Configuring the XFree86 Window System
This section discusses configuration of the
Xfree86
window system, which is the X window system for Linux and other
UNIX variants.
With recent Red Hat releases, the window system is configured automatically.
To make any changes to the configuration, click:
Start-->System Settings-->Display
More information about how the configuration of Xfree86 works is below.
Configuration Choices
There are a number of ways to configure Xfree86:
-
Automatically with Red Hat: The system configuration can be done
automatically.
However, for unusual hardware
(unusual video cards, monitors, mice or keyboards), you may need
to choose a different method.
- Automatically with the
/usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 -configure
command. However, this may not always work, either, for unusual hardware.
- Manually via the old-fashioned way, running the
/usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config command and answering questions about your setup.
The rest of this page describes this method and gives you more information that can
help configure Xfree86.
Overview of configuring manually
Below is a summary of what you might type to manually configure and
start the window system.
Probe the configuration: /usr/sbin/ddcprobe
Configure Xfree86 via the command-line: /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config
Start the X window system: /usr/X11R6/bin/startx
Look at the log file: /var/log/Xfree86.0.log
Depending on the error, modify the configuration file:
/etc/X11/XF86Config
If you want to configure the video card, etc. more manually,
or if it isn't quite working with the current configuration:
Determine kind of video card and monitor you have using the
ddcprobe command, as super-user:
# /usr/sbin/ddcprobe
Videocard DDC probe results
Description: Intel Corporation Intel(R) 810, Intel(R) 815 Chipset
Memory (MB): 1
Monitor DDC probe results
ID: SAM12d7
Name: S/M 770TFT
Horizontal Sync (kHZ): 30-81
Vertical Sync (HZ) : 56-85
Width (mm): 340
Height(mm): 270
To find even more about the video card, you can use the lspci
command, as super-user:
/sbin/lspci
...
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82815 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 04)
...
Armed with the information about your video card and display/monitor, you can try to
configure the window system by typing, as super-user:
/usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config
Then answer lots of questions.
Then try to start the X window system:
If the X window system fails to start, look in the log file for clues:
/var/log/Xfree86.0.log
The end of the file is usually epecially helpful.
Overview of the XF86Config configuration
The xfree86 window system is configured in the file
/etc/X11/XF86Config
Note that the different Sections can be specified in different orders.
If the above isn't enough:
Where to get more information
Linux Quick Reference Home
Linux Migration Home