript viewer)
  • Moxfm (a Motif-based file manager)
I'd like to continue exploring and porting more of this software, especially programs that are no longer maintained, aren't available in the FreeBSD ports tree, or don't compile on modern FreeBSD without some fixes. In the long run, I'd also like to create a small archive or website dedicated to collecting this software, including build instructions, patches, and notes about the changes required to get each program working on modern FreeBSD. The goal would be to preserve some of these older tools and make it easier for others to build and use them. I don't know if such a thing already exists.

Do you know of any interesting old X11 applications or Unix utilities that are currently broken on FreeBSD? I'm particularly interested in obscure tools from the 1990s and similar vintage software.

I'm looking forward to your replies!

@Mods If this topic would be better suited to another section of the forum, feel free to move it.

Thanks in advance!

Greets Johnny
 
I understand the interest but I wish you would get interested in current ports that are no longer maintained, aren't available in the FreeBSD ports tree, or don't compile on modern FreeBSD without some fixes.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
I understand the interest but I wish you would get interested in current ports that are no longer maintained, aren't available in the FreeBSD ports tree, or don't compile on modern FreeBSD without some fixes.
Click to expand...
I also thought about that and actually checked for orphaned ports before starting this thread. Wily and MGV were available in ports some time ago, theoretically I could make them availlable again as ports now that they work. But I am also open for others to maintain generally, I just wanted some general feedback on my original idea
 
drhowarddrfine said:
I understand the interest but I wish you would get interested in current ports that are no longer maintained, aren't available in the FreeBSD ports tree, or don't compile on modern FreeBSD without some fixes.
Click to expand...
I also thought about that and actually checked for orphaned ports before starting this thread. Wily and MGV were available in ports some time ago, theoretically I could make them availlable again as ports now that they work. But I am also open for others to maintain generally and understand your view, I just wanted some general feedback on my or idea
 
Keeping Motif software alive is a useful goal.

Two ports I heavily rely on are CDE and xpdf3 but these are actually well maintained in FreeBSD ports already. I think nedit doesn't currently have a maintainer.

You may want to check out the following in case there are any broken things around:

https://motif-central.org/
https://fastestcode.org/

Thomas Adam (sometimes visits these forums) is the owner of the first link. I am sure he will have some good suggestions.
 
JohnnyThunders said:
Do you know of any interesting old X11 applications or Unix utilities that are currently broken on FreeBSD? I'm particularly interested in obscure tools from the 1990s and similar vintage software.
Click to expand...

First of all - Thank you for supporting these old X11 applications ! :cool: I still use many of the X11/text based/etc from the "old days" - today in 2026! The wonderful thing about FreeBSD is that older software keeps working in 2026 and beyond with just a "little tuning". And as many FreeBSD users have said: There is "NOTHING" wrong with old software. Old software works as great as it always has.

And thank you for your offer to help - the answer would be that would be excellent !

Take a look at some of the unsupported FreeBSD ports on "Fresh Ports" - (Link https://www.freshports.org): Fresh Ports

My advice would be to try to find some software you would like to support. The software should be interesting to "you" in order to hold your interest going forward.

If you are interested - my (favorite) UNIX/Linux X11 based source code editor from the "1990's" was named "xcoral". It is coded by French UNIX/Linux software developers and the editor is still being actively developed and used in France and everywhere else on the planet today in 2026. (Link http://xcoral.free.fr/): lionel fournigault xcoral text editor -- NOTE: This site uses "http" instead of "https"

Of course - on FreeBSD 15.1 (or likely many other versions of) FreeBSD you can just install xcoral directly from pkg(8) if you want:

Code: 
$ pkg search xcoral
xcoral-3.47_5                  Multiwindow mouse-based text editor for X
$
 
kpedersen said:
Keeping Motif software alive is a useful goal.

Two ports I heavily rely on are CDE and xpdf3 but these are actually well maintained in FreeBSD ports already. I think nedit doesn't currently have a maintainer.

You may want to check out the following in case there are any broken things around:

https://motif-central.org/
https://fastestcode.org/

Thomas Adam (sometimes visits these forums) is the owner of the first link. I am sure he will have some good suggestions.
Click to expand...
I'm also an avid xpdf user and occasionally use CDE beside FVWM3. Really like the UI of CDE especially for studying. I'll look int nedit, what I saw so far sounds interesting.

Thanks also for the links. I knew the first one and the second one looks nice and helpful. I'll eventually reach out to Thomas Adam for some suggestions :)
 
CShell said:
First of all - Thank you for supporting these old X11 applications ! :cool: I still use many of the X11/text based/etc from the "old days" - today in 2026! The wonderful thing about FreeBSD is that older software keeps working in 2026 and beyond with just a "little tuning". And as many FreeBSD users have said: There is "NOTHING" wrong with old software. Old software works as great as it always has.

And thank you for your offer to help - the answer would be that would be excellent !

Take a look at some of the unsupported FreeBSD ports on "Fresh Ports" - (Link https://www.freshports.org): Fresh Ports

My advice would be to try to find some software you would like to support. The software should be interesting to "you" in order to hold your interest going forward.

If you are interested - my (favorite) UNIX/Linux X11 based source code editor from the "1990's" was named "xcoral". It is coded by French UNIX/Linux software developers and the editor is still being actively developed and used in France and everywhere else on the planet today in 2026. (Link http://xcoral.free.fr/): lionel fournigault xcoral text editor -- NOTE: This site uses "http" instead of "https"

Of course - on FreeBSD 15.1 (or likely many other versions of) FreeBSD you can just install xcoral directly from pkg(8) if you want:

Code: 
$ pkg search xcoral
xcoral-3.47_5                  Multiwindow mouse-based text editor for X
$
Click to expand...
I don't know xcoral but that's great that they are still supporting and actively developing it. About Motif programming, the link that kpederson posted to motif central (https://motif-central.org/) was quite helpful for me, it has source code for a nice little Motif program that delonstrates the basic functions and structure.
 
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